Posted on 07/23/2006 6:27:54 AM PDT by CubaninMiami
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A growing number of Americans are setting up mini-refineries in their homes to produce biodiesel, a fuel made from waste cooking oil which is cleaner and cheaper than the petrol sold in gas stations
The sky-high price of crude oil is scaring everyone.
Biodiesel has Hollywood backers like actress Julia Roberts and Morgan Freeman, is sung about by country star Willie Nelson but also meets the political correctness of the American right wing which has made the campaign against imported oil a mantra... ...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
....consider the source.
You have to be careful using cooking oil as a fuel. I remember a recent story about a bear attacking a man's car (in New Hampshire IIRC) because it smell like french fries.
First meth labs now we will have people scrounging the dumpsters looking for oil. The homeless will have to compete with otherwise normal people for dumpster diving rights.
What are we coming to?
If you cook up biodiesel in your own home, how do the various government agencies collect their per-gallon tribute?
I have visions of some of these green mental midgets working with sodium methoxide. Somebody's gonna get hurt.
The homemade fuel keeps 15 school buses running in the area, Goodman said.
Actually, that's quite impressive. I find it disheartening that so many here dismiss out of hand alternative fuel sources as "enviro-wacko Hollywood liberalism." So what if Julia Roberts, Morgan Freeman and Willie Nelson support the idea? We've got to do something to alleviate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and domestic drilling is just a temporary fix.
That guy with the VW that was attacked was running waste vegetable oil (WVO), not biodiesel.
Everything you've always wanted to know but were afraid to ask :)
Part of the price is the hassle of brewing it.
If you buy pure biodiesel at the pump, it's usually slightly more expensive than petroleum-based diesel fuel, despite the fact that biodiesel has slightly less energy per gallon.
It does, however, have excellent lubricity, which will become more important as ultra low sulfur diesel is rolled out. It seems to me that a 5% blend would be ideal for the time being.
These greenies are also evading fuel taxes. Do you suppose that they remember to send in the fuel tax they owe on their homemade refinery products? Don't bet on it!
What about the nutritional aspects of using cooking oil, which is a by-product of the frying of "bad food." Think how many French fries our youth will have to eat, just to supply all the used cooking oil to run the family SUV.
thousands now make fuel in their garages from the oil left after frying french fries or scrounging around restaurants and food factories
This resource has been thrown out to date because it had no value. If enough people begin to want it, nobody will throw it out anymore, they will save it and sell it to the highest bidder.
There goes your price advantage.
Somebody came up with a commercial pilot project to convert turkey and chicken carcass waste into oil. It worked, too, but the economics were dependent on the feedstock being free for the hauling.
When they found out the waste was being reprocessed for profit, the owners of the waste demanded to be paid, and the profitability of the process disappeared.
Stupid on the part of the turkey ranchers, who are now not only not being paid for the waste, but once again have to pay to haul it away.
Two friends of mine (BM and H, I'm talking about my Plantersville bud and her hubby) are using leftover cooking oil from neighborhood restaurants to make biodiesel. It's all he's put in his truck for three months.
She told me yesterday it costs them 87 cents a gallon.
I'll add cooking oil to my list of valuable items to be scavenged.
thousands now make fuel in their garages from the oil left after frying french fries or scrounging around restaurants and food factories.
If I can invent a french-fried potato squeezing machine that would extract all that used oil I can become a millionaire. What an opportunity!
They don't. But you do have to commit a little real estate to it - my friends' setup takes up about 25 square feet of floor space.
You just nailed it. Food grade cooking oil is now nearly cost competitive with the pump price of diesel fuel. Waste cooking oil is cheaper. However, once government taxes are collected (and they will, once enough fuel is made to dent the pump tax collections) the cost benefit will evaporate.
Used cooking oil from restaurants and such works fine - but only in very limited circumstances. It's okay for a relatively few crackpots and curmudgeons, but there isn't enough around to make a dent in our energy dependence. More power to 'em, but now that the "secret" has gone mainstream I predict they will start charging $$$ for this.
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