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Bio- Diesel
In the US, most bio-diesel is produced from waste fryer oil. Used fry oil is sold extremely cheap, even free for the taking. The cleaner it is and the lower the cloud point, the better. Is waste veggie oil availible free in the DR?
Would there be any licensing requirements on production and can you take care of that? Producing an alternative fuel means stepping on the toes of some very rich oil people, I don't know the DR, but imagine this may hold true down there as it does in the US.
What quality does the fuel need to be? Washing the fuel after production will increase its costs. Lowering your cloud point will also increase costs. I think it would only be a good business if you were certain you could significantly undersell petrolium diesel. Unless you can obtain very cheap veggie oil I doubt if you can compete.
Would there be any licensing requirements on production and can you take care of that? Producing an alternative fuel means stepping on the toes of some very rich oil people, I don't know the DR, but imagine this may hold true down there as it does in the US.
What quality does the fuel need to be? Washing the fuel after production will increase its costs. Lowering your cloud point will also increase costs. I think it would only be a good business if you were certain you could significantly undersell petrolium diesel. Unless you can obtain very cheap veggie oil I doubt if you can compete.
the plot thickens
hi Brian,
i have played with SVO (straight vegetable oil) strategies for the last 2 years and can offer some REALISTIC comments as opposed to the general hype on the internet.
the use of SVO or blended bio-diesel in Canada is more complicated because of freezing conditions. i had the distinct pleasure of trying to pump 200 gallons of product into my basement in January. let's just say that -25C with a severe windchill does not lend itself to a product that turns to margarine at 15C.
if you are still in Canada(?) i can set you up with barrel handling equipment and a micron-filtered, centrifuged, stabilized product in 50 gallon barrels. i buy it from a processing plant in Ontario that uses it for animal feed and other things. however, it is around $50 per barrel. cheaper than diesel but not free by any means.
some thoughts so far:
you need pumping or barrel handling equipment to collect the stuff. small restaurants amass only about 2 barrels a year. you have to line up a whole lot of them to make this work. here they pay about $10 (USD) to have it picked up. the large restaurants are PAID for their product and provided with special containers. most small places already have arrangements in place with farmers using it for pig, chicken or cattle feed supplements. getting this stuff into the back of a truck takes some equipment to either boom lift the barrels or pump them out into a larger holding tank (is this still sounding free?).
this stuff can get really rancid in the heat. i'd hate to work with a barrel full that has been out in the sun for months. most small restaurants use their oil until it breaks down too much. it actually starts to "boil" the food and not cook it properly. that's when they notice to change the oil. this stuff is not great for fuel as the molecular chain has begun to break down.
all fuel has to pre-heated before use. you might be able to get away with just solar heat in the DR but the temperature requires some consistency. this is especially true in finetuning a diesel engine to handle it. you may have to change nozzle sizes for the injectors too.
it can take months to settle, filter, decant and filter again just a single barrel. you either have to buy an expensive centrifuge or start stockpiling oil months in advance. i purchased the processed feed product to have constistency in design. a little water, poor oil and a stray speck of french fry will cause terrible problems in your fuel system. big problem with amateur oil collection and use.
newer, high performance diesels and diesels with turbocharging don't work well with this stuff. you need to stick to the older, rougher diesels that can burn all grades of diesel. you also need two fuel tanks, switches, thermometers etc... in the vehicle.
as for bio-diesel, usually a blend of 20-30% veggie oil and the rest regulary diesel, most of this applies except the previous paragraph. newer cars will void their warranties if bio-diesel i used.
here's the catch: after all that work you are only reducing your diesel fuel consumption by the 20-30%. the veggie oil may well cost you the same amount in time, money, equipment etc... most likely more. bio-diesel sells for more than regular diesel here for some of these reasons.
bio-diesel works best as a personal project where you can source the oil and don't mind making a bit of a hobby out of it. payback starts to appear if you can consume lots of it. farms and factories work best. stationary generators and the like are good applications. in Canada, the home heating angle makes it attractive when you are spending 2-4K a year heating your house and/or barn.
right now it is mostly an approach that has sound environmental principles that affluent people are willing to pay for. might be a hard sell in the DR. regular, consumer use for vehicles is the most talked-about application but is actually the least practical. that is, unless you are going to go really big and process this stuff and set up a gas station.
they have them in the UK and the US. however, the DR ha a more limited supply. just wait until you build a business model on "free" oil and people start to clue in. what will you do when everyone wants more money for it? you would be at the mercy of the used veggie oil marked. not a good place to be if you have big $ invested.
enough for now.
cheers,
Gregg
Wales said:Anyone interested in joining this project? Must be an enormous market in Dr plus lots of raw product. I am in.
Brian
hi Brian,
i have played with SVO (straight vegetable oil) strategies for the last 2 years and can offer some REALISTIC comments as opposed to the general hype on the internet.
the use of SVO or blended bio-diesel in Canada is more complicated because of freezing conditions. i had the distinct pleasure of trying to pump 200 gallons of product into my basement in January. let's just say that -25C with a severe windchill does not lend itself to a product that turns to margarine at 15C.
if you are still in Canada(?) i can set you up with barrel handling equipment and a micron-filtered, centrifuged, stabilized product in 50 gallon barrels. i buy it from a processing plant in Ontario that uses it for animal feed and other things. however, it is around $50 per barrel. cheaper than diesel but not free by any means.
some thoughts so far:
you need pumping or barrel handling equipment to collect the stuff. small restaurants amass only about 2 barrels a year. you have to line up a whole lot of them to make this work. here they pay about $10 (USD) to have it picked up. the large restaurants are PAID for their product and provided with special containers. most small places already have arrangements in place with farmers using it for pig, chicken or cattle feed supplements. getting this stuff into the back of a truck takes some equipment to either boom lift the barrels or pump them out into a larger holding tank (is this still sounding free?).
this stuff can get really rancid in the heat. i'd hate to work with a barrel full that has been out in the sun for months. most small restaurants use their oil until it breaks down too much. it actually starts to "boil" the food and not cook it properly. that's when they notice to change the oil. this stuff is not great for fuel as the molecular chain has begun to break down.
all fuel has to pre-heated before use. you might be able to get away with just solar heat in the DR but the temperature requires some consistency. this is especially true in finetuning a diesel engine to handle it. you may have to change nozzle sizes for the injectors too.
it can take months to settle, filter, decant and filter again just a single barrel. you either have to buy an expensive centrifuge or start stockpiling oil months in advance. i purchased the processed feed product to have constistency in design. a little water, poor oil and a stray speck of french fry will cause terrible problems in your fuel system. big problem with amateur oil collection and use.
newer, high performance diesels and diesels with turbocharging don't work well with this stuff. you need to stick to the older, rougher diesels that can burn all grades of diesel. you also need two fuel tanks, switches, thermometers etc... in the vehicle.
as for bio-diesel, usually a blend of 20-30% veggie oil and the rest regulary diesel, most of this applies except the previous paragraph. newer cars will void their warranties if bio-diesel i used.
here's the catch: after all that work you are only reducing your diesel fuel consumption by the 20-30%. the veggie oil may well cost you the same amount in time, money, equipment etc... most likely more. bio-diesel sells for more than regular diesel here for some of these reasons.
bio-diesel works best as a personal project where you can source the oil and don't mind making a bit of a hobby out of it. payback starts to appear if you can consume lots of it. farms and factories work best. stationary generators and the like are good applications. in Canada, the home heating angle makes it attractive when you are spending 2-4K a year heating your house and/or barn.
right now it is mostly an approach that has sound environmental principles that affluent people are willing to pay for. might be a hard sell in the DR. regular, consumer use for vehicles is the most talked-about application but is actually the least practical. that is, unless you are going to go really big and process this stuff and set up a gas station.
they have them in the UK and the US. however, the DR ha a more limited supply. just wait until you build a business model on "free" oil and people start to clue in. what will you do when everyone wants more money for it? you would be at the mercy of the used veggie oil marked. not a good place to be if you have big $ invested.
enough for now.
cheers,
Gregg
Cooking Oil
Gregg, you've done an amazing amount of research of this project.
I have a restaurant in POP, I go thru 25-30 gallon of cooking oil a week.
We filter the oil at least twice a day and add an oil stablizier each time.
The secret to the oil not breaking down is cleaning it and the cooking temperature. Optimum temp is 330, the longer you stay above that temp the faster it dies.
Gregg, you've done an amazing amount of research of this project.
I have a restaurant in POP, I go thru 25-30 gallon of cooking oil a week.
We filter the oil at least twice a day and add an oil stablizier each time.
The secret to the oil not breaking down is cleaning it and the cooking temperature. Optimum temp is 330, the longer you stay above that temp the faster it dies.
I'd be willing to
do what I can for the enviromental reasons alone.
Then again, is it better to keep the oils out of the ocean or to burn it?
Just recycling the oils?
Gary
do what I can for the enviromental reasons alone.
Then again, is it better to keep the oils out of the ocean or to burn it?
Just recycling the oils?
Gary
breaking down
thanks Jerry. the part about the oil breaking down i learned in the restaurant business as a teen. you could always tell by the way the french fry started to not cook properly.
i can only see this this type of fuel succeeding with huge money and some government support like forcing all used oil through a central collection agency.
the best part for me was when i spilled it. diesel really, really stinks when you get it on your clothes. the veggie oil? the dogs would lap up any drips off my barrels and the ground. the stuff on my jeans made me very popular with other dogs too. that was refreshing change from the toxic stuff we usually handle.
i am still debating bringing down my Ford F250 diesel pickup that has dual tanks. perfect for this but such a big pig of a truck. i'm concerned that you can hide an entire army of vehicles in the blind spot alone. probably wouldn't notice running over someone...
Jerry K said:Gregg, you've done an amazing amount of research of this project.
I have a restaurant in POP, I go thru 25-30 gallon of cooking oil a week.
We filter the oil at least twice a day and add an oil stablizier each time.
The secret to the oil not breaking down is cleaning it and the cooking temperature. Optimum temp is 330, the longer you stay above that temp the faster it dies.
thanks Jerry. the part about the oil breaking down i learned in the restaurant business as a teen. you could always tell by the way the french fry started to not cook properly.
i can only see this this type of fuel succeeding with huge money and some government support like forcing all used oil through a central collection agency.
the best part for me was when i spilled it. diesel really, really stinks when you get it on your clothes. the veggie oil? the dogs would lap up any drips off my barrels and the ground. the stuff on my jeans made me very popular with other dogs too. that was refreshing change from the toxic stuff we usually handle.
i am still debating bringing down my Ford F250 diesel pickup that has dual tanks. perfect for this but such a big pig of a truck. i'm concerned that you can hide an entire army of vehicles in the blind spot alone. probably wouldn't notice running over someone...
Gregg, are you talking about bio-diesel or a SVO / diesel blend?
Bio-diesel MAY have a higher cloudy and gel point than winter diesel, but does not typically need to be pre-heated outside of severe winter weather.
Bio-diesel is a chemically acted upon SVO which has had the glicerine removed from it. You heat and aggitate with a chemical compound made from Methanol and Lye. Then you settle and can remove the glicerine from your fuel. Often, for high quality fuel you then need to 'wash' it.
For more information refer to From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. See also the excellent bio-diesel Yahoo group.
I am sure small scale biodiesel would make sense. Large scale commercial production might require new oils and / or troublesome government regulations.
Biodiesel is often run as a blend with normal diesel, B40 or B80, for example are 40% and 80% biodiesel blends. This helps to prevent deterioration to certain rubber components in certain vehicles. Over 50-100k miles certain rubber components (including internal fuel injection pump parts in fords!) deteriorate in pure biodiesel. Many cars do not have this problem, and most that do just need a few fuel lines replaced with synthetic (VITROL I think???).
Just blending diesel with filtered veggie oil is probably a bad idea. Without heating it the mixture would probably coke your injectors.
The engines that have a problem (and this is debateble according to the yahoo svo group) with svo are the direct injection ones. One sample managed to coke over a few thousand hours of use in a lab, this has not been replicated in the field the last I heard in January. This may have been due to lack of preheating if I remember.
As a side note, many diesels seem happy to run straight rape seed (canola) oil in the summer without modification. One of the best for this is the old Mercedes inline injection 5 cyl turbo diesel (81-84 Merc turbo diesels). Used oil may fair less well.
Bio-diesel MAY have a higher cloudy and gel point than winter diesel, but does not typically need to be pre-heated outside of severe winter weather.
Bio-diesel is a chemically acted upon SVO which has had the glicerine removed from it. You heat and aggitate with a chemical compound made from Methanol and Lye. Then you settle and can remove the glicerine from your fuel. Often, for high quality fuel you then need to 'wash' it.
For more information refer to From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. See also the excellent bio-diesel Yahoo group.
I am sure small scale biodiesel would make sense. Large scale commercial production might require new oils and / or troublesome government regulations.
Biodiesel is often run as a blend with normal diesel, B40 or B80, for example are 40% and 80% biodiesel blends. This helps to prevent deterioration to certain rubber components in certain vehicles. Over 50-100k miles certain rubber components (including internal fuel injection pump parts in fords!) deteriorate in pure biodiesel. Many cars do not have this problem, and most that do just need a few fuel lines replaced with synthetic (VITROL I think???).
Just blending diesel with filtered veggie oil is probably a bad idea. Without heating it the mixture would probably coke your injectors.
The engines that have a problem (and this is debateble according to the yahoo svo group) with svo are the direct injection ones. One sample managed to coke over a few thousand hours of use in a lab, this has not been replicated in the field the last I heard in January. This may have been due to lack of preheating if I remember.
As a side note, many diesels seem happy to run straight rape seed (canola) oil in the summer without modification. One of the best for this is the old Mercedes inline injection 5 cyl turbo diesel (81-84 Merc turbo diesels). Used oil may fair less well.
Thebes said:Gregg, are you talking about bio-diesel or a SVO / diesel blend?
Bio-diesel MAY have a higher cloudy and gel point than winter diesel, but does not typically need to be pre-heated outside of severe winter weather.
Bio-diesel is a chemically acted upon SVO which has had the glicerine removed from it. You heat and aggitate with a chemical compound made from Methanol and Lye. Then you settle and can remove the glicerine from your fuel. Often, for high quality fuel you then need to 'wash' it.
For more information refer to From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. See also the excellent bio-diesel Yahoo group.
I am sure small scale biodiesel would make sense. Large scale commercial production might require new oils and / or troublesome government regulations.
Biodiesel is often run as a blend with normal diesel, B40 or B80, for example are 40% and 80% biodiesel blends. This helps to prevent deterioration to certain rubber components in certain vehicles. Over 50-100k miles certain rubber components (including internal fuel injection pump parts in fords!) deteriorate in pure biodiesel. Many cars do not have this problem, and most that do just need a few fuel lines replaced with synthetic (VITROL I think???).
Just blending diesel with filtered veggie oil is probably a bad idea. Without heating it the mixture would probably coke your injectors.
The engines that have a problem (and this is debateble according to the yahoo svo group) with svo are the direct injection ones. One sample managed to coke over a few thousand hours of use in a lab, this has not been replicated in the field the last I heard in January. This may have been due to lack of preheating if I remember.
As a side note, many diesels seem happy to run straight rape seed (canola) oil in the summer without modification. One of the best for this is the old Mercedes inline injection 5 cyl turbo diesel (81-84 Merc turbo diesels). Used oil may fair less well.
i did mix up comments on both SVO and bio-diesel. bio-diesel does not need pre-heating unless the mix becomes very high in SVO. straight SVO requires heating to 160F or so and can be used like Grade 6 bunker fuel.
processing SVO to remove glycerine makes for a non-gelling but caustic fuel. it can easily corrode fuel components. as well, the energy and chemicals required to process the SVO really lower any savings. it is also a little dangerous working with the lye/caustic soda.
you can add a bit of diesel or kerosene to the SVO with no ill effect. it does not require heating providing the SVO is at a liquid stage (say around 75F) and blendable.
i guess this is a huge area of discussion and each type of fuel approach has certain applications and benefits. i do find that the internet provides as much myth as reality and it is disconcerting to see every site parrot the same information.
i just wanted to make the point that there really isn't a whole group of restaurants out there just dying to pay you to take their used oil and "all you gotta' do" is filter it and pour.
a slight digression: live on farm, have 60 acres bush. free firewood! zero heating costs! just chop and burn, good renewable resource. except for the 4 WD tractor, chains, wagon, chainsaws, safety equipment, fuel, 3 weeks of labour, splitting, stacking, drying and then tending a fire for 6 months out of the year. makes a good hobby but it is not free at all.
All the fuel I have heard of as bio-diesel is the processed variety. It costs around $.40 per gallon to process not including equiptment and labor. I checked on a barrel locally a while back and the price was slightly more than regular diesel at the pump. It is now availible at the pump in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is not an SVO blend, but an oil which has been 'cracked' by having is glycerin removed. It is less hazardous than petro diesel, except to some rubber components. The really nasty chemical is the sodium methoxide, the compound made from the lye and methanol and used to 'crack' the oil; that stuff could hurt you if imporperly handled.
I have heard of a SVO and kerosene blend before. They talked about this some in From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, the specifics were a VW Rabbit converted to run a blend of Jatropha Oil and Kerosene. They needed to run a second tank and start and stop on petro diesel. From what I've read this blend is not a good fuel choice, though simular applications will get you home if you are stranded without any diesel.
When blended down at least 20% with petro diesel, chemically altered biodiesel is not corrosive to rubber fuel system components. Straight it is moderately so, fuel system components made from rubber rather than the newer synthetics will have substantially reduced lifespans. Think of a fuel hose lasting 1 year instead of 10, as an example. Many vehicles fuel systems use synthetics which are not harmed. A stock Dodge 4x4 was ran on 100% Biodiesel by the US Park Service for 97k miles and the only problem was a rubber filler elbow that needed to be changed every other oil change. Problems with other vehicles will vary.
Again I suggest anyone interested check out the yahoo biodiesel group. It is an excellent source of info and one of FAQs is a simple method of making a small batch in a Dr. Pepper bottle. Also, Joshua Tickell's From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, is excellent, even if now slightly outdated.
I have heard of a SVO and kerosene blend before. They talked about this some in From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, the specifics were a VW Rabbit converted to run a blend of Jatropha Oil and Kerosene. They needed to run a second tank and start and stop on petro diesel. From what I've read this blend is not a good fuel choice, though simular applications will get you home if you are stranded without any diesel.
When blended down at least 20% with petro diesel, chemically altered biodiesel is not corrosive to rubber fuel system components. Straight it is moderately so, fuel system components made from rubber rather than the newer synthetics will have substantially reduced lifespans. Think of a fuel hose lasting 1 year instead of 10, as an example. Many vehicles fuel systems use synthetics which are not harmed. A stock Dodge 4x4 was ran on 100% Biodiesel by the US Park Service for 97k miles and the only problem was a rubber filler elbow that needed to be changed every other oil change. Problems with other vehicles will vary.
Again I suggest anyone interested check out the yahoo biodiesel group. It is an excellent source of info and one of FAQs is a simple method of making a small batch in a Dr. Pepper bottle. Also, Joshua Tickell's From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, is excellent, even if now slightly outdated.
If you're interested in BD, I can design and build a system for you to whatever scale you want. We have looked at doing BD in the DR in the past - several years ago actually but came to the conclusion that the system was too corrupt to make it worthwhile.
I'll be in the DR in the next couple of weeks handling a plant liquidation if you'd like to discuss possibilities.
Regards,
Darryl
I'll be in the DR in the next couple of weeks handling a plant liquidation if you'd like to discuss possibilities.
Regards,
Darryl