Make your own diesel

[Bigbusiness]

I was reading recently that you can convert your car to run on the vegetable oil the local chip shops throw away. If you don't want to convert the car, a bit of 'home brew' experience can be used to make fuel that will run most diesel cars with no conversion. Not only is this a lot cheaper than buying ordinary diesel, it is cleaner and can be better for the car (if you do it right )

Anyone tried this? Might have to watch out for the tax man and oil company executives trying to stop people using alternatives to their expensive fuels. Strange how the politicians are supposed to be looking for alternative fuels but they are not investing heavily in one that is cheaper, cleaner and would give us more independence from the oil producing countries. I wonder why that is

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

 

[fxmarkets]

good point ,I know that a few vehicles around the globe are piloting this veggie oil concept, its good for mankind , but bad for black gold. Whats the highest yielding veggie oil crop ? Tulipamania for the next millenium coming up. nice to think of fields of sunflowers, should cheer up mankind in general, if you look beyond profit upside downside of it all. Cant see the saudis liking it, cant grow bugger all in their soil.

Now those who control the oil, who have billions upon billions invested one assumes they would be intell. enough to control the release or production/sabotage of it. which will they choose..

Back to a nation of farmers....... bugger me.... complete cycle. Still the old crops will then be exposed to weather systems,deasease,sabotage, so plenty of volatility for veggie oil market when it gets here.

hmm anyone cracked extracting hydrogen from water yet without vaporizing themselves, wasnt there a documentary or story about some bloke who managed to use water instead of petrol, not steam based.....? going back about a decade or so ago? dunno what happend to him...

 

[wasp]

Ben Elton - gridlock

Mildly amusing book about just this!

 

[rglenn]

hmm anyone cracked extracting hydrogen from water yet without vaporizing themselves, wasnt there a documentary or story about some bloke who managed to use water instead of petrol, not steam based.....? going back about a decade or so ago? dunno what happend to him...

Yes I remember that bloke it was actually on the news - I think if someone did actually crack that which I sincerely believe they have - they would soon be paid off to keep their mouths shut by the oil giant big boys as this would be highly detrimental to their profits.

 

[rog1111]

We used to make this stuff in South Africa, to make a really decent fuel you need to warm the oil with methanol (flammable) and a little acid catalyst to create the methyl ester, then skim off the gunky glycerine layer (which you can sell), straight chip oil will coke up your engine.

rog1111

 

[peto]

hmm anyone cracked extracting hydrogen from water yet without vaporizing themselves, wasnt there a documentary or story about some bloke who managed to use water instead of petrol, not steam based.....? going back about a decade or so ago? dunno what happend to him...

School science experiment 30 years ago (oops showing my age...): pass an electrical current through water and you got hydrogen and oxygen! Trouble is, what do you burn to get the electricity?

pete

 

[JonnyT]

This is all great if you have a deisel!

Remember the Cops can arrest you for this and there was a spate of arrests in Cardiff not too long ago where the cops were detecting the use of Vege oil from car exhaust fumes as it seemed the whole City were depriving Gordon Brown of his revenues.



JonnyT

 

[Bigbusiness]

I suppose you could pay the tax on your home made diesel or mix it in with real diesel. Should still work out cheaper. Would be interesting to know how big the fine is.

 

[rog1111]

Pathetic really isn't it ?! And we actually put up with all this.......

rog1111

This is all great if you have a deisel!

Remember the Cops can arrest you for this and there was a spate of arrests in Cardiff not too long ago where the cops were detecting the use of Vege oil from car exhaust fumes as it seemed the whole City were depriving Gordon Brown of his revenues.



JonnyT

 

[Bigbusiness]

Just found this. Looks like Tesco are backing biodiesel. It also mentions how the UK government have given little support for these ventures.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29996/story.htm

 

[TWI]

There has been a lot of talk recently about sugar and oilseeds from which can be extracted Methanol and rapeseed diesel. It can actually work with economies of scale and you can get an equivalent production cost of $25/barrel crude. In EU and US there is already growing production capacity.
As for hydrogen from water, this is how fuel cells work using platinum catalyst. Hydrogen can of course be stored unlike electricity but it is a little explosive. If you look at IEA and DTI websites there is already papers on the move towards a Hydrogen economy. Looks promising but suspect things will only get moving when it is desperate.
Problem for a lot of thse alternative energy projects is funding. It is actually very difficult to get funding for any of these even when feasibility looks good.

 

[Minder]

I had a Peugeot 405 TD that I sometimes used veg oil in. It ran exactly the same as if I filled it with diesel. Mind you, it had 210k miles on the clock when I gave it away, (Well, who would buy a car with 210k miles on the clock ?) so the performance wasn't great to start with.

I read that veg oil attracts duty if used as a fuel. That makes buying new oil almost as expensive as buying diesel. IIRC the rates are not the same and a driver using veg oil needs to keep a record of the fuel used and make a regular declaration to Customs & Excise. Cheap if you can get the oil free from the local restaurants.

I met a bio-diesel seller at an organic fair this summer. Fat Fellas Diesel. They sell treated, used veg oil. He told me that new diesel engines can trigger the engine immobiliser if veg oil is detected in the tank. That can be a tad expensive to put right, but the immobiliser can be switched off before the veg oil is used. I recently had to replace two diesel pumps on my 406. Remortgage the house to pay for it, so I am not taking any chances with the veg oil with this one.

Regards

 

[Tomerep]

lol