biodiesel for arboriculture

treebing

treebing

Been here much more than a while
Location
Detroit, Mi.
I just wanted to make a plug for biodiesel which has become a little bit of a for me over the last year. A lot of you I am sure know quite a bit about biodiesel but I am continually amazed by how many people haven't even heard of the stuff. SO bear with me. Its implications for arboriculture are big, and as arborists anything we can do to improve air quality is worth the effort. I recently heard that the company Dan Kraus works with in the Pacific Northwest runs its trucks on Bidiesel.

When the diesel engine was invented around the turn of the century, Rudolph designed it to be fueled by peanut oil. The cylinders were large and the injectors were able to handle the viscosity of normal vegetable oil. The first diesel engine was run on straight veggie oil.

This was lost over time and was replaced by petroleum diesel. The lubication that petroleum diesel uses for the injector pump is sulfer which as we know has caused terrible pollution problems across the globe and throughout our urban areas. NOT good for trees.

Today, a diesel engine cannot run on straight veggie oil unless the vehicle is modified to heat the oil to a high temperature before it is delivered to the chambers. This is a fairly simple modification that can be done involving routing a heating coil from the radiator into a second tank and then running the fuel lines to the injector pump through the middle of coolant lines. Lookup Greasel, or greasecar for ready-made kits.

there are downsides to running "grease" but once modified, the vehicle can pump grease from any reasonable retaurant through a filter and into the tank. Care must be made that the engine has heated the oil enough before switching tanks. No modification at all needs to be done to vehicles running biodiesel.

Bio-diesel is basically vegetable oil with the Glycerin as in glycerin soap removed.
It is a fairly simple process as well involving more or less 5g/liter of lye and 20%/unit methanol (which can be bought at raceing stores. The oil is heated and agitated and the methanol Lye concoction is added. After agitation for a while, the glycerin sinks to the bottom and biodiesel is siphoned off the top. Extra steps may be taken to wash it or not. Google girlmark biodiesel for a simple processor.

If that is to time consuming, most cities in the country have suppliers that sell virgen biodiesel. This is made from unused oil which is a little less great because of all the energy input used to grow the soy, or corn. Farmers obviously love the stuff. Although is is not recycling an otherwise waste product it still has a positive energy yield. Meaning more oxygen was released by the plants growing the oil than was consumed by the engines cultivating and then burning the oil. Therefore, it still is a hell of a lot cleaner than petrodiesel and it also is better for the engine than petrol. Go to nationalbiodieselboard.org for your nearest supplier.

With the price of oil what it is now, biodiesel is very economical for tree care companies, especially if it is home brewed. It can also be an advertising point as well. "these trucks run on green fuel"

Furthermore, every time we fill up our huge trucks and cars with gas, petrol diesel, and oil. We are directly funding oil founded terrorist thugs around the world such as al qaeda\ osama, the Bush/Cheney cartel, Nigerian death squads and more. There are so many terrible geopolitical ramifications of buring petrol that 3$ a gallon is still too cheap for what it costs us in death, destruction, and environmental havoc. Its just too bad that the wrong people are getting rich (filthy rich) from these high prices. None of that money is put towards remediating the damage done. global warming anyone? Biodiesel is not the answer for sure, but it is a step in the right direction.
The less of a footprint we leave while caring for trees, the better. Anyway that is my little plug and I hope more tree companies will try it out. Sorry for my political sidetrack, but Tree care by its nature, has to be political.

-Kevin
 
Here’s a good site with info on how to make your own bio-diesel and other forms of renewable energy. They have a FREE monthly magazine/newsletter, which is in your choice of pdf or html, that can be downloaded and saved or read online. The April and May issue show how to make a small batch of bio-diesel.

http://www.rebelwolf.com/

As far as straight oil goes, I know guys that add anywhere from 10 – 50% (weather dependent) filtered oil to their diesel without any problems and without heaters. Some actually filter their used engine oil and use it to make a diesel blend. If you think that’s odd, Cummins actually makes an engine that uses a small portion of the engine oil as part of the combustion process. The driver, in this case, adds a quart of oil every month or so to replenish the oil supply. However, just for the record, Cummins does state no more than 5% oil added to the fuel and 0% for engines with catalytic converters. Apparently, it can clog converters.

Jim
 
I have four vehicles that have been running on bio-diesel since earlier this year. It really is a win-win; it cuts down on the use of imported oil and we pay $.20 per gallon less than the cheapest conventional diesel in this area. In our case, the only downside is that we have to drive a few miles out of the way to get it.
 
We are near Lancaster and there is a chain of Wo-Go convenience store/gas stations that all carry bio. Their main store is in Lancaster and the 4 others are in outlying towns. But they are the only place in the county you can get, as far as I know.
 
I've been buying commercial BD from virgin soy oil for awhile. I'd like to be 100% BD, but costs and convenience (it ain't easy to come by here) have led to blends as low as 5 or 10% bd. My chipper has been almost 100% BD since I ran out the petrol that came with it, though a couple of times I had to break down and get the rotgut when I couldn't wait for the next opportunity to get BD (our local suppliers are open one day a week--until next week, when they expect to have a 24-hr pay-at-the-pump source).

The downside here is, I pay $3.40 for B100 or $2.95 for B99 (no control over which is available). Someday I will have enough land to carve out space for a waste-oil processor.
 
Real climbers don't need ladders!

<font color="green"> Smart climbers take the easy approach. </font>


Lol,

Just today i was at a chemical plant doing logging for and extra site were the will make <font color="blue"> AD blue </font> additive for diesel engines. Thats a new stuff they inject into the exhaustsystem with special catalyst to get the NO3 down in exhaust gas. I think new Mercedes trucks are allready using it on the newest engines with lowest emissions.

AD BLUE system

schematic.jpg


Yara, manufacturer of AD blue, here's te story to..
 
[ QUOTE ]
Diesel here is now at $310/gallon 7 BIO-DIESEL is now up to:
$3.55/gallon
Frans

[/ QUOTE ]
Diesel is about $2.50 here today. B100 is $3.40. I hear that next week we'll be able to get B99 (with tax credit) for about $2.95/gal. Of course, if you have the time and the facilities, you can make it from waste oil for a fraction of that (haven't checked lately, but homebrew costs maybe a buck or so a gallon to make).

k
 
BD interests me even though I only have gassers. How much does it cost to get a small home-brew size setup? If a person could get the veggie for free or the cost of hauling I wonder how long it would take to pay back the cost of the setup.

What are the environmental costs for the lye and other wastes left from making the BD?

Even if the costs are a wash I agree with Kevin, it's important for us to do as much with as little to make a light impact on the world. BD does seem to make good sense.
 
[ QUOTE ]
BD interests me even though I only have gassers. How much does it cost to get a small home-brew size setup? If a person could get the veggie for free or the cost of hauling I wonder how long it would take to pay back the cost of the setup.

What are the environmental costs for the lye and other wastes left from making the BD?

Even if the costs are a wash I agree with Kevin, it's important for us to do as much with as little to make a light impact on the world. BD does seem to make good sense.

[/ QUOTE ]
Tom,
If you're very interested, here's a cheap way to educate yourself:
http://localb100.com/book.html
girlMark is the www expert on homebrew.
You can also read up for free here:
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=cfrm&amp;s=447609751

I can offer some less-than-expert answers, tho. A reactor can be as simple as a 55-gal drum, sometimes available for free if you look. Another popular method is to use a water heater, since it comes plumbed and wired for heat. You can get a simple reaction and make a quart or two at a time in a soda bottle, but a big batch won't work well unless you heat and agitate (drill and paint stirrer usually do the trick for the latter). The results of a complete reaction are BD fuel and glycerine (as in glycerine soap); both are 100% biodegradable. The glycerine settles to the bottom, so you drain it off until you see fuel and burn what's left in your engines.

In the real world, the reaction will usually be less than complete, so you will probably want to add a washing cycle. Basically, you mix in water, let the mixture settle, and then separate the water from the fuel. This is where I'm haziest on the process, but I understand it's more of a waiting game than anything.

I think you could have a processor working for $200-300, but don't hold me to that. You only need a few teaspoons of lye for a pretty large amount of oil, and maybe a quart to a gallon of methanol. Ethanol is apparently harder to use, as the reaction is not as reliable.

more info at www.biodieselnow.com, this site more geared toward people who buy the fuel from a pump or supplier.

k
 
Thats awesome, Its cool to hear other folks are out there experimenting with using and making the stuff.

To Tom's question, the lye and methanol are environmentally hazardous. Methanol is a petroleum product although I hear they are begining to make it from landfill gasses. It is also possible to make biodiesel from ethanol which is plant based, however,it is required in a higher percentage. The Lye is a very strong base. Toilet boil cleaner.

Care must be taken when mixing the methanol and lye because noxious gasses are formed, it is best to do it in a enclosed enclosed system. The methanol is also flamable and burns extermely/ invsible flame. I dont think it is more ignitable than gasoline though.

While those are nasty alone, the only main byproduct from the proccess is glycerine I hear they are using for keeping the dust down on rural roads and at road projects. It is cool stuff, its like a jelly that will clean anything. I used it to clean engine parts and it was like magic.

Biodiesel definitly is not the answer. Using our farm land to run trucks is not the best thing in the world, especially if your dumping chemicals and fertilizers on genetically modified monocultures.

I think it is a step, and it is part of the proccess in finding a solution. Always assume, no matter what your doing, that your doing it wrong. There is always a better more efficient way to do it.
 
[ QUOTE ]

Biodiesel definitly is not the answer. Using our farm land to run trucks is not the best thing in the world, especially if your dumping chemicals and fertilizers on genetically modified monocultures.

I think it is a step, and it is part of the proccess in finding a solution. Always assume, no matter what your doing, that your doing it wrong. There is always a better more efficient way to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree that BD is not "the answer," but I also do not believe there is any one answer to the petrol crisis that looms before us.

But the cropland argument is a specious one. It assumes incorrectly that we must use some kind of food crop to make BD. Actually, any plant or animal oil can be used to make BD. Many people are experimenting with jatropha, which is (so I hear) a shrubby plant with a high oil yield that can grow well in arid areas (i.e., not suitable for most food crops). Others are figuring out the best strain/extraction method for oil-producing algae, which can be grown easily almost anywhere. There are undoubtedly other examples, but you get the idea. We don't have to sacrifice food to get BD. And, to the extent that we use food crops, we certainly don't have to dump chemicals on or limit ourselves to one crop.

BD is not likely to replace all current petrol usage, nor even all current diesel usage, but it is a good step in the right direction, available now for use in any diesel engine the same as petrol. There are drawbacks for those in cold-weather areas and those with older cars that still have rubber fuel lines, but they are worth efforts to surmount them IMO.

k
 
I don't know about the funding, but this study is quite flawed. Inputs were exaggerated across the board. It was assumed we'd be clearcutting forests to created crop land. I think the basic premise was that we would be trying to replace every gallon of petrol with BD. The reality is, this is a nice intermediate step that could grow to more someday. The cornell study also assumes soy is the only source of oil for BD, and factors in the waste products as an energy input (when if fact it is quite useful, mainly as animal feed). In fact, rapeseed BD is most common in Europe and research is ongoing to produce it from algae. Meanwhile, any vegetable oil can be turned into fuel, and many crops produce more oil than soy.

Here's an opposing view on the study:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bgoodsel/post911/pimentel.htm

and a US gov't report that finds BD produces 3X the input:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf

Again, I don't know if Pimental has an ax to grind or if he started with misguided assumptions, or if he's just a bad scientist, but you can bet the petrol industry has done all it can to plaster his results everywhere, and media, in the interest of "presenting the other side," have happily obliged. It's unfortunate, but I believe the truth will come out in the end.

k
 
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