What's your cost running, or have you figured that? Our 1st, batch run about $2.10 / gallon, but the next will be cheaper due to reusing methanol, buying supplies in larger lots, reintroducing glycerine ect. can't wait til it warms up enough to use 100%.

By the way welcome to the club...

 

I have the program from Utah Biodiesel Supply that you enter in all your variables and according to that I am making my fuel (not including my time) for about .85-.95 a gallon. Mind you I last bought Methanol for $4.20ish/gallon still have 2 barrels. I have about 40-50 of NaOH. As you can see I buy things in bulk saves some money.

 

Methanol in So.Cal is $6.00 per gal and that is the cheapest I can find it. KOH is $1.25 lb. and 90% purity. I calculate the cost per gallon of bio is $1.25 gallon not including the cost to heat the oil as I have not gotten my elec. bill yet. I get my oil for free and it titrates at 1.5, chicken and french fries is all that goes into it. I am now processing using the 2 stage base/base method and having good luck with that and am working on fine tuning the recepie. I use the calculator at Extreme Biodiesel, I will check out the one at Utah.

 

$5.05 per gallon here. that's adding $1 per gallon for the 5 gallon pail. refills them for $4.05. I need to refigure my costs, think I entered wrong numbers. Refigured @ $2.05 / gallon. Future batches will be much cheaper.

 

hi there friends from across the "pond".... i have an econoline 350 van 7.3 ltr diesel 1989... it has twin tanks... and she loves veggie oil ( straight)... it's a bit hard to start in the cold but once she's warm she loves it. In the winter i use 100% diesel in one tank .. for starting and stopping and 20-50% veggie oil in the other tank for when the engine has warmed up !.. in the summer it's 100% veggie all the way !!.. i get 18.5 mpg on diesel ( on a run ) and 22mpg on the veggie ( on a run ) .. only started using it last year.. when the price of diesel topped £1.40 ( that's a ltr.. not a gallon )!!!... so far done about 6000 miles.. with no problems !!.. when i started veggie oil was 0.85 a ltr.. the shops soon grew aware of what people were using it for and the price soon went up to £1.15 a ltr !!... with diesel at the pumps now at £0.99 a ltr. i have gone back to the pumps....

 

How long can you store WVO before converting it to fuel.

 

If you de-water it and keep oxygen away from it you can store it for long periods. I've got samples from 3-4 years ago that have not degraded yet.

 

That's great news!!! I've been collecting it in 55 gallon drums for about a year now. What should I look for to tell if it did spoil?

I'll post a picture of my Bio Prosser later.

Pat

 

The smell! If it goes bad it will smell nasty........

 

Thanks again!
Did you build or buy your Bio Unit and how much do you brew at one time?

Pat

 

I built my own system, and I made over 10,000 gallons last year

 

Daaaaaaang 10,000 gallons!!!! Great work man. It's 20 dergees and snowing here in Kutztown, PA so I'm not to sure that WVO would work to well today. However I was thinking one could mix a 50/50 blend WVO/Diesel and be ok. Any thoughts?

Pat

 

Blending WVO and dino-diesel is not good for any engine. Either make bio, or use a 2 tank HEATED WVO system. If you go with a 2 tank system you must start on diesel, then when the WVO tank is up to temp you can switch over. After running on HEATED WVO you must switch over to diesel to purge the IP, and injectors.

 

Wow... glad I asked. It just seemed logical to be able to blend the two being that the diesel will run on either WVO or dino diesel. I only have a single tank so I guess cold weather WVO is out of the question until things warm up again.

Pat

 

You should NEVER use unheated WVO in any weather!

If you want to use WVO it must be heated to at least 160 deg.