Biotour.org's bus can get halfway across the country on a single fill of waste vegetable oil ( WVO ).
They get their fuel from the used oil tank behind restaurants.
All processing of incoming oil takes place right on the bus, mostly while it's in motion. That means heating, water separation and filtration. They get about 10 mpg on veggie oil, which is about the same as they do on diesel.
This bus is a VEGGIE DIESEL bus, that can burn straight vegetable oil, as well as regular diesel or biodiesel.
It's a "two-tank" system, which means the bus has a small tank of biodiesel (or diesel) to start the engine, and then they switch to straight vegetable oil when the engine is hot.
For the uninitiated, Biodiesel is veggie oil that's been subjected to a chemical process so it's thin and runny (lower viscosity) all the time and can be run in unmodified diesel engines. This bus runs on straight veggie oil, no reaction needed. It only requires biodiesel or diesel fuel except for starting and shutting down the engine.
Check out [www.biotour.org biotour.org's website] for the history of how their methods have evolved.
Here Ethan Burke shows the pre-filters.
In another side compartment is the collection hose. They park next to the restaurant's waste tank, dip the end of their collection hose into the top, and start pumping oil into their storaage tanks.
They dip a piece of cardboard into the oil and do other connoisseur stuff to see if they want that restaurant's oil or not.
They don't want the oil at the bottom of the waste tank because that's where water and dirt settles. Their collection hose has a screen on the end to filter out bits of french fries, dead leaves, etc.
They get their fuel from the used oil tank behind restaurants.
All processing of incoming oil takes place right on the bus, mostly while it's in motion. That means heating, water separation and filtration. They get about 10 mpg on veggie oil, which is about the same as they do on diesel.
This bus is a VEGGIE DIESEL bus, that can burn straight vegetable oil, as well as regular diesel or biodiesel.
It's a "two-tank" system, which means the bus has a small tank of biodiesel (or diesel) to start the engine, and then they switch to straight vegetable oil when the engine is hot.
For the uninitiated, Biodiesel is veggie oil that's been subjected to a chemical process so it's thin and runny (lower viscosity) all the time and can be run in unmodified diesel engines. This bus runs on straight veggie oil, no reaction needed. It only requires biodiesel or diesel fuel except for starting and shutting down the engine.
Check out [www.biotour.org biotour.org's website] for the history of how their methods have evolved.
Here Ethan Burke shows the pre-filters.
In another side compartment is the collection hose. They park next to the restaurant's waste tank, dip the end of their collection hose into the top, and start pumping oil into their storaage tanks.
They dip a piece of cardboard into the oil and do other connoisseur stuff to see if they want that restaurant's oil or not.
They don't want the oil at the bottom of the waste tank because that's where water and dirt settles. Their collection hose has a screen on the end to filter out bits of french fries, dead leaves, etc.
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Signing UpStep 1: Storage Tanks
These three 55 gallon oildrums are strapped under the rear of the bus.
The incoming oil goes here. The transfer pump can empty either of the side tanks into the center tank.
The center tank is heated.
The incoming oil goes here. The transfer pump can empty either of the side tanks into the center tank.
The center tank is heated.
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The steps are 20-> 5-> 1. If you were ever wondering what to do with the disgusting rest aka fat.
Here is a solution. :-)
This is a really powerful stove which has about 10 kw. It burns anything like fat, oil or even used engine oil and there will be NO=0! smoke!
If you want details send me a mail
cheers from Germany
I have been working on a waste oil heater for my workshop and saw this. Any chance you could share the design with me.
Thanks in advance.
I have got your detailed written plans but have you got any pictures of the steps that I can see or a youtube video?
cheers Greenpig
Just one thing to mention: be careful with the smoke if it dosent burn decent (white smoke etc.) it hurts in the lungs and is probably very bad.
happy new year
Sometimes we forget that Diesel was a brilliant inventor and
ran his early models on Peanut Oil. His invention brought us away
from steam. A great book to read and is free online is :
Diesel's Rational Heat Motor
A lecture
By Rudolph Diesel
He was a Genius, Not a Product! And died under mysterious circumstances.
We are creating a center called The Global ARC with a bunch of scholars, authors, grassroots passionatios, scientists and begin with a 2000 mile bike journey. We need a bio fuel bus to follow. The project will be a documentary and can be followed in real time. Do you have such a bus?
Contact me at groupworks@aol.com. It is time to wake the world up with a positive, educational and evidenced based solutions to the wiked problems we face. Many thanks,
Jayne
Cellulosic ethanol: not likely to be viable
Cellulosic ethanol: not likely to be viable New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State
Biodiesel is a fuel that is made from the long-chain esters (fatty acids) from plants. These are usually concentrated in a few parts of the plant such as seeds.
The problem is that only a very small part of the overall plant, just a few percent of its dry weight, is made up of these esters. The rest is basically some kind of cellulose or starch. So you'd be throwing away that part of the plant (or doing something less useful with it) rather than making fuel from it.
Their may be a niche for biodiesel, using by-products that we'd throw away anyway (like old vegetable oil) , but it would never make sense to grow plants for this purpose -- it would be too expensive (which is what i was trying to get at).
FYI About Biodiesel:
The Penn State site has this to say about the disadvantages of biodiesel:
Biodiesel requires very high production costs. The reasons for this are mainly that soybeans, the predominant source of biodiesel, only yield 20% oil, when much more is needed. Recycled oils can be used more cost effectively, but there isn't nearly enough recycled oil to satisfy the demand for biodiesel as a fuel. Understandably, there are also a lot of steps taken to produce and utilize the soybeans. The cultivation of the crops and the transformation of them into biodiesel takes time. The numerous amounts of manpower and machine needed for this process adds to the high cost.
FYI About Ethanol:
From USA TODAY:
Politically it's hard to go wrong promoting an alternative fuel made from American corn. But, as often happens, reality rears its ugly head.
Ethanol is a cleaner-burning fuel than gasoline, to be sure — using ethanol instead of gas can reduce greenhouse gases by 35-46%, according to Argonne National Laboratory. But it's not as efficient a fuel as gasoline. In fact, it takes a gallon and a half of ethanol to give you the same energy as a gallon of gas.
Let's do some math.
To get a gallon of ethanol, you need a little more than 26 pounds of corn, and an acre of land can yield about 9,400 pounds per year. In other words, one acre of land can generate about 362 gallons of ethanol per year.
But people in the U.S. use about 174 million gallons of gasoline per day just for their cars (so says the Department of Energy). If the Magic Fairy came down and all our cars suddenly ran on ethanol we would need about 261 million gallons per day.
That would require more than 260 million acres of corn to produce. Considering that in 2000 farmers in the U.S. harvested about 73 million acres of corn, it looks like they'll need to get cracking.
They'll also need to get spraying. See, you can't get that kind of yield without fertilizer, and I'm not talking about manure. Corn growers in the U.S. use about 137 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer per acre, according to the 2002 Agricultural Chemical Usage. They'll also need weed control — about a pound per acre of atrazine, the most popular herbicide. And let's not forget all the fresh water for irrigation.
So let's cut to the chase: To get enough ethanol from corn to power our cars, Americans would need to use almost 13 million tons more fertilizer, and dump more than 93.5 million tons of atrazine into the environment every year. (The potential health effects of atrazine read like the small print in a drug ad: congestion of the heart, lungs, and kidneys; low blood pressure; muscle spasms; weight loss; damage to adrenal glands. And that's in the short term.)
There is a lot of good to say about ethanol — it's renewable, it's easily portable, it's fairly 'energetic,' and it burns cleaner than gasoline. But it's not the answer. It's not magic. Remember that politicians are very good at bending the truth and forgetting to mention the down sides. And just because something grows on trees — or stalks — doesn't mean it doesn't cost.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-02-20-kantor_x.htm
The only "real" problems with biodiesel are finding the best way to grow algae and finding a way to keep 100% biodiesel from gelling at low temperatures. (It gets waxy when cold.) Oh yeah, and everyone would have to drive diesels...lol.
The advantages are amazing...overall reduction in CO2 (by about 70-75%). Burning biodiesel puts out a little more CO2 than regular diesel, but the production process for biodiesel puts out a LOT less CO2 than the diesel production process. There's already infrastructure in place for biodiesel, which is NOT the case for hydrogen.
So, what's not to love? I'm not saying it's going to be the solution to all our fuel issues, but it's definitely the best choice we have available right now and will buy us more time for other solutions.
Plus, no more importing oil! :) (at least not as much...)
I'm actually pretty sure that algae captures more of the sun’s energy and produces more oxygen (a byproduct of photosynthesis) than all plants combined. No better time to start killing algae than during a global warming crisis right?!?
You know who doesn't have this problem...the Amish. So the solution to all this is, become Amish.
Read more:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573848/algae.htmlsun
Read about it here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.html
+1
I still have my '85 Renault 5 1.4l - It gets around 45-50mpg @ around 100hp. The Turbo models were never sold in Canada, but if I could find one...
Couldn't agree more...I dunno why I have to own a 6L diesel, at an avg of ~17 mpg (unloaded) to pull my workload when I know it can be done with around 20% of the displacement and even perform at around 2-300% of the fuel efficiency...
FYI: I drive a Ford f250 Super Duty 6.0L turbo diesel, making a maximum of 305 HP, even though I only use around 200HP when pulling 8 tons around the Smoky Mountains...and I average a little over 9 MPG when towing heavy.
In my youth, I owned a '81 Volkswagen Caddy with a tiny 1.6 L 4-cylinder, ~130HP diesel engine that had a 1/4 ton capacity and I normally hauled a 6000Lb boat and trailer with it... for around 30+MPG...WHILE PULLING!
Nowadays, a 1/2 ton rated pickup can do the same job...with a 4+Liter engine making around 300 HP (way more than needed) and a measly `20+MPG (unloaded)...
Seems like we've regressed, eh?