Posted on 02/22/2007 7:16:14 AM PST by Reeses
About a year ago, Paul McNees chose to change his life by changing his fuel.
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"I just couldn't justify filling up that tank with gasoline anymore for a multitude of reasons," said McNees, 43, citing global warming and the war in Iraq. "This has been great. It's totally cleaned out the engine. It runs great, has a lot more power. It sort of smells like french fries -- it doesn't have that noxious diesel smell."
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Nationally, biodiesel consumption is up sharply -- from 500,000 gallons in 1999 to more than 75 million gallons in 2005. In the Bay Area, the number of customers filling up at Berkeley's Biofuel Oasis -- one of the region's few public biodiesel stations -- has climbed from about 200 three years ago to about 1,800 today.
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Much of biodiesel's appeal stems from the fuel's ability to perform as well as petroleum diesel while emitting fewer exhaust materials that cause smog, particulate pollution and global warming. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pure biodiesel emits 67 percent fewer unburned hydrocarbons, 48 percent less carbon monoxide and 47 percent fewer particulates but 10 percent more nitrogen oxides.
Yet, despite its benefits and growing popularity, biodiesel might not be the fuel of the future because, as demand grows, the amount of land needed to produce the oils could become untenable, experts say.
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Researchers are looking for more productive, and sustainable, sources of biofuel -- including algae. They're focusing primarily on four types of high-oil algae -- diatoms, green algae, blue-green algae and golden algae -- that could be cultivated in farms or ponds. Oils could be extracted using chemical solvents, enzymes, expeller presses, osmotic shock or ultrasonic shock waves.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
To the argument, it is crucial; to the reality it remains to be seen if we can produce enough new plants to measure a decrease in the rate of increase; if not, we must conclude that burning fuel is not the direct cause of the increase, or adjust the measurement to disguise the failure.
"What we need are high-rise greenhouses where 100 acres of corn, etc. could be raised on a foot print as small as a baseball field."
Yup, and we could use even more hydrocarbon fuel to drive the generators that provide the light that grows the corn. :)
Since you asked, here are my notes on the subject.
The estimated transportation fuel and home heating oil used in the United States is about 230,000 million US gallons (870 million m³) (Briggs, 2004). Waste vegetable oil and animal fats would not be enough to meet this demand. In the United States, estimated production of vegetable oil for all uses is about 23,600 million pounds (10,700,000 t) or 3,000 million US gallons (11,000,000 m³)), and estimated production of animal fat is 11,638 million pounds (5,279,000 t). (Van Gerpen, 2004)
Rapeseed = 110gal/acre
Fuel used in the US:
139.9 billion gal gas in 2005
38.3 billion gal diesel in 2005
38,300,000,000 / 110 = 350,000,000 acres needed to replace diesel usage with rapeseed based bio-diesel.
Total farmland in production in 1992 in US is 435,000,000 acres (USDA 1992) Note this was in '92 see below for current acres in production. ( I don't know what amount good farm land is available but out of production, I do know, however, that vast tracts of good farm land are being converted to developments all the time. My numbers are rough but my only goal is to put the magnitude of the issue in perspective.)
These are very rough numbers that don't take into acount other petroleum products besides motorfuels and may not take into account home-heating fuel.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/fasworldwide/2006/07-2006/BiofuelsOverview.htm
http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census92/atlas92/html/m081.htm
Total planted farmland down to 318,610,000acres in 2006 according to --
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Acre/Acre-09-12-2006.txt
Now you-all can do what ever calculations you want.
As you can see, since there is a shortfall in available acerage for growing bio-diesel, then 5% of the crop land,if used to grow rape seed, would yeild less than 5% of the total diesel currently used.
Now, there are other potential oil producing crops that have a higher oil yeild, but the type of farm land suitable for growing them is much more limited. If only those lands were used to produce only high yeilding crops, then the equation would be different. But the bottom line is still that bio-diesel cannot be considered a replacement for petroleum but only a suppliment.
It seems to me that if we require them to cut down on combustible fuel use in India and China, then people in the US will not need to be concerned with these problems.
Thanks. Nice to see that math that journalists never seem to get around to doing:)
Al Gore can give his up first.
From the same source.
How is biodiesel made?
Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products -- methyl esters (the chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (a valuable byproduct usually sold to be used in soaps and other products).
I stand corrected on the soap issue.
Evidently, that was a bad example. My point though is still valid. Much of what is sometimes thought of as waste, is not really wasted.
I looked up cottonseed and found that it is already used as cattle-feed and to produce food-oil for human consumption, often used to make potato chips, among other things. If that oil were used for fuel, either we would need to replace it with something else for what it is used for now, or do with out those things.
Also the amount of cottonseed oil produced last year works out to about 129 million gallons, which although it is a large amount of oil, it would only amount to less than one half of one percent of our diesel needs, and that is if it was all converted to fuel.
I understand, your point is still true.
Sorry, I was misusing "farmland". Algae can be grown in the ocean which is practically unlimited. With 70% of Earth's sun absorbing surface being saltwater, bioengineered algae is the most obvious biofuel long term. We shouldn't use our freshwater and real farmland for fuel growing since I agree with you 100%, they are very limited. Algae can also use used to create alcohol and under certain conditions can by made to emit hydrogen gas instead of pure oxygen. Algae is extremely efficient at converting solar energy and CO2 into carbohydrates and oils. It is genetically simple enough it is possibly within our current capabilities to genetically engineer special fuel algae. Unlike most other fuels this would create a closed loop system so we could use unlimited amounts without a net change in the atmosphere. If this was world war time we would be spending many billions of dollars researching it. We really should invest in it now without needing to be forced by war.
Before oil drilling technology was developed whale oil was the thing. It was a biofuel that delivered itself to the coastal villages where it was needed most. We are coming full circle. We probably won't use whales to harvest the energy but we could. Many people don't know this but whales are dumber than cows. They have few natural predators so their brains had no reason to evolve much. If we can farm cattle we can grow and farm whales if we need to.
The oceans are extremely large. A great thing is that 200 miles out is international waters. There are few environmentalists and lawyers floating by to cause trouble. Algae has so many things going for it that it seems obvious to me it should be on the short list. Soon the towel heads will have nothing to do but pound sand.
Most of the oil companies are owned by you and me. They have proportionately unwholesome capital costs to go with their unwholesome profits. If you live in Alaska aren't you state income tax free plus get an unwholesome oil money check every year for nothing?
"If this was world war time we would be spending many billions of dollars researching it. We really should invest in it now without needing to be forced by war."
If it is actually economically viable, it should not require government funded R&D.
If you look back on history you will find that war is the mother of invention. Most technology breakthroughs occur for war. The reason America is so wealthy is because we spend so much on military technology which then transfers into commercial products. The internet we're communicating on is an American cold war invention.
Some things benefit us all. British Petroleum recently committed $500 million to research biofuels however if that investment triggers a breakthrough they will own the patents and the profit potential is large. I think if the US spent $10 billion on algae research it would greatly benefit America's future prosperity, and reduce some of our need to deal with troublemakers around the world.
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