Alt-Energy

[reldnahkram]

For a while, I've thought my next car would by a hybrid. A recent Inquirer article has made me wonder if biodiesel isn't a better alternative. Hit a McD's periodically for used fry oil, spend one weekend a month brewing up the stuff. Then again, actually making the stuff seems like quite a bit of work and will require a good mess o' hardware, maybe I'd better wait until I own someplace with a garage, rather than likely being in a position to rent.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Comments

[sinsofthedove.livejournal.com]

The members of In Gowan Ring drove from Maine to concerts in New York on a vegetable oil engine. They didn't mention anything about "brewing the stuff up" - it sounded more like they converted the engine itself, and then just fed it oil whenever they needed to refuel. They were big fans of the system, though (silly folkies!).

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

There are two approaches - modify the engine to take straight veggie oil, or modify the oil to become biodiesel. I'm a better chemist than I am an auto mechanic, and one of these two approaches is reversable if it doesn't work out.

[liegt-am-meer.livejournal.com]

I just love the idea of you "brewing up" fuel in your garage. While you're at it, you could make moonshine in the bathtub, too.

[crystalpyramid]

If you got enough people together, you could make it into a monthly barbecue and gas-brewing party. Or something.

[kyree.livejournal.com]

The only problem is that, once other people start getting the same idea and it becomes more widely popularized, fuel will be harder to come by.

[elizaeffect.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking the same thing. There's probably a paragraph of SF story in there somewhere, or at least an offhand mention...

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

I don't think biodiesel is a forever solution to our energy needs, just a temporary holdover until better things (hydrogen, solar, etc.) are more readily available.

[ccommack]

I remind y'all that this is America, where we pay farmers not to grow stuff, because if they all grew as much as they could, there'd be a huge glut in the market, such that they couldn't sell their crops for any amount of money more than I carry around with me on a regular basis. Which is to say, we (as a country) could be brewing a heckuva lot of biodiesel without any worries at all about raw material shortages.

The current problem is that just growing soybeans for diesel fuel isn't cost effective; petrodiesel is still cheaper, at least for now. However, you don't need new vegetable oil to brew biodiesel, and waste oil is, so far, not scarce (how many fast food joints are there within three miles of your house?). This will have to become a major trend before we exhaust the waste of every Fryolator in America.

But yes, if you're worried about greenhouse or energy security, biodiesel is the way to go, even over hybrids.

[wayman.livejournal.com]

Mr. Fusion!

[(Anonymous)]

I like the hybrids....biofuel sounds fun, but I'm skeptical, of course. In England I learned that all fields growing food would need to be converted to biofuel to supply their whole country. Just a thought.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

As I said above, it isn't a long term solution. Besides, I think we're better off turning the Sahara into a giant solar collector, as opposed to irrigating the whole thing and using it to grow things like soybeans to turn into biodiesel.