I got a flyer in the mail from a local petroleum distributor the other day, advertising diesel fuel made out of soybean oil. It said that this fuel is better for the engine{ lubricity}, conciderably less exhuast fumes, and no engine mods are needed. Can be used 100% pure or blended with petroleum diesel. Also the EPA regs on sulfur content and finding more fuel alternitives are pushing this along. The pure pure stuff is $2.50/ gal, a 2% or 20% blend that is most commonly used is much cheaper. Has anyone seen/used this fuel? IMO the less we can rely on Iraqi-juice the better off we will be. And help the farmers out also.

 

I saw a Ch--y duramax bio the other day and it was idling at a rest area, so I walked over to see what if any, was different. The exhaust was not as acrid by a long shot, and the power is supposed to be the same as petro diesel. I guess with the price of pump diesel going higher than mid-range gasoline, we may be better off to try it and like you say "help the farmers" out a bit.

Bill B.

 

I burned thru a couple of tanks of 20% bio diesel. The engine seemed a little smoother and quieter. Fuel mileage was same as regular diesel. With 20% blend it still smells like a truck.

 

It fascinates me that they are able to do that. If diesel fuel could be made from not only soybeans, but any number of other types of vegetation, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! With what's going on right now concerning middle Eastern countries, we should be pursuing every avenue such as this. We SHOULD HAVE BEEN PURSUING IT A LONG TIME! It irritates me that American industry USUALLY REACTS, RARELY PRO-ACTS! And they only REACT when it becomes a matter of "life & death". Our dependence on foreign oil could have been gradually declining over quite a long time (slowly indeed, but slowly is better than NOT AT ALL, or worse yet INCLINING!!!).

 

http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php...portation/149/
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html
http://kirstenmichel.com/recipe.html
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/biodiesel/flrecipe.html


I have read that biodiesel is a hygroscopic, meaing it will absorb water from the atmosphere. The injectors in the PSD are very sensitive to water, so please be carefull.

 

The reality of alternative fuels is that the free markets needs to work, regardless of government promotion, few people will use biodiesel until it is economically attractive. If for some reason the price of crude stays high enough, then more companies will start making and selling the stuff and it'll get cheaper.

So far, OPEC has been smart enough to price crude well below the point where alternative fuel makes economic sense. sure, they'd love to get as much as they can per barrel, but they know that would only push oil-consuming countries into alternate fuel and kill their golden goose.

What's happening right now is a situation that's beyond their control, they just can't pump enough oil and get it here to market to drive prices down with all the concern about what might happen with a war. There was the Venezuela strike, too. The cold winter. And our demand keeps going up and up. Barring something unforseen, oil will drop again, especially if the world stays in a recession.

A bit of history...Western Colorado has enormous deposits of oil shale, rock full of raw petroleum. Another mid-east worth of oil. 500 BILLION barrels of proven reserves in Colorado alone. That much. The Ute indians used to call it "the rock that burns". But it's costly to remove the oil from the rock.
In the late 1970s, Exxon put $5 Billion into Colorado oil shale extraction plants, eventually hiring over 2,000 employees on the project. They called it the Colony Project, near the town of Parachute. Their entire investment in the project was based on a presumption that crude would be rising to $40-$70 a barrel. $40/barrel was the break-even point.
As we know it never happened. Exxon suddenly pulled out in 1982, throwing the local economy into a decade-long funk along with those 2,000 jobs. Exxon burned through and wasted $5 billion bucks on their abandoned project.

That's what can happen if you don't have a sound business plan.

Acme Refining Co. can't go the the bank and ask for a loan to build a biodiesel plant without a profitable business plan that makes sense. If they had tried to finance a plant last year, banks would have laughed them out the door- Who'd buy their $2+ a gallon diesel fuel?

So that's one big reason why industry actions lag behind events.

As big of an enviro-supporter as I sometimes can be, I choked at the price of 100% biodiesel here in Colorado last fall...About $3 a gallon in 55 gallon drums, so I never tried any as an experiment.
If petro-diesel rises to close to the same price, I'd be willing to even pay a little more, you bet I'll buy the bio stuff, but not until then. I also wish it was cheaper.

 

That's still known as "Black Sunday".

As you know, but some of the others may not, Parachute is 45 miles from where I live. A lot of the Exxon workers commuted from here to Parachute for work. Along with the Exxon jobs, there were many other jobs lost from smaller companies from all around the state.

The 1980s were considered the second worst economic period in Colorado's history with an estimated 48,000 jobs lost, due to Exxon.

But people did have a catchy new slogan for them.

Exxon: Sign of the Double Cross

 

Bio diesel is a hot topic up here in WA. There a few people running around with old VW's running on BIO. I have read tons of web based articles on how to make Bio diesel, and the process seems pretty straight forward. There is the concern about water and having to boil it off.

My concern with pure bio diesel is all the guys using around here are running it on old diesels. They all mention having problems getting the dealerships to okay the use of the bio in the cars. Then they state that since the use of bio diesel is not prohibited and it is federally approved fuel that any problems in a new vehicle would be covered by the warranty.

I am way too new to owning and operating a diesel to really know wether dio diesel would screw-up my 7.3. I would really hate to trash my engine.

Sean

 

The issues with running biodiesel are similar to those of gasohol.

With up to a 20% mix of bio to regular diesel, there aren't any problems even in a modern PSD. I saw somewhere that Ford doesn't have an issue with 20% biodiesel any more than running pump gasohol in their gassers, and there are Federal and ASTM standards for the stuff, like other fuels.

Biodiesel has a higher gel temp, so you have to use fuel heaters in cold climates if you use it straight. That's downside #1.
The other issue is compatability of fuel lines and seals. Supposedly not an issue with up to a 20% mix, but could be if used 100%.

The plus sides are it reportedly offers excellent lubricity of the fuel system and injectors, it can have a slightly higher BTU/lb than #2 so you can get a bit better mileage, and tailpipe emissions are significantly lowered. Trucks running 100% biodiesel reportedly have an exhaust that smells like popcorn or french fries, depending on the source of the oil.

Like I wrote earlier, I wouldn't have a problem using an 80-20 mix of the stuff as long as it was priced right.

 

When Rudolph Diesel invented the compression ignition engine, it ran on peanut oil. However, economics again, petroleum derived fuel was, and probably is, still less expensive to use.

 

This is all great info (especially alanscott). THANKS! And yes, the economics & politics are frustrating complications.

 

I plan to use B100 as the fuel of choice for a 2003 6.0 PS. At $2.50 /gal it is more expensive than pet. diesel but worth the health and environmental benefit of significantly lower emissions as well as an alternate to the petroleum industry. I know a number of new diesel owners that are currently using straight (B100) biodiesel and report no problems. Newer diesel engines are reportably being made with compatible rubber seals and hoses for Diesel #2 so there should not be a problem with the biodiesel either I am told. ( I hope!)

Blake

 

THIS IS GREAT! I LOVE IT!

 

Don't forget guys, you can easily make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil provided you can get your hands on some methanol and sodium hydroxide (red devil lye). There are other receipes using ethanol and potassium hydroxide. Depending on how much you can get your methanol for, you can make the stuff for less than a dollar/gallon (not including your time).

This website http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html has really great instructions for making the stuff, and provide some backround into the chemistry going on (transesterification). Also gives you ideas for making a reactor.

This site, while for profit (no affiliation) also had links to research papers and such on biodiesel. They also sell biodiesel reactors, but if your resourceful (aka cheap like me) you can make one yourself. It can be based around something as simple as a 55-gal. drum. http://www.biodieselgear.com/documentation/index.htm

As soon as it thaws here, I want to make a batch of the stuff. Can't seem to find any cheap methanol around here. Racing alcohol is the stuff, but there don't seem to be anybody selling it on the east end of Long Island. The one racetrack that was in my town has been turned into a friggin golf course and expensive subdivision . Progress.

SMB