Bio-fuel

[Frans]

I've been checking into using bio-fuel for my trucks, chippers etc.
Here on the West Coast the cost per gallon is $2.65/ gallon. That is if I buy 1000 gal at a time.
I have heard that it may be cheaper in other states. Is that true?
At that price I wont be doing it. The folks who are doing it say the decision to use it is a political one-make a statement etc
Frans

 

[ORclimber]

Frans, Are you talking about bio-diesel? Every now and then an article pops up about guys that pick up waste vegetable oil from restaurants and convert it for use in their own vehicles. Pretty cool concept, taking waste and turning it into something useful.

This site says it can be made for .60 a gallon. http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel.html

 

[treeman82]

I forget when this was, but in one of the "recent" TCI's there was a guy who wrote a piece about bio diesel. I think that was derived from soy, and I am pretty sure he was out around Seattle somewhere.

BTW, Gas prices up here are going to be hiked up as of 01/01/04. There were reports of prices going up by as much as $0.40 / gal. Some kind of additive being put in the gas. A good friend of mine just paid $2.50 / gal for 94 octane not too long ago at a gas station near him.

 

[hillbilly]

What can I say...
Exhausts from petroleum DOES ruin the environment and add
to the global warming.
A lot of people have economical interests in keeping the petroleum
industry going. They keep fighting against the development
of alternative energy sources.
The US is on the edge of development and progress
in many fields, environmental concerns is not one of them.
Oil reserves WILL run out, "enjoy" them while you can.

For 2-stroke engines, chainsaws, blowers etc. we use a purified petroleum, "Aspen".
Less harmful for the environment and operators and it leaves
less crap in the engines. It is also a must if you want to get
any contracts from the city/state. The price is about the same
as for regular petrol, $4,5 per gallon.
The first version of this product gave the operators headache
and illness and less performance in the engines.
Not so anymore, personal experience, sadly this put some people off from using it.

Aspen Petroleum

 

[rumination]

jeez Rocky, what kind of a tree hugger are you anyway?

I'm with hillbilly on this one though. Cannot ignore ice sheets breaking up, Pacific Islands sinking underneath rising sea levels, disgusting air pollution, etc...

hillbilly, I checked out the Aspen website, but I could not find if it was available over here. if it was easy to get I'd definitely try it out.

 

[NeTree]

Since petroleum comes from dead dinos, doesn't that make it a BIO fuel by definition?

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Once agin, the wisdom of Alex Shigo shines through. Alex says, "It's all about dosage."

The changes the humans have brought on the planet in the last 150 years have acclerated the degradation exponentially. It's comfortable to blow off the warning signs too. Rush and his entorage do a good job of poo pooing the effects. If we look at some of the really large changes going on its impossible to ignore.

Doing what we can to lessen our impact on the planet should be the most important thing we consider. Believe it or not, there is only a finite amount of oil left in the ground. Besides the fact that we will run out, there is another consideration. Look at the impact on the earth by drilling, refinning and transporting. If we use only a little bit less oil, the effect will be noticed.

Considering changes in our consumption is to be acknowledged. The lighter we walk on the earth the better it will be for the next generations.

Do I want to give up my synthetic clothing that works so well in the cold. You're crazy! I like the plastic clothing. Do I like cheap fuel, sure. My choice is in how I use the materials. I'll buy a more expensive piece of clothing if the material performs better and lasts longer. Same for handsaws. Silkys last much longer so there is less iron needed to be ripped out of the ground. Less machining and packaging which means less waste. And, when the blade is dull, it goes into the barrel along with all other steel to go to the recylers. Better to Reduce, Reuse before relying on Recycling to be the cure all.

Stepping off the soap box Anyone else wanna rant back at me?

Tom

 

[Crofter]

If you're going to do ilt anyways

you might as well feel good about it eh? It is amazing to see that cognitive dissonance in action!
Making a statement in regard to conservation contributes toward increasing awareness. It opens a crack in the eyelids of at least a few people and the feeling can spread. It obviously is not instant pudding. The alternative is to wait till we are really hurting and acceptance comes easier then. What gives naysayers ammunition is the fact that a lot of the new greener technologies initially are not all that energy saving if all inputs are considered; there are growing pains. Some environmentalists do overstate the situation and that like in anything else is to be expected.
Man is a pretty adaptable and inventive creature so we will likely pull through. It is too bad though that we have to push nature so close to the edge.

To borrow a word forom Tony,
Awmm

Frank

 

[NeTree]

Let's examine the theory of electric cars, shall we?

It's all about the inherent losses that occur every time you convert energy.

Gas car: 70% of the energy released thru combustion is utilized to drive the engine, the remaining 30% actually moves the car.

Electric car: Oil or coal is burned to drive a generator. Let's assume a 50/50 ratio (giving it the benefit) between energy released and actual electrical power produced. Seems more efficient right?

Well, we aren't charging our car right off the generator at the power plant, so....We have to change the generator power to transmission line voltage at 10% loss....

Then we have to transmit that power to our local substation, at a 5% loss.

Then we chane the power again down to distribution voltage, at another 5% loss...

And once again to service line voltage at another 5% loss.

Great, now we can charge our nifty electric car... well, no...

We still have to change our service line voltage into our battery voltage, at around 10% loss.

In the end, we can either turn fuel directly into the energy to drive our petroleum car and lose 70%, or we can **** around with our electric car and lose 85%... Rough choice.

 

[TREETX]

Will your individual reduction in consumption make a difference? NO!!!

The point is not to be part of the solution, but rather to not be part of the problem.

.02

 

[buckduck]

Believe it or not, there is only a finite amount of oil left in the ground.

Certainly there is a finite amount of oil reserves. Present estimates are as low as 50 - 75 years worth and as high as 250 years using current technology to extract it. Does anyone believe we won’t be able to get a lot more oil in places where we currently can’t in another 250 years, or have another source of power altogether? One source alone, oil from shale, would be immeasurable. I am one to look at oil resources as a precious gift from God. There isn’t any commodity, anywhere that would have less impact on the planet with such abundant use…(with the possible exception of perhaps using seawater.) Think of it, try and name something better to use. It just ain’t there. If someone invented a way to burn dirt… free dirt… and burn it completely clean it would have a far greater and far more negative impact on the earth than the manner in which we consume oil. The same would be true if you could use air as a source of energy.
Frankly, I’d rather save our fertile dirt and precious air for other uses. Exactly what use are we saving oil for? How has it impacted the planet in its depletion? What was someone doing with it before?

Does that mean we should squander or be irresponsible with it? Does it mean we shouldn’t look for alternatives? Of course not, but we aren’t running out anytime soon. We are finding cleaner ways of burning it all the time. Is it good to conserve? Heck yes! But think how normal human fossil fuel consumption would compare with Mt St. Helens, as mentioned before. How much damage to our environment was done (again, comparing to normal human activity) with the oil fires set during the first Gulf War. Remember, they burned for quite some time.

I think we over estimate the damage that we do as an industrialized world community. I agree we should take care of our mother the earth. The very best we can.

 

[buckduck]

Exhausts from petroleum DOES add to global warming.

But of course, there’s the impact of fossil fuels on Global Warming. I have yet to see one creditable source for strong evidence of any global warming. One ‘creditable’ study took reported temperature averages and came up with a 5 degree rise in the last 60 years. Even at that, we wouldn’t know that rise was due to …. let’s say it….. AMERICANS burning fossil fuels! However, in examining that study it becomes circumspect. Looking at just one reporting location, Chicago, is enough to give one pause. Experts are in agreement that measurements taken in an urban area are just not valid due to the abundance of heat-retaining substances in cities, making the temperature read higher. Initially, the official location to record temperatures of the Chicago area was way out at a place that is now called Midway Airport. Ever been to Chicago? What would happen as one began keeping records taken from cow pastures which over a period of time became urbanized? Perhaps you might detect a RISE in temperature?!! Hmnmm, go figure. However. someone finally realized the folly of gathering any meaningful data within urban sprawl so they moved the site some time ago to it’s present location…… or at least until just recently…. O’hare!

Using this study, when one factors out the ‘urban’ effects there still could be a rise in temperature of 0.5 degrees in the last 60 years. Well, I’m not ready to run back to my cave life for a half a degree increase. Another of the documented ‘creditable’ evidence by reasonable people for warming (which I’ll not argue) is a slight increase in the coldest regions of earth. Not in the temperate zones. Could there be an impact from this warming? Sure. But when your low is –60 C, (that’s Celsius) an increase of even several degrees isn’t anything! However, check how many of these record high temperatures in one of those ‘coldest regions’ are associated with our increase in burning of fossil fuels in the world…
http://members.tripod.com/~MitchellBrown/almanac/provs_warmest.html

The greatest impact would certainly be since WWII. There are two. 1969 and 1973. If we were doing such damage at an alarming rate, one would expect to see a trend in ever increasing temperature max’s. Sorry, it isn’t there.

 

[buckduck]

Cannot ignore ice sheets breaking up, Pacific Islands sinking underneath rising sea levels

And then, there’s that durn sea level problem, isn’t there? A 300 foot rise in sea level is going to change a lot of real estate values. The alarmists concerning sea level rise are calculating the amount of ice everywhere and then determining how much water that is, inflating this figure grossly and adding that to the ocean surface. Hello… anyone heard of the buoyancy principle? Go ahead, pile that ice up in the glass well over the rim. As long as its weight isn’t resting on the bottom of the glass, when the ice melts, the glass still doesn’t overflow. It’s because ice displaces itself in the water. It’s how aircraft carriers float (well that, with some magic and mirrors involved.) Whoever is making these claims knows this, they are counting on everyone else not thinking about such things. If all the icebergs on earth or all of the artic ice melted there would be very minimal effect on sea level. (That having been said, we would likely experience warming on earth without the white sheet of ice to reflect sunlight off into space…. But most likely the salinity of the oceans would also change having another effect on climate and global temperature… but I digress)

Ah-hah! You say. What of all that continental ice that’s so quickly melting!! Well, first of all, it isn’t…. it’s basically melting at the same rate since long before we ever began burning much oil. Secondly, the buoyancy principle ‘stihl’ applies. Land masses also ‘float’ on the mantle layer underneath the earth’s crust. Land masses also displace weight. I.e. mountains have ‘roots’ in order to displace themselves on that ‘liquid’ layer (gosh, just like an iceberg!). Again, minimal impact on the levels of the sea throughout the world. A great example is that of the British Isles. Why is it that sea level has drastically gone down (not up with melting!) since the last ice age? The weight of all that ice pushed the land masses down into the earth. As the ice receded, with the weight gone, the land mass displaced itself in relation to the mantle layer below. It rose. With the ice melting and the land rising….. sea level stayed about the same. Another question to ask… just what did “modern” man do to melt all that ice 25,000 years ago? (from which we are still warming)

Bottom line is… Is the world a better place for Rachel Carson? (Silent Spring) Yep. Am I grateful for Rachel Carson’s work? I am, indeed. Was Rachel Carson right? No. (thank goodness)

We would be in a sad state of the world if we didn’t have our concerns and even regrets about a lot of what we’ve done to mother earth. I just don’t want someone telling me I can’t use my 038 or run bar oil due to irreparable environmental damage.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Deisle exhaust has been shown to exacerbate reperatory ailments. There is more asthema in high density populations then in rural/exurban. Yes there are other factors...

On the other hand, most of the easier to produce bioproducts do not have the same potential energy as deisel, and cost more to produce. Some say even with a similar economy of size to petrolium production it would be significantly higher then what is curently in use. Then you have lower milage per gallon...

Then you have the problem of production of the raw material. Where will we grow all those beans?

One promising new idea I read about in a rescent SciAm is a guy who has found a way to make petrolium like oils out of consumer waste!

 

[Frans]

so many responses!

Hey I was just wondering what the prices of bio-diesel was in other states.
Here is the deal Bio-diesel is a mixture of veg. oil and regular diesel. Usually 20%/80%.
You can convert an engine to run on pure veggi oil but the conversion is costly and requires extensive modifications.
I have a 500 gal tank I used to use for stockpiling fuel so I thought it would be a good idea to use this for bio-diesel because you cannot buy it at the pump where I am. But at 2.65/ gal I wont do it.
Once again: Does anybody have any idea of the cost of bio-diesel.
Frans

 

[buckduck]

Oh, Sorry.
Never mind on my posts, then.
... but that bio diesel will pollute too, you know.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

What, were not allowed to fly off on a tangent? Is that in the TOS agreement

Sorry Snarf, I've not looked into it.

Here is a thread I found that says it is .50 more per gallon

http://pub176.ezboard.com/ftow411frm63.showMessage?topicID=64.topic


Here is the serach I did http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/cost+of+bio+deisel

 

[rbtree]

Franz,

Yes that is the appx price for biodiesel here. Both STP and my friend Scott (Four Seasons Tree Care) are running biodiesel.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

BD,

I sure would like to quote scripture here but I can't. There are many biological signs that lead to the conclusion that the earth is in a warming cycle. there are plants and animals that are moving both north and south out of the ranges that they have lived for a long time. It takes a long time for the environment to change enough for plants to adjust their growth. I'm plenty skeptical too so when I heard this the first few times I thought that maybe it was just a case of people looking in new places for something that confirms their beliefs. After reading the same thing from a lot of different sources from around the world, I do believe that the earth's climate is warming. There is too much evidence to not see that.

Do some searches on the glaciers on Kilimanjaro. Glaciers in the Swiss Alps have been closed to some climbing and skiing because of unstable conditions. The Arctic Ocean is wetter than ever before. The Polar ice cap is thinner too. Large chunks of the Antarctic ice cap are shedding. Possums are moving north into Minnesota. Yikes! Watch out! Kidding aside, they have never been observed in MN. That goes for aboriginal records too.

Like Alex says, It's all about dosage. A little methane leaking out a cows butt isn't that big a deal. That same volume, let loose inside an elevator is all of a sudden pollution. How much change can humans inject into our planet and hope that it will be buffered? If you were restoring a wooden runabout like an old Chris Craft, would you tolerate dust in the varnish? Probably not one speck. If the elevator or the Chris Craft are the world you live in, you would treat them with more care and caution. But then again, maybe not...

The whole line about ice displacing water, or not, doesn't work. Ice cubes have much more air in them than glacier ice. If you don't think that glaciers have an effect on sea level, go back and study geology. Look at the sea levels during times of glaciation. The last time MN was scraped flat, the ocean levels were lower. That can't be argued. After they receded, we were left with 10,000, well, actually, over 15,000, Lakes and potholes.

Bio diesel seems to work for some people. Great!

If we were to base the value of energy on its true costs we'd need to change accounting systems. Nuclear power has been subsidized heavily for years. Same goes for the cleanup and decommisioning of the old plants. Who pays for that? Generally not the share holders, it comes out of the publics pocket. How much should be billed to oil for the protection it gets from our military?

Tom

 

[SilverBlue]

How did you get the cows into the elevator Tom?
Anyways here in Ontario the government just passed new tough standards for diesel emissions new and old alike, no doubt that since bio diesel burns cleaner it will become more important.