[Diy_efi] Veggie van

[Eric Byrd]

Pat,

You may be right.  You sound as if you are more thoroughly and
specifically informed than I am.  But  when someone says veggie oil is
closed cycle, that is not strictly true.  If any petrol was burned in the
planting, tending, harvesting, processing of veggie oil, it isn't closed
cycle.  It's a distinction that has to be explored to find to what extent
the idea is truly closed cycle, or we fall into the same trap as people
who buy a fuel-cell car, thinking it is "zero emissions".  If the
hydrogen came from water that was split by commercial utilities'
electricity, it is not zero emissions.  When someone says there is no
nonrenewableness in the biodiesel production process, they are wrong, if
any petrol was burned during the planting, etc. etc. etc.  But at least
it sounds like you can make a good case for biodiesel being cleaner than
petrodiesel, if not perfectly clean.  Good for you.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:03:26 +1100 "Patrick Cahill"
<patc4 at optushome.com.au> writes:
> >I don't think it's that simple.  McDonald's is going to do business 
> and
> >make french fries no matter what we do, so there will always be 
> lots of
> >used french fry oil, as long as no more than a few people use it to 
> run
> >their cars.  But the cycle of growing food, tending it, harvesting 
> it,
> >processing the oil out of it to burn in cars is not solar powered, 
> and on
> >the scale of use that people use petrodiesel, Biodiesel would not 
> be
> >solar generated, nor all the CO2 closed cycle.  That raises the 
> question
> >"how much effort does it take to produce a billion barrels of 
> petrodiesel
> >vs. biodiesel?"  These little hidden sources of non-renewableness 
> reduce
> >the feasibility of so-called "clean" energy sources.
> 
> >Whereas I know that if I use solar power to split water, that is 
> closed
> >cycle.
> 
> The amount of effort needed to produce a billion barrels of 
> biodiesel would
> be a bit more efficient to a billion barrels of petro diesel. I say 
> this
> using the batch/catalyst method of production for the biodiesel. As 
> I think
> I metnioned in an earlier post, there are newer and much more 
> efficient
> processes which are now coming out of the experimental phase.
> 
> As for hidden non-renewableness in either batch or flow type 
> biodiesel,
> there are none.
> 
> The closed carbon cycle referred to is in fact, fact. Someone 
> mentioned that
> petrodiesel is also a closed cycle, it just takes millions of years. 
> My
> point exactly. A lot of the atmospherical damage currently being 
> wrought on
> the panet is due to the fact that we are digging up carbon which has 
> sat
> underground for millenia and are now throwing it into the 
> atmosphere. We
> then expect our current level of vegetation to clean this mess up 
> for us
> (ala the Greenfleet idea in Asutralia) and then panic when it 
> doesn't.
> 
> The process of growing the food, harvesting the food and processing 
> the oil
> is still a better proposition than pumping out an oil well shipping 
> it to a
> refinery (ask the Spanish what a great idea this can be) refining 
> and
> cracking it through several processes (most taking a huge amount of 
> heat)
> and finally shipping it off to market.
> 
> I negelected to mention the problems of setting up an oil well to 
> start
> with.
> 
> Believe me, I am not the type of person you would normally find 
> advocating
> "Green" alternatives (Iam a race engineer by day) and I agree that 
> some of
> these alternatives can be a backward step. However, the long term
> implications of biodiesel and the short term simplicity of 
> implementation
> makes it a very attractive alternative to any other current fuel.
> 
> Patrick Cahill
> 


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