 |
www.hopedance.org
|
| <back | home The Past-Present-Future of Biodiesel and Alcohol by Ryan LaPorte Where does gasoline come from? The generally-accepted origin of crude oil is from plant life up to 3 billion years ago, but mostly from 100 to 600 million years ago. "Dead vegan dino dinner" is more correct than "dead dinos." Leaves and plant material make up some of the oil deposits, but the main part comes from ancient peat bogs and algae ponds. Over time, the hydrocarbons (oil) formed in the folds beneath the earth’s surface. As many already know, the finite supply of oil has peaked, according the some researchers [as detailed in HopeDance #47 and #48], as supplies of oil dwindle and demand continues to rise. Here in America, we produce 3% of the world’s oil and use 25% (according to the resource council as of May 2004). America, with 5.1% of the world’s population, has to import 22% of the world’s oil to "keep things flowing." So how can I have a truck that does not run on fuel made from foreign oil? Easy... I bought an 80’s Toyota pickup that gets 35 MPG and runs on a 2.4 Liter Toyota Diesel engine. Biodiesel is biodegradable, non-toxic, domestically produced and can be made from renewable resources. Today the diesel engine is more maintenance free and longer lasting and has three times the mileage of gas engines. Diesels need less tune-ups because they have no spark plugs or distributor. Diesels run a lot longer (There are Ford turbo diesels known to go 1 million miles!); average diesels make it well over 300,000 miles. Our trains, big-rigs, farm equipment, and heavy-duty work trucks all run on diesel. Many passenger cars are diesels as well. The VW Golf, Jetta, and Passat TDIs all get about 49 MPG and are very sporty. Mercedes has been making excellent diesels since the 1940s. Now, most vehicles have to be modified to run on straight vegetable oil, but no modification is necessary if you use Biodiesel. Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine in the hopes of creating an engine that could use a variety of fuels. In 1900, a "petite" model of his engine won grand prize at the World’s Fair in Paris, running on peanut oil. Biodiesel is a fuel made from vegetable oil, ethanol, and lye. It is a direct replacement for diesel fuel and requires no engine modifications. The process of making biodiesel is more akin to brewing than toxic fuel manufacturing. The oil, which is collected from waste restaurant oil, is heated to around 125 degrees F, and mixed with the alcohol and lye. The process is a little more complicated than that, but not very much. Biodiesel can be produced in large plants or simply brewed in a garage. For demonstration purposes, I have seen biodiesel made in a blender. Biodiesel can also be mixed with petro-diesel in any portion. B20 (20% biodiesel) or D80 as hardcore biodiesel enthusiasts refer to it, is the most popular commercial blend. So one might say... "Where can I fill up my car?" I have been purchasing my biodiesel locally from Agrifuels, who distributes it in 5-gallon buckets through J.B. Dewar. The downside is that it is from the Midwest, and costs $5 a gallon once it’s on the shelf here in landlocked SLO town. But the price is quickly countered from the satisfaction I get from being able to put a "No War Needed" bumper sticker on my back window. As far as other California cities, Berkeley is switching their city vehicles over to biodiesel blends (www.berkeleybiodiesel.org), and San Jose has a full working pump that I use for trips up to the Bay Area. There are already filling stations across the country that can be found on the web at www.biodiesel.org. So... you have a gasoline powered car? Well, you can sell it, trade it, or tell Congress to start switching to ethanol blends. Ethanol, a replacement for MTBE in California, is essentially pure alcohol. An ethanol infrastructure in California could make a transition to alcohol based fuels using the cheap energy we still have (as of February 2005). Ethanol can be made from waste crops and almost anything else made of starch. What’s interesting is that Henry Ford’s Model A was designed to run on either alcohol OR gasoline, whichever was available to the driver. You would simply adjust the fuel mixture knob inside the cab to switch over to alcohol when you drove out to the country. Except during Prohibition, (which was funded by $4 million dollars by Rockefeller, the owner of Standard Oil) alcohol had been available at the pump until the end of WWII. Why aren’t we using these fuels already? Some claim it was pressure and greed from the Petro-chemical companies (Oil, fertilizers, and pesticides... the "good" things in life). I also work for oil companies, because I work for a company that cleans up their accidents. Besides, what does business know about sustainability? Sustainability costs extra, therefore it has been left out of the equation. To modern business it is an externality, just like the environment and raw resources, an additional cost to be ignored. The first roadblock to "alternatives" is the cost. "What’s the price?" is always the second question people ask me, after "What is biodiesel?" As our society becomes more dependent on foreign sources of energy, an external cost must be paid, be it money or wars. Currently our entire transportation, delivery, and agricultural systems are dependent on fossil fuels. Most of these industries don’t know that domestic sources of fuel exist, because the infrastructure is not in place. Renewable sources of energy are frequently referred to as alternative forms of energy. Shouldn’t they be called primary fuels? Not to break it down to black and white terms, but there is a good and a bad to all of this. In 1999, one of my college professors said, "We will not have enough crops to fulfill both our country’s fuel needs and our country’s food needs." Food and fuel are inextricably linked, because they are both our sources of energy. Your food does not arrive on your dinner table for free, you know. In fact, in the U.S. food travels an average 1300 miles to get to our dinner table. How much fossil fuel does it take to ship a tanker load of biodiesel from Iowa to California? How much petro-diesel does it take to grow the genetically modified soybeans? Better yet, how much fossil fuel does it take to get your organic kiwis from New Zealand to Trader Joe’s? That’s the funny thing about humans: where there’s a will, there’s a way. The only way we can do this is by combining different technologies (specifically three). The trident-like approach would be from the agricultural sector, the societal design sector, and the scientific sector. The agricultural sector would provide the land and the resources for the production of food and fuel. Most experts agree that we don’t have enough land for both, but they also don’t account for hemp. That’s right... hemp. Hemp is the only way we will produce enough crops to supply both our food and energy needs. Hemp seeds contain the highest percentage of Omega-3 fatty acids. These are the healthiest fatty acids, and are only produced by plants. Fish contain Omega-3, but only because of the algae they ingest. Hemp also replaces energy, water, and fuel-wasting industries such as cotton and lumber, with a renewable and environmental-sustaining process. Depending on the climate, it can also be grown for three growing cycles a year. It will take some initiative to convince the government it is in their best interest to legalize industrial hemp, and to stop the lobby money that continues to blind them from the truth. Some groups are leading efforts to end the hemp prohibition that started with the 1937 tax act. (www.votetosmoke.org, www.votehemp.com, www.thehia.org, www.naich.org, www.hemp.com) I would also like to see an initiative between local farmers to cooperatively share an oil seed pressing device. Local farmers with some spare dry-farm land could pool small oil seed crops, press the oil, and sell it to local restaurants. Soon a loop will form with farmers supplying vegetable oil to restaurants locally. Biodiesel producers collecting the used oil and supplying the farmers and restaurants with inexpensive fuel will eventually making a "lower cost" feedback loop. The societal design sector is mutually linked to agriculture. How far should we have to transport fresh produce? What skills will children learn in school? How much of your day are you willing to use to live a life filled with endless material goods? Why are gas stations allowed to sell a toxic byproduct of oil distillation as a fuel? (Gasoline and MTBE) If we want a permanent, renewable, and local fuel distribution network, we must create it from the ground up. Local biodiesel producers must first coordinate their efforts. Don’t just start one per town, start many in all the little towns and surrounding communities. Learn to pool resources or function as a web. If one biodiesel station goes down, others can cover the resources for a while. It needs to be taken a step further, though. The restaurants that supply the oil need to start driving their work trucks on biodiesel. The biodiesel producers need to contact local farmers to get the farms running sustainably. The most important step is the agreements between this web of producers and suppliers. Everyone in "the loop" must agree to lower their costs when the price of fuel, food, or product goes down. Some businesses may be tempted to pocket the extra profits, but this would only hurt their business by not reflecting the true costs. Maybe it’s time for handshakes to start meaning something. You might say still... "Will hemp, co-ops, and handshakes save us? What about our population growth?" Technology and science might just lend us a helping hand. This article is running long, so I put it upon you to look into this list of technologies you may have never heard of before. My final note would be: Do not rely on others or on technology to do these tasks for you; you must be the change you want to see in the world. New Technology: Thermal depolymerization promises to turn "waste" carbon-based products into water, oil, and minerals. It sounds like magic, but I promise it’s real. http://tinyurl.com/5otkl Ethanol to Hydrogen: fuel cells created by University of Minnesota researchers can turn pure alcohol into hydrogen without combustion. "Hydrogen power itself is hardly a new idea. Hydrogen fuel cells already propel experimental vehicles and supply power for some buildings. NASA has used them on spacecraft for decades. But hydrogen is expensive to make and uses fossil fuels." http://tinyurl.com/4367f Cheap Solar Power: Finally! Leave it to Europe to lead us in new solar technology that can compete with fossil fuel prices. ST Microelectronics, Europe’s largest semiconductor maker, have made the first stable prototypes of the new cells. http://tinyurl.com/68a83 Hybrid Electric Diesels: have been around a lot longer than most Prius drivers think. Most trains are actually huge hybrid electric diesels. Electric motors assisted by engines are much more efficient than a combustion engine alone. http://tinyurl.com/6yxhb Hybrid Rotary Engine: could be the next diesel engine. This engine is a cross between a "Boxter"-style piston engine and a rotary drive engine. http://tinyurl.com/5uc5f <back | top^ |