Biodiesel & my fuel line

[mister smith]

airhead

the Elsbett kits seem to be the ONLY professional veg oil conversions out there, especially the one you described. Sounds like a 1 tank kit?

I think you'll struggle to find the modified injectors and the different glow plugs independently, if at all.

690 euros isnt that bad, and at least they give you all you need on a plate, got to save a lot of hassle. There are UK based 'veg conversion specialists' that will charge you double that for only half the kit!!

[HarryMann]

Mister Smith is right, you'd be better off buying that whole kit at that price, and if you do find some seprate bits (unlikely) they'll like as not be suspect..

And whoever said theres caustic in biodiesel, surely only to react out the glycerin using methanol, is there 'really' any left in the resulting fuel after final filtration..? specs I've seen suggest not.

I think you also need to look at the issue of 'carbon miles' for shipping those 20l tins of veg oil to your local Asian?
Thst's not carbon friendly, both delivering to the Cash'n'carry and being collected by the Asian iin his car..

...all compared to dino-diesel being shipped in 40 ton tankers direct to fuel stations. then there's the tins it's in, mining, making, filling and shipping those to wherever Cash'nCarry buys from...

[mister smith]

The question marks are damn right, Harrymann, there's always more to it than meets the eye.

Lots of fuel used to move the veg oil about. But think of how much is used to shift about the pre diesel crude oil, not to mention extraction etc.

There are places in the world where we are tapping crude oil using solar powered gear to drive the process, because we are scraping the bottom of the barrel & to use petro-fuels instead would use more than we ended up tapping! Surely that says something about the energy used to get diesel from the ground to the tank. That can never be more efficient than growing veg oil crops.

I think veg oil wins hands down.

Besides, the sooner we use it in our road vehicles, the sooner the tanker that ships the diesel/veg oil will itself run on veg. And the sooner the Cash and Carry will by it direct from the farmer 5 miles down the road, who processes the stuff himself on site, using veg oil driven generators and tractors..

The future has to start somewhere....

[HarryMann]

I think veg oil wins hands down.

Besides, the sooner we use it in our road vehicles, the sooner the tanker that ships the diesel/veg oil will itself run on veg. And the sooner the Cash and Carry will by it direct from the farmer 5 miles down the road, who processes the stuff himself on site, using veg oil driven generators and tractors..

Well, I've just been listening to Radio 4, well, TBH not just but for the last 10 years or so but just now, an American farmer was being interviewed about rising corn and crop prices!

His final comment was... 'if peeps think that they're going to go down when the veg oil business ramps up, they've got another think coming - food prices are going to rocket!'

.. and of course, we haven't exactly got a surfeit of farming capacity, in any sector other than what? chickens? Certainly not arable. I think soemone needs to do some sums...

and as we know from the mid-west dust bowls, intensely farm arables in a chemical farming farming manner, and you've only got so long before the land gives out. Mixed farming in an 'organic' (sic) way has always been the natural way to preserve your legacy of land fertility from generation to generation - yet is practised less and less, on any scale but micro here, and whilst many micros fed the country for hundreds of years, there's precious few left.
Maybe the abandoned farmlands of Eastern Europe are ripe for redevelopment forveg oil crops?

There's been discussion on two other threads lately on mpg and diesel/petrol comparisons... playing with mickey mouse adaptations of the piston engine isn't going to cut-it, we need an engine that can not just be improved 10% every ten years, with rapidly diminishing possibilities of improvement, we need an engine that offers a big change in thermal efficiency, and one that is cheaper to build, and much lighter, and has reduced gearing requirements.
A new type of rotary engine might offer such advantages - I'm petty convinced the crank/piston engine has become a habit, an addiction, and the Wankel a bad experience that was implemented because it just avoided reciprocating motion, not because it offered an inherently better thermal cycle - in fact, that's where it's seriously challanged, even though its mechanical difficulties have been pretty well solved (70 years or more after its conception!).

[airhead]

Well it does start small. 1.6 litres in a van will rapidly become 2300 litres in a ship. And an engine that big will make a difference! Truth be told though, largely the reason Im doing this is to get in on the game early and save a few quid. When oil prices really get out of hand, then my van will still be chugging along happily when all the others have stopped! And if the environment benefits, so much the better. Everyons a winner! Its good to know the elsbett kit is good value. Id like to know if anyone else has got one.

Heres the web address
http://www.elsbett.com/

[mister smith]

@anyone reading this, sorry but we've kind of hijacked the thread a bit

@harrymann,

you're kind of right about food prices. Already in the UK veg oil has got more expensive due to increased demand for use as fuel. When something as big as a shift to 'natural sourced road fuel' happens to the market place, it will upset the balance, but that is not a reason to not do it.

Bear in mind the government has the power to regulate such prices and values, so it should be a non issue. You and I simply have to create the demand for it. 'They' have to ensure that it's regulated in such a fashion to make it work for everyone. That's their job, and we pay them a lot to do it.
If they can't do it properly, don't blame the veg oil users for the increase in food prices.

Which leads me the other thing. There is a hell of a lot of 'set aside' farmland in the UK, because the farmers are paid, via the EU, to leave it untouched, to keep the value of certain crops in Europe high by not saturating the market.

That farmland could be put to good use for veg oil crops. There would never be enough to run every diesel engine in the UK, but plenty enough for those who care to choose it. There are lots of small farms in the UK that could be saved (if the Gov. didn't want do eradicate them, which it does) if they could easily grow and process veg oil crops, its down to the rulemakers to 'level the field'.

+ i agree with you about intensive farming.

I think you could have hit the nail on the head with:

Maybe the abandoned farmlands of Eastern Europe are ripe for redevelopment forveg oil crops?

Could help regenerate many of the areas that people are leaving for the UK in search of work. 2 birds 1 stone springs to mind.

I agree about the crank/piston engine being a habit.

But the next big thing will involve a motor and electric drive train. Even if driven by a diesel generator (engines are much more efficient this way, they can be run at their optimum revs) and small battery pack, they get many many more miles to the gallon. Add to that regenerative braking etc.

@airhead

you're right, imagine if all the diesel-electric trains in the UK ran on veg oil, the government would exceed it's promised co2 reduction targets almost overnight.

Most people into running on veg and bio are in it to save money, who can blame us? A lot of us, like you and me, are glad that it can be good for the environment, as a bonus, so to speak. Some will say that (if its done properly), the extra lubricity of veg oil & bio can improve engine life, esp. compared to engines running 'modern' low sulphur diesel (less lubricating)

Which reminds me Harrymann, another factor to add to the carbon miles issue is the cost to the environment (and cleanup costs) when a ship load of oil, er, falls in the sea.
If a ship load of veg oil fell in the sea, it would have an adverse affect, but not a fraction of that with the other.

In fact, they actually use biodiesel to help control fuel spills and such, it biodegrades extremely fast with limited damage to the environment....

[mister smith]

ps.

anybody interested in the lpg/veg issues:

expect also the cost of LPG to continue to rise. It is not as eco friendly as it was once made out to be, the Gov. knew this when it was introduced, but ignoring this fact helped them pretend they were doing something good by encouraging LPG use.

Expect them to soon announce that 'it turns out LPG isn't as good for the environment as it was once thought', and expect them to continue to increase the LPG price until it's almost in line with petrol!!

[Horza]

Gah, I think you are all missguided. I recon you can get more calories per hectare growing cows or pigs and then I can run the van on lard. I'm sure the excess sausages produced in the manufacturing process wouldn't go amiss either

[mister smith]

not forgetting all the extra free fuel in the form of methane too

[Louey]

I think you also need to look at the issue of 'carbon miles' for shipping those 20l tins of veg oil to your local Asian?
Thst's not carbon friendly, both delivering to the Cash'n'carry and being collected by the Asian iin his car..

...all compared to dino-diesel being shipped in 40 ton tankers direct to fuel stations. then there's the tins it's in, mining, making, filling and shipping those to wherever Cash'nCarry buys from...

The supplier, KTC is only 10 miles away but they are more expensive to buy direct The cans are recycleable and I always take them to the tip. My carbon print is balanced by car sharing with heather 4 out of 5 days in a 1litre polo

[HarryMann]

Which reminds me Harrymann, another factor to add to the carbon miles issue is the cost to the environment (and cleanup costs) when a ship load of oil, er, falls in the sea.

Yup, can't deny that one... they're just talking about the first big one to hit these shores, Cornwall, 40th anniversary of the Torrey Canyon disaster ( well before a lot of you were born... they attacked it with Blackburn Buccaneers to set it alight) Think about 250,000 tons.. the first environmental nightmare in peacetime after all those of WW II, which we tend to forget, how many tons ended up in the sea during those 6 years

Lard & sausages

I wonder how many Veg Oil Devotees are vegetarians

Agricultural set-aside

... is as much for environmental reasons isn't it? Hedgerows and all that. Might be worth noting that crops grown for fuel don't need to be as 'clean' pesticide-wise, nor as mineral rich nutritionally - so could use more 2nd-rate tired land?

[HarryMann]

The supplier, KTC is only 10 miles away but they are more expensive to buy direct Confused The cans are recycleable and I always take them to the tip. My carbon print is balanced by car sharing with heather 4 out of 5 days Cool in a 1litre polo

Not having a go at anyone - I'm no angel on that front - but I do run a FreeCycle group and put no green stuff out for others to deal with - everything from the kitchen and garden is used on allotment in some way or other.

But it does seem mad to me to have 20L tins stacked sky high in a shop with a foodstuff only to be decimated the next day filling up a vehicle and have to be re-stocked. However, it is creating a 'message' to the producers to get cracking, as the market might be about to take off. Now, if someone started offering delivery of pallet loads, doing a local round tripin an efficient vehicle , and the pallets and cans could be recycled just for fuel use (saving foodstuff certification costs, replacing with fuel-use certification no doubt!), then that would make more sense.

[Louey]

ps.

anybody interested in the lpg/veg issues:

expect also the cost of LPG to continue to rise. It is not as eco friendly as it was once made out to be, the Gov. knew this when it was introduced, but ignoring this fact helped them pretend they were doing something good by encouraging LPG use.

Expect them to soon announce that 'it turns out LPG isn't as good for the environment as it was once thought', and expect them to continue to increase the LPG price until it's almost in line with petrol!!

It is afterall a bi product of the oil industry, I guess in some ways it is a good thing that it gets used as opposed to just being burnt off.

I think a lot of the time that this government doesn't really care too many hoots about the green issues unless it wins votes. If they really want to change things then they could - although the attitude of people around stinks too - making a change is too much effort for the majority, you can see why companies like us to get hooked on a brand because we won't move off it.

[Louey]

I understand what you mean Clive, I knew you weren't fishing for an argument.

I've just ordered a composter and hopefully the garden will be have some food growing in it this year - Kim insists, the little angel

[mister smith]

makes me laugh when people complain about bins being emptied less often and stuff. Me and my missus recycle cardboard, paper, plastic, metal, glass, etc. Our main wheelie bin only needs to go out once a month.


louey, you're right about the LPG, if it's going to get burnt off, it might as well be by an engine doing some work.

right about the gov. and peoples attitude as well. Paradox of life, innit? If we want to be free, then people are free to do things we don't want them to.

"You might as well say, 'Why do we have to have evil?'"

"Oh, we wouldn't dream of asking a question like that, sir."

"Yes, why do we have to have evil?"

"Ah. . .I think it's something to do with free will."

Getting a bit deep for a thread on perishing fuel lines though!!

@harrymann, re pallets of veg oil

there are co-ops in the UK that collect, filter, wash and redistribute (by the pallet) waste veg oil, ready for use. Some even offer a 'road duty paid' rate, if there was one near me I'd join up.