BioFuels
Biodiesel & Vegetable oil
US Navy Produces it's own Biodiesel!
Biofuel from Algae: Article 1 Article 2 Article 3
Biofuel from Fish Oil: Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Iodine Issues
Anything into Oil -Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year
Recipe for Car Power: Heat Vegetable Oil, Flip Switch and Go.
"Normally, a restaurateur like Mr. Lin would have to pay someone to haul off the 10 gallons of vegetable oil used each day in his fryers. The oil would be dumped in a landfill, or perhaps used in animal feed. Instead, Mr. Lin will filter his oil and pour it into a heated auxiliary tank on the Excursion. He will then start the vehicle on regular diesel, and after a few minutes, when the vegetable oil becomes more (incorrect: should be "less") viscous in the heater, a manual switch will direct it to the diesel engine. From there, the only detectable difference will be the faint odor of French fries, and a noticeable lack of diesel stench."
Small Scale Oil Seed Processing (PDF 739k)
Biodiesel | Waste Oil Burner | Make your own biodiesel | Mike Pelly's recipe | The two-stage adaptation of Mike Pelly’s biodiesel recipe | Producing Sunflower Oil | Ethanol based Biodiesel | Diesel to Vegetable Oil Conversion | The Bio Bug | Racor 2 micron heated filter (PDF - 3.34 MB) | Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) Conversion | Babington Oil Burner - Waste Vegetable Oil | Manolo Rolán WVO Burner | SVO Technologies - Single Tank, Diesel engine Vegetable Oil Conversion. | Lubrication Issues | Bar Soap from Glycerin | How to make your own fuel from waste fat | VegBurner | VeggieAvenger Site | vegetable oil press | Waste Oil Burner Project | Washing Biodiesel
Ethanol
Ethanol | Alcohol as an Engine Fuel | How To Adapt Your Automobile Engine For Ethyl Alcohol Use | In Defense of Alcohol | Anhydrous Ethanol | Ethanol Literature | Mariller method of dehydrating alcohol using glycerin | Converting your car to run on ethanol
Wood Alcohol
Wood Saccharification 1.8mb PDF (submitted by F. Marc de Piolenc) | Distillerie Agricole et Industrielle 22kb PDF (English Translation - F. Marc de Piolenc) | Wood Ethanol
Methane
Methane | DIY Methane | Harold Bate's Chicken Powered (Methane) Car | Solution to Pollution | Electricity from Manure Gases | Generate Power from Garbage | DAVE PAXTON'S BIOGAS SERIES
Various Biofuel/Biomass Technologies and Issues
Wood Gas | Wood Heat | Hydrogen | Heating with Wheat | Heating with Corn | Biofuel Tax Issues (UK) | Ron Novak's Do-It-Yourself Water Injection System | Knowledgehound | Fuel Cell Resources | Multi Fuel Burner | History of Vegetable Oil | Wood Chips & Pellets | Wood Fuels; Chips, Pellets, sawdust, briquettes | Bixby Corn & Pellet stoves | wood burning hot tub
Vegetable Oil Lubricants
Green Oil Company blended its first product, Greenwood chain saw oil, in 1992. It was well received by its customers who were seasoned foresters and tree care professionals working for New York City Parks Department, for the US Forest Service and for several hundred volunteer tree care experts on assignment from contractors who contributed their time on behalf of the Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC.
Today they blend in addition to chain saw oil, environmentally safe hydraulic fluids including elevator oil, greases, bicycle oils and concrete form oil.
GRAPHICAL EXPLANATION OF BIODIESEL SYNTHESIS PROCESS
Christian Lenoir - Env. Engineer - U.C.A.
(following M. Pelly´s recipe, as explained at www.journeytoforever.org)
http://www.clenoir.com/bd.htmGlycerin Disposal/ Bioremediation/Compost 101
Electrifying Times - The International Magazine of
Electric Vehicles, Hybrids, Fuel
Cells, Batteries, Alternative Fuels,
Electric Car Racing & Exhibitionhttp://www.electrifyingtimes.com
From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank : The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil As an Alternative Fuel
Breaking News 8/5/01 - An '82 VW Rabbit diesel has just been delivered. The WebConX Cogen Project is officially off the ground! Stay tuned here for progress....
The engine will be removed for the Electrical and heat generation project. This Cogen unit will be powered by WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil). Donor car will be converted to an Electric Vehicle. You will be able to follow it's progress at http://webconx.green-trust.org/ev.htm
Babington Oil Burner - Waste Vegetable Oil
THE CHEWONKI FOUNDATION CHRONICLE
HOW CHEWONKI IS USING RECYCLED COOKING OIL
TO HEAT ITS BUILDINGS AND RUN ITS VEHICLESFALL 2001
Three days a week, Peter Arnold's workday begins well before he gets to his office at Chewonki. Peter is the man with the baby blue truck that has a small hydraulic barrel hoist mounted in the bed-"the vehicle that looks like an oversized and off-color praying mantis" he says-and it is his job to pick up the oil. Leaving his home in Damariscotta, Peter stops first at Reunion Station Restaurant on Route 1 and hoists aboard a 55-gallon metal drum of used cooking oil. Although a full drum can weigh almost 500 pounds, Peter handles the job easily by himself, thanks to the hoist. His next stop is the Sheepscot River Inn, but here the barrel is only half full, and Peter makes a mental note to stop again tomorrow.He then heads for Red's Eats and Nick's Pizza in Wiscasset. Both small eateries set aside several 5-gallon plastic jugs of used fryolator oil for Chewonki, and Peter simply plops the jugs into his truck bed. The last stop is the Sea Basket Restaurant, a few miles farther down Route 1. "This is by far our largest supplier," Peter explains, and here he uses the hoist again to pick up another 55-gallon drum of used vegetable oil. Full Article
Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) Conversion
Driving Without Gas - Gasohol, Ethanol, Methanol, Electric Cars, Gasogens - by John Ware Lincoln
Grease Rustlers - Black-market bandits have their eyes on that vat of used frying oil in the alley behind your local greasy spoon.
Fat Dumping - Municipal Heart Attack: Illegal Dumping Of Fryer Grease, Fat Leads to Infarctions
EPA Fuels Page
EcoGenics, Inc.
Working toward a better way to live;
- today and tomorrow -Biomass Fuel Explained:
A biomass fuel is an energy source derived from living organisms. Most commonly it is plant residue, harvested, dried and burned, or further processed into solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels. The most familiar and widely used biomass fuel is wood. Agricultural waste, including materials such as the cereal straw, seed hulls, corn stalks and cobs, is also a significant source. Native shrubs and herbaceous plants are potential sources. Animal waste, although much less abundant overall, is a bountiful source in some areas.
Wood accounted for 25 percent of all energy used in the United States at the beginning of this century. With increased use of fossil fuels, its significance rapidly declined. By 1976, only 1 to 2 percent of United States energy was supplied by wood, and burning of tree wastes by the forest products industry accounted for most of it. Although the same trend has been evident in all industrialized countries, the decline has not been as dramatic everywhere. Sweden, for instance, still meets 8 percent of its energy needs with wood, and Finland, 15 percent.
Globally, it is estimated that biomass supplies about 6 or 7 percent of total energy, and it continues to be a very important energy source for many developing countries. In the last 15 to 20 years, interest in biomass has greatly increased even in countries where its use has drastically declined. In the United States rising fuel prices led to a large increase in the use of wood-burning stoves and furnaces for space heating. Impending fossil fuel shortages have greatly increased research on its use in the United States and elsewhere. Because biomass is a potentially renewable resource, it is recognized as a possible replacement of petroleum and natural gas.
Historically, burning has been the primary mode for using biomass, but because of its large water content it must be dried to burn effectively. In the field, the energy of the sun may be all that is needed to sufficiently lower its water level. When this is not sufficient, another energy source may be needed.
Biomass is not as concentrated an energy source as most fossil fuels even when it is thoroughly dry. Its density may be increased by milling and compressing dried residues. The resulting briquettes or pellets are also easier to handle, store, and transport. Compression has been used with a variety of materials including crop residues, herbaceous native plant material, sawdust, and other forest wastes.
Solid fuels are not as convenient or versatile as liquids or gases, and this is a drawback to the direct use of biomass. Fortunately, a number of techniques are known for converting it to liquid or gaseous forms.
Partial combustion is one method. In this procedure, biomass is burned in an environment with restricted oxygen. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen are formed instead of carbon dioxide and water. This mixture is called synthetic gas or "syngas." It can serve as fuel although its energy content is lower than natural gas (methane). Syngas may also be converted to methanol, a one carbon-alcohol that can be used as a transportation fuel. Because methanol is a liquid, it is easy to store and transport.
Anaerobic digestion is another method for forming gases from biomass. It uses microorganisms, in the absence of oxygen, to convert organic materials to methane. This method is particularly suitable for animal and human waste. Animal feedlots faced with disposal problems may install microbial gasifiers to convert waste to gaseous fuel used to heat farm buildings or generate electricity.
For materials rich in starch and sugar, fermentation is an attractive alternative. Through acid hydrolysis or enzymatic digestion, starch can be extracted and converted to sugars. Sugars can be fermented to produce ethanol, a liquid biofuel with many potential uses.
Cellulose is the single most important component of plant biomass. Like starch, it is made of linked sugar components that may be easily fermented when separated from the cellulose polymer. The complex structure of cellulose makes separation difficult, but enzymatic means are being developed to do so. Perfection of this technology will create a large potential for ethanol production using plant materials that are not human foods.
The efficiency with which biomass may be converted to ethanol or other convenient liquid or gaseous fuels is a major concern. Conversion generally requires appreciable energy. If an excessive amount of expensive fuel is used in the process, costs may be prohibitive. Corn (Zea mays) has been a particular focus of efficiency studies. Inputs for the corn system include energy for production and application of fertilizer and pesticide, tractor fuel, on-farm electricity, etc., as well as those more directly related to fermentation. A recent estimate puts the industry average for energy output at 133 percent of that needed for production and processing. This net energy gain of 33 percent includes credit for co-products such as corn oil and protein feed as well as the energy value of ethanol. The most efficient production and conversion systems are estimated to have a net energy gain of 87 percent. Although it is too soon to make an accurate assessment of the net energy gain for cellulose based ethanol production, it has estimated that a net energy gain of 145 percent is possible.
Biomass-derived gaseous and liquid fuels share many of the same characteristics as their fossil fuel counterparts. Once formed, they can be substituted in whole or in part for petroleum-derived products. Gasohol, a mixture of 10 percent ethanol in gasoline, is an example. Ethanol contains about 35 percent oxygen, much more than gasoline, and a gallon contains only 68 percent of the energy found in a gallon of gasoline. For this reason, motorists may notice a slight reduction in gas mileage when burning gasohol. However, automobiles burning mixtures of ethanol and gasoline have a lower exhaust temperature. This results in reduced toxic emission s, one reason that clean air advocates often favor gasohol use in urban areas.
Biomass is called as a renewable resource since green plants are essentially solar collectors that capture and store sunlight in the form of chemical energy. Its renewability assumes that source plants are grown under conditions where yields are sustainable over long periods of time. Obviously, this is not always the case, and care must be taken to insure that growing conditions are not degraded during biomass production.
A number of studies have attempted to estimate the global potential of biomass energy. Although the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface is substantial, less than a tenth of a percent of the total is actually captured and stored by plants. About half of it is reflected back to space. The rest serves to maintain global temperatures at life-sustaining levels. Other factors that contribute to the small fraction of the sun's energy that plants store include Antarctic and Arctic zones where little photosynthesis occurs, cold winters in temperate belts when plant growth is impossible, and lack of adequate water in arid regions. The global total net production of biomass energy has been estimated at 100 million megawatts per year per year. Forests and woodlands account for about 40 percent of the total, and oceans about 35 percent. Approximately one percent of all biomass is used as food by humans and other animals.
Soil requires some organic content to preserve structure and fertility. The amount required varies widely depending on climate and soil type. In tropical rain forests, for instance, most of the nutrients are found in living and decaying vegetation. In the interests of preserving photosynthetic potential, it is probably inadvisable to remove much if any organic matter from the soil. Likewise, in sandy soils, organic matter is needed to maintain fertility and increase water retention. Considering all the constraints on biomass harvesting, it has been estimated that about 6 million MWyr/yr of biomass are available for energy use. This represents about 60 percent of human society's total energy use and assumes that the planet is converted into a global garden with a carefully managed "photosphere."
Although biomass fuel potential is limited, it provides a basis for significantly reducing society's dependence on non-renewable reserves. Its potential is seriously diminished by factors that degrade growing conditions either globally or regionally. Thus, the impact of factors like global warming and acid rain must be taken into account to assess how well that potential might eventually be realized. It is in this context that one of the most important aspects of biomass fuel should be noted. Growing plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that is released back to the atmosphere when biomass fuels are used. Thus the overall concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide should not change, and global warming should not result. Another environmental advantage arises from the fact that biomass contains much less sulfur than most fossil fuels. As a consequence, biomass fuels should reduce the impact of acid rain.
Source Citation:"Biomass fuel." DISCovering Science. Gale Research, 1996. Reproduced in Student Resource Center College Edition. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group. September, 1999. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/SRCCE/ http://www.gale.com/freresrc/earthday2000/biomass.htm
Copyright © 2000 by Gale Group. All rights reserved.
Related Research:
Reinvention: Strategies for Sustainable Economic Development, by Margaret
Thomas, Midwest Research Institute (MRI), December 1996. This report was
written to bridge the gap between the economic development professional and
the environmental advocate. It makes the case for economic development
through pollution prevention/waste minimization, recycling-based
manufacturing, renewable energy development, energy efficiency, and green
business development. It argues for and suggests strategies for advocacy
within a community's movers and shakers. Of special note are three sections
describing 1) the most promising renewable technologies, 2) neighborhood
applications of RETs, and 3) economic development strategies for RE
development. Available in hard copy only (cost $30) through MRI, (816)
753-7600, ext. 1752#, or see http://www.mriresearch.org/chsr/redpubs.html .
Powering the Midwest: Renewable Electricity for the Economy and the
Environment, Michael Brower, Michael Tennis, Eric Denzler and M. Kaplan,
Union of Concerned Scientists, 1993. A groundbreaking analysis of the
potential of renewable energy for electricity generation in the Midwest,
this report shows that areas throughout the region have significant
renewable electricity potential and includes detailed state-by-state maps of
wind and biomass energy resources. "Renewables can mean increased revenues
for local landowners. A Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) analysis found
that farmers could increase their return on land by 30 to 100 percent from
leasing part of it for wind turbines while continuing to farm." Available
in hard-copy only (cost $2.50) through Union of Concerned Scientists,
Cambridge, MA, or call (617) 547-5552, or see
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/energy.pubs.html
"Energy Farming?," by Alastair G.M. Hunter, and Eric C. Todd. Article in
Lanwards, journal of the UK Institution for Agricultural Engineers, Autum
1997, v.52, Issue 3. From the perspective of improving agrarian income,
this paper discusses the many renewable energy technologies, fuel sources,
and uses available on a farm. Includes wind turbines, photovoltaics, wind
coppices for biomass, and rape seed oil for biofuel.
Renewable Energy in Remote Australian Communities: A Market Survey, by Bob
Lloyd, Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable Energy; David
Lowe, Center for Appropriate Technology; and Laurence Wilson, Center for
Appropriate Technology. Published 2000, by ACRE (Australian Cooperative
Research Centre for Renewable Energy). Obtained from the author, this
report contains the results of an extensive market survey of renewables in
Australia. Focuses on remote area power supplies (RAPS) in use in ranching,
tourist sites, and the small remote settlements of Australian natives.
During the course of the project, it was decided that a formal examination
of the economics of RE in remote locations was infeasible given budget and
time constraints. However, the case studies do contain some economic
observations. More than 20 additional case studies will be published later
this year.