Love's adds 'BioWillie' to fuel lineup

Dallas Business Journal ^ | 08.05.05 | Margaret Allen

[q_an_a]

There'll be no blue eyes crying in the rain for Peter Bell, owner of Distribution Drive, an Addison-based supplier of biodiesel fuel.

The increasingly popular diesel alternative is derived from vegetable oil and other renewable biological sources. It eliminates health-harming pollutants generated now by petroleum diesel and can be used in existing diesel engines without modifying either the motor or the truck.

(snip) Nelson, who advocates for American farmers, likes the fuel because not only does it reduce air pollution, but it cuts U.S. dependence on foreign oil by using domestic agricultural products.

The fuel, which is 20% vegetable oil and 80% diesel, costs about the same as regular diesel, but extends a tractor-trailer rigs mileage, say advocates. It reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 50%.

[q_an_a]

Watched a TV interview, a Canadian trucker plans his trip based on the location of the bio-Willie. Several drivers talked about how the cleaner product was "likely" to lower their cost of maintence. Time will tell.

[Amalie]

Has anyone taken into account just how much farmland it will take to grow the materials to make this stuff?

[KarlInOhio]

It reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 50%.

I find this very hard to believe. The amount of emissions of water and carbon dioxide are directly related to how much fuel was burned. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 50% means either the fuel has a greater proportion of hydrogen to carbon, contains more energy per molecule or somehow makes the entire engine twice as efficient. I don't see any chance for all three of these combined to cut the carbon dioxide by half.

Well, maybe the burning is much less efficient and it's producing lots of carbon monoxide instead of dioxide, but that's nothing to brag about.

[NonValueAdded]

Adding 20% of this stuff to diesel reduces CO₂ emissions by 50%??? I'd love to know the chemistry of that reaction. How does it achieve it, by making the combustion incomplete? by producing more complex emissions instead? more carbon monoxide?

[stuartcr]

Don't forget the increased pollution due to fertiliser production and runoff.

[KarlInOhio]

I thought of another possibility. Is it producing more unburned carbon soot? I know how much I love getting behind a diesel pumping out a cloud of black smoke.

[NonValueAdded]

I think I found a potential answer. See Fuel Chemistry. Diesel is primarily cetane C₁₆H₃₄. Look at all that carbon! The addition of biomass is supposed to provide more oxygen, promoting more efficient combustion which would give us 16 CO₂ and 17 H₂O. Here is where the million-man math comes in. Since the bio additive is produced by fermentation, the fermentation reaction pulls atmospheric CO₂. Therefore, the bio additive is like a carbon credit being added to the tank. You get a better combustion which increases CO₂ but you have credits that offset the increase for a net reduction. Gotta love that logic!

[NonValueAdded]

Let me correct that explanation. The plant matter that was fermented pulled the CO₂ from the atmosphere so thus the CO₂ returned was already there and therefore does not "count" as an emission. How that goes from 20% to 50% is anyone's guess then.

I'd look at it the other way around ... in order to burn biofuel, you have to add 80% cetane which pollutes the daylights out of the sky. But then again, if cetane came from dead dinosaurs who ate the plants which took CO₂ from the air, why doesn't that count too?

[small voice in the wilderness]

Woohoo. That can only mean one thing. Jane Fonda's Maniacal Misery Tour bus will be stopping for refueling in Texas. Must get all Love's locations for potential FReep-o-rama.

[q_an_a]

I'm not sure if what your wrote is designed to prove or disprove the theory - C student in Chemistry, but what I know is that the truckers who pay the bills and went on TV said,"I use less fuel on my trips and the vehicle runs cleaner."

Now these guys look like they are hard working truckers not tree huggers, the interviews where held while they pumped fuel. I think that saving an independent over the road driver 20% is a darn good thing. It is a value added product. Willie and the Boys are selling it for the same price as regular diesel - that seems like a good thing to me.

Why do the folks at FreeRepublic hate any type of new methods? If bio fuel cuts diesel pollution and lowers the cost of maintenance on a truck that is a good thing, if for no reason except you can see it as you drive by a truck entering the highway. / major crunchyCon rant off.

[WIladyconservative]

Has anyone taken into account just how much farmland it will take to grow the materials to make this stuff?

I've been mentioning this little bugaboo all along. I don't think the US has enough arable land left to support this type of fuel consumption. In my neck of the woods, new housing is replacing (you guessed it) corn fields!

[NonValueAdded]

You are interpreting my post to imply something I didn't infer. I said nothing in opposition to the fuel, I simply questioned the extraordinary claims. Even as a C student, you should be able to follow the reasoning about how those 16 carbon atoms would be dealt with. No matter what else you added, they need to combine with something and CO₂ is the byproduct of efficient combustion. It would be great if additives reduced pollution but it isn't so just because a reporter or liberal Willie Nelson says it is. As well, how would hard-working truckers know exactly what is coming out their stacks? If "burns cleaner" means less soot, then that means more greenhouse gasses, not less. Otherwise, they don't know if complex carbon molecules, carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide is coming out unless they got an "A" in chemistry. My and Karls' posts were to gain understanding, not to knock the fuel.

[GodfearingTexan]

I'm with you.

[elbucko]

Don't forget the increased pollution due to fertilizer production and runoff.

Yup. There's no free lunch, even if it's manure.

[q_an_a]

thank you for your post. What I wrote is a report on the comments by truckers using the product. Their asseration that it burns "cleaner" dealt with their report that they got better mileage and that these users - who pay the bills - noticed that they used less gas burning BioWillie than the standard diesel they had been using. They may have all been liars or payola plants - I reported what I saw. Period. Again thanks for helping me wioth the chem part of the story. Time will tell if this -biodiesel works - is a fact or another cold fusion story.

[NonValueAdded]

Ok, but just to be clear "for the record," I'm not calling the truckers liars or paid shills ... I'm simply saying their anecdotal evidence is not proof upon which to base policy, certainly not enough to say 20% additive yields 50% reduction. It is a factor for further research and I'd be inclined to stipulate particulate matter was reduced, pending experimental confirmation. But that very factor would indicate more carbon was converted to an oxide, hence the skepticism concerning the 50% claim. If anything, that is giving creedence to the trucker's claim.

[TexasRepublic]

Has anyone taken into account just how much farmland it will take to grow the materials to make this stuff?

Not only that, but current agricultural methods are depleting the irreplacable topsoil in our country. Growing fuel only will accelerate soil depletion and eventually affect the price and availability of food. Some ancient civilizations failed because of the ruination of their soils. Also, a lot of energy is expended to produce, process and distribute any crop -- where will that energy come from, and what will be the net gain when all is said and done?

[q_an_a]

that is a red herring argument. There are dozens of ways to grow corn and other bio mass without depleting the soil. In the 80s people planted corn and wheat fence post to fence post from the Candian border to the rio grande, today we grow more food on less land. That change is one reason Willie got in the "help the farmer" business. They left the land. Modern farming, GPS and low till methods are changing everything about the use of the land.