biodiesel

Its not intentional that my entries have become intertwined….but in reference to potato chips, which produce waste cooking oil. Waste cooking oil can be used to make biodiesel, by adding lye and ethanol. Biodiesel can be mixed with regular diesel to reduce its emissions (except NOx) or by itself, which significantly reduces emissions, etc. It runs in standard diesel engines, and its exhaust smells like fried food.

Sound good? I think it does. I also like the idea that we don’t have to drill in the arctic or send people and money to the unstable oil producing countries. Now there are some filling stations in Eugene, or you can buy it in bulk. Cool.

7 thoughts on “biodiesel”

  1. Yeah, it’s cool stuff. Difficult to impossible to produce in infrastructure scale, though. Lot’s of filtering and whatnot of the original product necessary to obtain the right consistency and cleanliness before chemical processing, so it’s almost as complicated as refining. Still, though, these are the kind of ideas that are good. Clean, efficient fuels that don’t consume more resources should not be overlooked just because of inability to mass-produce. Every bit helps. I know there are regulations into wasting energy that make it illegal. This is why oil companies hate to tap into natural gas reserves: there is much less money in it than oil, but law requires that they harvest it anyway. A similar system should be in place for biodiesel. A company could collect all of the waste grease and oil from a region and manufacture it into a consistent fuel that energy companies would be forced by the government to buy and put to some good use. Just a thought. Side note: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast is an awesome read. Very eye-opening.

  2. Its infinately complex. I think that’s why bicycles are so amazing. ;)

    BioDiesel really makes sense for cities who want to extend the life of their bus fleet, but are challenged with the health risk of regular diesel. This seems like an overstatement, but look at the buildings in downtown Portland. They’re covered with suet, and we’re starting to have air quality warnings more frequently. Spokane’s already moving the fleet over, and it only takes new hoses and gaskets instead of new busses.

    Anyway, I want the diesel jetta wagon, which has 90 horsepower. Yestereday, the Detroit auto show was on. I don’t think I saw a car with less than 150hp, but I did see a lot of, well, shiny yet generic looking cars. And some nice ones.

    Thanks for posting Tom. No one else really seemed to care that much..

  4. actually, the motorcycle had 500 hp and would go an estimated 400mph !!!! What a waste. The sad thing is that although it is a huge leap forward in motorcycle power, it is a huge leap backward in motorcycle technology (what is usually the forefront of land-bound vehicular technology as a whole). The viper engine is next to cro-magnon. It’s a two-valve pushrod engine. Let’s calculate that ratio… 500 hp divided by 8.4 FREAKIN’ LITERS!!… that’s… just under 60 horses per liter. Out of a race engine!? Garbage! Now take your average everyday R1 or GSX-R1000 and you’re talking 145 horses per liter. More like it. Did you see the new Cadillac Sixteen? I almost don’t care how much gas it guzzles it’s so over the top! Gotta go.

  5. My point exactly…its a huge waste of resources ranging from the materials to the amount of gas it will use. Yeah hey its cool a motorcycle that goes 400 mph….like anyone could handle that. Plus when the hell are you going to use something like that.
    It seems like there is this huge push in the atuomotive idustry to try and finally meet consumer demands of wanting low emission cars like hydrogen cell, hybrid, and bio deisel, but then they keep coming out with vehicles that have ungodly amounts of horse power and suck down gas faster than Walz guzzling a 40. I just wonder how long its going to take before AFV (alternative fuel vehicles) are the norm?

  6. Wish I’d found this page in January. I’ve been trying to find a way to get a biodiesel motorcycle together that has more than 11 HP (that’s what some folks bop around on in Europe), without getting hammered by weight over power (frame has to be stronger to withstand the diesel engine), and without going broke. Any state except California (my state) can take a gas-powered U.S.-spec. Royal Enfield, take out all the gas-related parts, and put an 11-HP Hatz diesel engine in it. Use the newer tubing, clean the injectors if diesel has ever been in it, and you’re good to go on 100% biodiesel… provided cell-phone users in cars don’t run you over.

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