Bio-Fuel
Here’s a picture of waste vegetable oil being filtered for use as fuel for a vehicle.
Here is an email I received from Dan:
Subject: Bio-fuels
I have been skeptical of any claims about bio-fueling being worth anything.
I have been meaning to write you something about them since I saw stuff
about bio-fuels on your blog. Finally I have a decent source to say that I
think I have heard before. Here it is, from
http://www.perc.org/publications/
percreports/june2003/phantasm.html“[Ethanol use is not]likely to contribute to energy independence. A critical
study of ethanol’s energy and environmental effects published in the
Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology (Pimentel 2002) concluded
that conversion of corn and other food/feed crops into ethanol by
fermentation is a net energy user.”Now ethanol obviously isn’t bio-diesel, but I would bet that bio-diesel is a
net energy user as well. This means that it makes more energy to get the
ethanol than you get from ethanol in the end. Anyway, when I find my
bio-diesel stuff, I will send it to you.
I have also been a skeptic of Ethanol. I’ve read some studies like those Dan mentioned which indicate that ethanol is a very un-economical alternative fuel source. Its popularity rests on the power of the corn industry lobby in congress. Ethanol is corporate welfare forced on Americans by their government at a loss. It ticks me off. Click here for a little more information on the history of ethanol and here for more information on what Congress (the Republicans) has recently done to futher screw up energy policy.
I would also bet that it won’t be very hard to come up with data which would indicate that vegetable oil isn’t a very economical fuel source alternative to diesel (remember I’m talking bout Greasel, not BioDiesel which is different). I just think it is cool that there are people who have figured out a way to burn it in their vehicles. I especially like the idea of how these people go about getting their fuel. You should check out the site I linked to in the earlier post and read about what these people do. Clearly it would be much easier and much more cost effective (when you consider the time they spend collecting fuel) to go out and buy a tank of diesel. These people are so damn tight that they are willing to go begging at fast food stores for waste oil. It’s awesome!
I doubt I’d be able to put up a great argument that this could be more economical than oil from the ground…especially on the small scale it is being done. It would be interesting though to see what would happen to the Ag industry if this gained more popularity. I doubt it will be easy to find a study on where the cost of vegetable oil would stabilize if this became a more popular fuel source. When you consider the number of farmers and land owners who are being paid not to produce anything on their land, you have to wonder if the price of vegetable oil could be brought below that of diesel if the incentive of demand were implemented along with the elimination of farm subsidies.
That is a study I would be interested in.
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The world can use some alternate fuel choices.
Comment by Michael — June 12, 2003 @ 8:34 am
If you listened to NPR more often you would have heard about this six months ago. There is a guy in the UK who runs all of his vehicles on this….evidently it creates an incredible stench. Sounds like fun to me! I going to start hitting up all of the Chinese restaurants in town to get all of their old veg oil–and some fortune cookies. The oil for my car and the fortune cookies to determine my lifes mission.
Comment by Bryan — June 19, 2003 @ 1:35 am