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dukey
Fission
Joined: Feb 20, 2005
Posts: 2063
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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: Vegetable oil |
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Something interesting has happened.
The price of diesel at my local petrol station is now £1.35 / litre ($10 /us gallon for you yanks). The cheapest you can get it for around here is probably £1.28 currently.
Now vegetable oil ..
In bulk is roughly £1/litre which if you could run it directly .. is quite some saving. Before the mods jump in and go OMG ILLEGAL, actually it's not any more.
| Quote: |
Since the law changed in July, it is now legal to make up to 2,500 litres of your own biodiesel, enough to run the average family car, without having to pay tax. |
bbc news
Some minor conversion kits may be needed for your car to run this stuff directly, fuel preheating, perhaps different injectors. But you could have some serious savings (for now) using veg oil instead of diesel. |
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kpeavey
Expert
Joined: Oct 04, 2004
Posts: 1313
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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I think that as long as we can produce biofuels, the internal combustion engine will be around. Maybe not for use by the general population, unless they produce their own, but definitely for military and police use.
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Daculling
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Apr 12, 2005
Posts: 1361
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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So when the petrol is gone you are going to produce these fuels with what?
Gangs of men pulling a plow for a police state... this is getting good...
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errorist
Tar Sands
Joined: May 28, 2008
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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Multifuel tank engine should have enough power to pull some plows...
| Daculling wrote: | So when the petrol is gone you are going to produce these fuels with what?
Gangs of men pulling a plow for a police state... this is getting good... |
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kpeavey
Expert
Joined: Oct 04, 2004
Posts: 1313
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 11:14 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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organic methods can produce the crops. I have gone into some detail in other posts that organic crops may not be scalable for giant fields and certainly not to replace the fuel consumption levels of today, but it is still possible. Sunflowers, corn, rape, cottonseed, there are plenty of oil crops out there. Determining the end use of the resulting fuel would take further consideration. I'm thinking those vehicles which can be replaced with animal power would not be good candidates. Heavy equipment and emergency vehicles would be in demand and will still require fuel. As a cottage industry, oil and biofuel production may be viable.
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Madpaddy
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Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 2124
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:47 am Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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Here's the thing.
Diesel in Irelandis €1.44 per litre. I run my car on vegetable oil. Until recently it retailed in tesco for 68 cents per litre for tesco rapeseed vegetable oil. It was the same pric ein Lidl and Dunnes Stores (an Irih retailer0. All the chains have raised te price per ltre to 99cents a rise over 40% in a week. It's still cheaper than diesel but I think that vegge oil will rise to the same price as diesel imminently.
Dukey - those prices for veggie oil seem extremely high. Groceries are generaly 15% cheaper in the UK than Ireland which when you take currency into account means you should be paying about 55p stg per litre. What gives.
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Kingcoal
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Joined: Sep 29, 2004
Posts: 2330
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:29 am Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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When no one else is doing it, it's cheap. Once it becomes popular, the price will skyrocket. That's the way it works, everything is in flux, there is nothing static about prices. That's why biofuels of any kind are no answer.
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Jupidu
Tar Sands
Joined: Sep 03, 2005
Posts: 75
Location: Germany, State M-V
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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| Quote: | | organic methods can produce the crops. I have gone into some detail in other posts that organic crops may not be scalable for giant fields and certainly not to replace the fuel consumption levels of today, but it is still possible. |
Hope! Yes they are scalable. E.g. you can start to use the method of intercropping. Gold-of-pleasure or false flax (Camelina sativa; from Wikipedia: "Gold-of-pleasure is also of interest for its very low requirements for tillage and weed control. This could potentially allow vegetable oil to be produced more cheaply than from traditional oil crops, which would be particularly attractive to biodiesel producers looking for a feedstock cheap enough to allow them to compete with petroleum diesel and gasoline.") combined with peas can produce a usual or even a better harvest of peas PLUS about 270 Liter of flax oil wich can be pressed out of the seeds (and you need about 100 Liter of oil to manage the whole production on a hectar). This plant can be harvested with the usual harvester.
This is an info of a study of professor Schrimpff from Weihenstephan (technical college for agriculture).
The disadvantage of this combination needs some rain (i think something of 800 Liter per square meter a year at least).
But for sure there are also combinations for regions with less rain.
What about hemp? It needs only a fraction of water, pesticides and fertilizer (bad for fertilizer industry) in relation to cotton. This plant also enhances the soil, can be used as fodder, fibres can be used, you can gain oil from the seeds, more paper can be produced from a hectar of hemp then from a forest in the same size (even if you calculate with the years till a tree can be "harvested").
A similar plant (fibres, etc.) is sun hemp, this is even a leguminose, which can produce it's own fertilizer (nitrogen) and it contains nothing of this bad, bad, bad chemical called THC (curing many deseases; bad for chemical industry)
In Germany the price of 1L veg oil in bottles seems to be at 1,15€ now, a few days ago i saw it at 0,99€ (this lasted at least four or five months).
Depending on your fuel injection pump and your nozzles you have to modify a lot or very few things at your car to run it with pure veg oil (it's even possible with some types of common rail pumps). On a hectar you can harves (at least in the middle of Europe) about 4 tonnes of rapeseed. You can gain 1,3 tonnes of rape oil out of this amount. |
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Jupidu
Tar Sands
Joined: Sep 03, 2005
Posts: 75
Location: Germany, State M-V
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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Sorry, triple post
Last edited by Jupidu on Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jupidu
Tar Sands
Joined: Sep 03, 2005
Posts: 75
Location: Germany, State M-V
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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| Sorry double post |
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misterno
Heavy Crude
Joined: Mar 07, 2007
Posts: 309
Location: Houston, TX
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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| What is the fuel efficiency of vegetable oil? I know that ethanol wil give you %30 less MPG but dunno anything about veggy oil. |
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yesplease
Fission
Joined: Oct 03, 2006
Posts: 2482
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:18 pm Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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A few percent lower, all things being equal.
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Madpaddy
Expert
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 2124
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:56 am Post subject: Re: Vegetable oil |
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Veggie oil give me same mpg as diesel but 10% less power - like I care.
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