biodeisel..anyone here make it?

[cruiseroutfit]

I suprised Uncle Sam doesn't get bent out of shape about the road tax that's not being paid when people run home made diesel.

They will... no doubt there.

The way they will catch it, is the WVO that is used to make the fuel. My prediction is it will start having a "core" value from the suppliers, thus they won't deliver new stuff until the old stuff is returned. From folks I've heard from, its already much harder to get WVO than it was a couple of years ago, while there is alot of it going around, there is no way near enough to supply a core group of hobby brewers here in the valley, thus the demand for the WVO will make it worth too much to just give away



Hopefully dieselcruiserhead will hop in on this thread, he's been home brewing for 4-5 years now with a group called the Utah Biodiesel Co-Op.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

What kind of cost vs time vs savings will it add up to? Is it really worth it? Not to me. My time is too important to me to get in the refinery business. Plus after dropping 30 or so thousand for a truck I'm not willing to F it up running some homebrew. Sure homebrews are kinda cool and have their place, just not in my tank. One injector fouled and there goes your savings for a while.

Just my $0.02 worth though

 

[cruiseroutfit]

What kind of cost vs time vs savings will it add up to? Is it really worth it? Not to me. My time is too important to me to get in the refinery business. Plus after dropping 30 or so thousand for a truck I'm not willing to F it up running some homebrew. Sure homebrews are kinda cool and have their place, just not in my tank. One injector fouled and there goes your savings for a while.

Just my $0.02 worth though

Thats a great point... Andre (dieselcruiserhead) would be a great one to answer that too... But I think he's around $1.50/gallon in materials not sure how he's alotted his time? Then comes the issue of packing fuel with you for long trips, sure it saves money, but it sure is nice just to pull up to a pump and gas up, not having to worry about using some crappy CARB compliant cans to fill your tank 5 gallons at a time Still I might look into it more if/when I get my diesel build done.

 

[dieslcruisrhead]

Sorry guys missed this thread and ironically have been on the site all day. Anyway, I have brewed hundreds if not thousands of gallons, and also run hundreds of commercially produced gallons. It is good stuff but IMO brewing takes a significant investment and it will pay for itself but takes time and energy and dealing with vegetable oil in particular is nasty. There are also a couple laws in SLC county that make it technically illegal to collect and transport the oil here related to clean up costs. AKA the health dept wants you to have a permit (that is not too hard to get, $100 but requires a $1m general libability policy -- aka is geared toward a business).

I have quite a bit of time and money into it and it is a really cool feeling (producing your own fuel) but for guys like us with limited time and/or existing hobbies it can become annoying. The only way I would persue it if I were also into 4WDs and spending a lot of time with those is 1) completely legally, simply from liability purposes. AKA an insurance company might deny a claim if you burnt your $350K house down, and 2) preferably somewhere near your house so you can walk over, flip a switch, walk away for two hours, come back, etc, because a lot of it is that. That is one of the biggest issues for me, the biodiesel shop is about 20 minutes away so it takes nights of time at a time. And finally we have just barely broken even on it, if that. It does cost a lot infrastructure wise or it is like anything, do it right and spend the money, or be cheap and do it again. I've done it twice for example

Finally, the infrastructure costs really do add up, you need good oil collection unless your restaurant will put it in the containers it comes in (which does happen) rather than a barrel. If barrels you need that infrasturcture too, aka a truck with a vehicle lift and dollies.

HEre is a good thread about it in general:
http://www.4btswaps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3240

Finally, if it were me I would do a combo of a vegetable oil conversion and biodiesel, and this is my personal plan as well. The vege oil still needs "processing" (aka de-watered/heated and filtered) as **there is always water in vegetable oil** even from fine chinese restaurants. If you don't de water you will have issues with injectors / pumps etc after thousands of miles because water & fuel don't mix as we know. A lot of people also spend/waste a lot of money with filters as naturally both bio and vegetable oil eats filters. So it is helpful to use good specifically designed kits.

So there are no good/easy/cheap options.

Finally, avoid the fuelmeister, call utahbiodieselsupply.com adn see what they have to say and google around. We put together out own processor that blows away most other commercial processors, we are about $1500 into it using a hot tub pump. It is a 80 gallon "appleseed" processor (google it) using a used electric water heater. We added 1.25" ports top and bottom using the welder and pressuring it to check for air leaks, and this allows us to fill and drain it easily. Also *definitely* run your heat source with 220 volts (like a welder) -- way more efficient and keeps electricity costs down.

I hope all this helps...

 

[dieslcruisrhead]

Also the good vegetable oil kits are frybrid and plantdrive and a few others. Aka also avoid the cheap vegetable oil kits as they contain copper and copper and veg oil do not work well together. I would also be hesitant to run vegetable oil in a late model truck as there may be some electronics or other complications. For example a '98 and earlier Dodge runs vege-oil with really no issues. I am putting mine in a 1990 Cummins.

Biodiesel however is mostly fine in late model trucks. When you first start running it, it will pull the gunk (there is a lot of gunk in diesel) out of your tank and put in your fuel filter. You will go through 2-3 filters but after that you are smooth sailing... If you don't replace your filters and you have partial fuel loss it can damage other components of your fuel system like pump and injectors. Very very seldom does the biodiesel itself cause any mechanical problems. It also has about 14 times the lubricity anmds higher cetane, so it supposedly makes your engine "run better." It does have about a 5-10% power loss. In B20 (20% biodiesel blends) you don't notice it other than it runs a hair better. With B100 you notice a slight power loss...

 

[dieslcruisrhead]

Also finally I want to be clear that waste vegetable oil **is a commodity** - it is not "free" and it is not "garbage."

Any oil you acquire out of a oil container etc is technically stealing. It sells for about $2 a gallon now as a processed oil for the anumal feeds industry. So 40 gallons taken equals about $80 you just stole from some company. Salt Lake City brewers made in on NPR a year or two ago related to this..

 

[Rot Box]

Nice write up dieslcruisrhead! Thanks for the info