[Hidden-tech] Biodiesel

[Mark Bucciarelli]

On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 06:16:26PM -0400, Matthew Crocker wrote:
> 
> I followed one of these down I-91 the other day  http:// 
> www.greasecar.com/  Seems pretty interesting, no idea on how well it  
> works.
> 
> From my understanding, turning cooking oil into diesel requires some  
> pretty toxic chemicals.  It isn't really suited for home production.

hey matt, it is interesting!  and there's quite a cottage
industry growing in our state.  in addition to justin at
greasecar in easthampton, there's the lynn and eric and dave in
greenfield trying to build a plant that will produce the stuff
(they need about 500 more people who will pony up a grand for
a share in the coop). alliance energy in holyoke is a distributor and
world energy in chelsea is one of the handful of national distributors
of biodiesel. finally, there is a startup in cambridge that produces
the vegetable oil from algae that grows by feeding on the waste heat of
smokestacks. they just got 18 million in venture capital and the state
college in wachusett (iirc) has one of their "kits" installed. this is
really the only way it will scale--some algea is 50% oil by weight.

and just to clarify ...

you do not need to modify a diesel to run biodiesel.

to run straight grease, you need to convert your car (mainly to
heat the grease to lower it's viscocity).

unless you live in florida and drive an older mercedes, in which
case you can dump in canola oil straight from the supermarket.
:)

finally, to convert grease into biodiesel, you have to "esterize"
the molecules by mixing the grease with a solution of methanol
and lye. it produces glycerin and biodiesel, both of which are not
toxic. but the lye and methanol definately are. i considered making it
for a while, but didn't know what to do with the glycerin--you get a
_lot_. for every five gallons of biodiesel fuel you get 1 gallon of
low-quality glycerin.

so i'm very supportive of rick fleming's shell stations, where i can
fill up w/ b100 at the pump for about $3.00 a gallon. :)

m