[rescue] ooo ! ebay catagory I just found

Fri Jul 12 12:45:24 CDT 2002

Please excuse the top-posting. I'm using Notes here at work and it leaves
something to be desired in handling replies.

I don't profess to be an expert on this stuff - I'm neither a gearhead nor
a chemist. I've got friends who are using barely-processed used cooking
grease for their diesel vehicles and while I find the idea fascinating, it
seems obvious that there's not enough freely available waste grease for
greasel to be a viable solution for a majority of americans.

I'm mostly idly toying with the idea of biodiesel/greasel. The articles
I've read over the past week or so do refer to some hoses being replaced,
but say that conversion necessary is minimal. The same articles also talk
about it being rather efficient in terms of energy expenditure to produce.
Of course, these are not entirely objective sources as many of the articles
I read were from biodiesel.org. What purpose do nitromethane and benzoyl
peroxide serve? Are they used to improve viscosity? Are they used in
refining?

It seems like a neat idea and I figured I'd read up on it. One problem I'm
seeing is that the theoretical maximum annual vegetable oil production is
far outstripped by annual gas consumption. Every little bit helps, I guess.

-carl

                    James Lockwood                                                                        
                    <james at foonly.        To:     rescue at sunhelp.org                                      
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                    Sent by:              Subject:     Re: [rescue] ooo ! ebay catagory I just found      
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                    07/12/02 12:30                                                                        
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On Fri, 12 Jul 2002 CARL.P.HIRSCH at sargentlundy.com wrote:

> You want deals - I've been enjoying this for the past few weeks. I came
> across it while looking for Diesel 4x4s to convert to Biodiesel/Greasel.

Out of curiousity, why?

Rubber incompatability is an issue.  You probably want to bump up the
cetane number, but nitromethane is expensive, hazardous and pollutes.
Benzoyl peroxide is better but will make gelling much worse.

Last I checked, using biodiesel wasn't even at the breakeven point
compared with the energy necessary for production (not just farming, but
in the transesterification stage).  Make it yourself and you have an
assload (excuse the term) of glycerol to deal with.  It's nowhere near as
bad as ethanol from corn, though, which can only be even vaguely
economical with massive subsidies (it takes 70% more energy to produce the
ethanol than you get by burning it).

If you don't transesterify, you are playing games with a multi-thousand
PSI injection pump and injectors.  They are not designed to handle
glyceryl esters, the seals will get eaten over time.

I'd love to jump on the biofuels bandwagon, but I can't find a convincing
reason.  Sure, they're renewable, but they're a renewable energy _sink_.

-James