Posted on 11/02/2005 2:05:01 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
A moped -- or hoofing it -- are not the only answers to the energy crunch. If you own a diesel-powered car, truck or SUV, salvation may be as close as your local greasy spoon.
It's possible to run a diesel engine on used -- albeit filtered and otherwise prepared for internal combustion -- fry oil, also known as Waste Vegetable Oil (W.Va.). There's also Straight Vegetable Oil (aka "SO" and a bit less stinky), a mix of grease and diesel -- or "biodiesel," which is also sourced from vegetable oil or animal fat.
The upside to "going greasy" is liberation from the tyranny of OPEC and $3 per gallon fuel; theoretically, you may never have to visit a gas station again.
The downside -- well, downsides -- are that fry vat fuels only work in compression-ignition (i.e., diesel) engines -- and that there's "some assembly required." You can't just pour "Mickey D High-test" into your tank and motor on.
But it can be done -- and it does, indeed, work.
The fact is that the inventor of the diesel engine -- Rudolf Diesel -- intended his design to run on vegetable oils. But vegetable-based fuels were supplanted by petroleum-based diesel fuel, principally because it was (at the time) a more effective fuel. And of course, at the dawn of the automobile age some 100 years ago, fossil fuels were both incredibly cheap and incredibly abundant. The United States produced more than enough to provide for its own needs; there was no OPEC -- and no worry about Middle Eastern oil barons, terrorism or dwindling supplies.
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so Bio Diesel is GREEN? OH! thats right, the big story about "bio diesel" is that it has ZERO "net" affect on the atmosphere because the plants from which the fuels are produced, only RETURN to the environment what has already been taken. . . .Another question for a chemist or someone who knows a lot more than I. . . .Are all of those chemicals returned to the environment in the same state in which the plants took them?
For instance are the sulfurs, and nitrogens, and such returned AS the sulfurs and nitrogens that were taken?
Pardon me, but I don't think that the "natural" course of things mandates a manipulation of basic chemical properties prior to combustion. The Greenies pushing Bio-diesel are just plain liars.
>Bio-Diesel has a by product, I forget which one, but it is either a major caustic compound, or a major acid. <
If I'm not mistaken, the by-product created by the biodiesel process is glycerin, a component in soapmaking.
Quick NOTE! that doesn't mean that bio chemical manipulation doesn't have POSSIBILITIES! but Bio-diesel is diertier than petroleum diesel.
Yeah, I'm really afraid of carbon dioxide.
If you meant CO, biodiesel produces considerably less CO than standard diesel.
theres a lot of by-products, and I was thinking "lye" but that is one of the chemicals used in manipulating basic "OILS" into diesel, I think the side affect a stable combustible chemical that creates one of the Acids. and I don't think Glycerin (spelling) is either caustic or acidic, and in fact I think that glycerin is fundamentaly unstable ( I know, I know, it isn't NITRO, but I think glycerin breaks down rapidly,) once again defering to someone who can explain.
Point, Bio-Diesel is not Green, in fact it is LESS green than ANY petro chem.
well i paid 2.17 today, my wife paid 2.13/gal. btw.. every time i've seen the solar-loonies bio-diesel vehicle, it's broken down on the side of the road... no thanks.
It takes MORE energy to grow the plants that make bio-diesel that it takes to make straight diesel
Which is why most folks using biodiesel obtain used oil.
Me too... I wonder why that is? Is it a kid/family road trip truck stop for breakfast thing?
>every time i've seen the solar-loonies bio-diesel vehicle, it's broken down on the side of the road... no thanks.<
There are 2 different methods of using vegetable oil to fuel a diesel. One simply entails taking vegetable oil, and heating it with a tank heater. The vehicle is started on petroleum diesel (in a separate tank), then, once it's running, the driver switches over to the tank with the heated vegetable oil. Before the vehicle is turned off, the tanks are switched and the petroleum is run through the system, so the truck/bus/car will start. I have a feeling the solar-loony bus is fueled by this method.
The 2nd method, uses biodiesel, which is chemically changed vegetable oil. You can start and stop a biodiesel powered vehicle with no petroleum needed.
I like the idea of biodiesel, as it keeps petrodollars out of the Saudi's and Hugo Chavez' greasy palms. Any way to make us independent of Middle East and Venezuelan oil is ok by me.
20 million barrels of oil a day. That's a lot of rancid cooking grease.
It is CO2 emissions that is at the heart of the Kyoto Treaty.
"And your exhaust smells like french fries!"
It does! I was behind an old MB deisel not long ago and kept smelling intense french fries. Then I noticed a sticker on the car stating it ran on veg oil! (kind of stinky, really)
I saw an infomercial on a vegetable oil->diesel converter kit, and it looked pretty kewl, but my one question was this: how many vehicles/town can the local french-fryers supply?
Is that the same Low Sulfur already in use in Europe? Will this standard ACTUALLY be in place and enforced by June?
That's a great question. Veggie oil vehicles won't expand past the novelty stage until bio-diesel is available for purchase at prices below petroleum derived fuel.
Yeh, I just bet cooking oil works really well. NOT.
It works very well if you pre-heat it prior to introducing it into the combustion chamber.
Not to mention it keeps soy beans from being used for evil purposes.
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