We have a local gas station that has recently installed a BioDiesel pump, offered in partnership with Tevis Oil, a local company as well. I buy my propane through Tevis and in reading their website http://www.tevisoil.com/stations/ found that they were starting to offer their soy biodiesel through local gas stations. So, I've been thinking that I would start running their BD through my 2000 F350 PSD. I just called the Taylorsville station and asked their current BD price: $3.79 /gal. Holy cow batman. I can get regular diesel locally for as low as $3.31 /gal locally.

I have a call into Tevis' BD contact, John Hoffman, for clarification on this. My questions are simple:

1. Why would I pay .50 more per gallon to run BD through my truck? I'd like to be green, but not at a huge detriment to my wallet. That's about $16 per fill more than regular diesel.

2. How do they expect to stay in business offering BD at such a high price?

Any clue? Has anyone seen this elsewhere where the BD prices far outweigh regular diesel?

 

Normally BD is similar in price, but if you think about it...
BD is made from, in this case,
Soy beans, which arent as readily available in winter (so i understand)
Methanol, a petroleum product more closely related to propane, and therefore more in demand in winter,
Lye (stays the same basically all year round)
and heat, of which you need more in winter.
Check back this summer and i'll bet its within 5-10 cents a gallon of regular #2. sometimes even cheaper.
As for the Why part, well the benefits of bio to your truck, though small, may be worth it to some. it's not (at that price) to me.
Also, some people want to be "green" all year round, and have the money to pay the extra 50c a gallon during winter. their choice...

 

Soy beans are available year around it's called grain bins and all that land south of the equator. Soy oil is trading at $4.05 a gallon. If they get the dollar back from the government, they're sitting at $3.05 for feedstock, 39 cents for lye/alcohol per gallon of oil processed, that's $3.44 plus heat, electricity, labor, bank notes(if any). I don't see how any of them can make it using virgin feedstock. But if you do some digging, they're not making it. The big ginormous, 100mgy plants are running at 10% capacity or they're still doing "hydro testing" 8 months after they're published start-up date. It's going to get interesting, WVO is getting that way.

 

ya its the same by me, diesel is $3.35 a gallon and b-100 is $3.79 a gallon? I dont get it either.... but im only running b-5 right now since its cold and im only running it for the lubrication properties anyways...

 

Ok, thats a little more informative... i have seen bio as low as 3.50, which is as low as diesel here (California).
Where did you here about the situation with the plants? Why is it taking so long?

 

It may be the same price or cheaper sometimes in certain areas. But what is the story. It could be made from old stock soy oil from a year ago when oil was cheaper. It could be imported palm oil. It could be made from WVO. I was talking about making bio from virgin soy oil. By the way, soy oil was trading at $4.20 a gallon, haven't called about WVO yet today. My info about the plants come from biodiesel magazines and press releases on the net.

 

Here is a link to how we are doing it in Oregon. Their plant was originally made for WVO, but they have expanded to buying raw oil from us farmers in Eastern Oregon. Raw, filtered canola oil is selling for $2.38 per gallon.


http://www.sqbiofuels.com/

 

I'll be the first to admit that I buy the diesel (petro or B5,B10,B20) that is cheaper per gallon....when your running through the stuff like there is no tomorrow every gallon counts. Three days ago I went and filled up with dinodiesel at $3.21 a gallon...the only place in town that carries and bio-diesel (who had been 10-12 cents higher than everyone else for a couple of months) had it for $3.19. That is what get for not keeping an eye on what they are charging for B20. I wish there was a tax break for running bio-diesel....say at least B10, with the exception of the supertanker owners & OPEC...everyone would benefit from bio-diesel in my mind; but then we're talking about a scary place.

 

The reason they are making it is because the are heavily subsidized by our government. I can't remember the break even point for soy, but I know it's somewhere around $5.50 for ethanol production from corn. I'm sure $13 beans is not making the price of soy diesel any better.

Soy has always been more expesive here in Western Iowa. Right now its about .25 more than #2 Dino. We have one plant that is about 45 min away, two that are being built less than 30 min away. It will be interesting to see what the price does, IMHO it won't change a bit compared to dino.

 

Maybe I'm too naive....but it makes allot of sense to me to convert wvo into a fuel instead of feeding it to hogs and what ever rendering companies do to it. I realize there are some things that just aren't going to be that practical for fuel. But on the same token you'd think companies would realize that there is a point that cooperation looks allot better to the public and could fix some negative PR. The company I work for delivers corn and soybean meal (after the oil has been processed out of it) to a feedmill that makes to chicken feed. Summer of 2006 the feedmill took a test batch of DDG (dried distillers grain, by-product of ethanol & whiskey production) to see how it would work in their process system. The only complaint I heard was all the extra effort it took to unload the stuff. It was already cleaner than the corn they're getting now or before the test batch and it was ground/screened to the size they use to make feed. The corn is used a fill material in the feed, and serves no nutritional value to the chicken. But because there was extra effort needed to unload the DDG, the feed mill doesn't want it. Now the soy bean meal, that is another story...it still offers a high protein content (48%) and that is needed in the feed for the birds. I think it all boils down to the fact that since I don't have a MBA...or what ever some of these desk jockeys have...the thought process is above my level of thinking.

 

Yes when the soy biodiesel was starting up soybeans was $4.00 so the oil was cheap