NotPetroleum Blog

Biodiesel is a Clean Alternative to Petroleum

Any diesel engine can run on biodiesel.  Is that a true statement?  Are there any issues to deal with or do you just dump the “biodiesel” into the engine?  What is biodiesel anyway?

There are lots of questions that should be answered when you begin to peel back the onion on running your vehicle on biodiesel.  This article will attempt to demystify biodiesel and answer some of those questions.  This is part of our “no nonsense” series on biofuels as a partial solution to wean us off of petroleum.

What is Biodiesel?

Biodiesel is a fuel made from renewable plant oils and animal fats.  It differs from plant oils and animal fats in that it must first be reacted with an alcohol and catalyst before it becomes fuel.  After the reaction, the biodiesel must be separated from the non-reacted oil/fats, leftover catalyst and glycerine by-product.  The resulting fuel must also be washed and dried to remove any impurities before the fuel is ready to run in a diesel engine.

If you use biodiesel in its purest form in an engine, this is known as B100 or 100% biodiesel.  When the pure biodiesel is blended with regular diesel in different proportions, it is still considered to be “biodiesel.”  It has different designations depending on the percentage of biodiesel that is mixed with the regular diesel fuel.  The most common commercial blend of biodiesel consists of 20 percent pure biodiesel and 80 percent regular diesel.  This is known as “B20.”  Some vehicles are only warranted to run on B5 or 5% pure biodiesel.  This is such a low percentage of biodiesel, most consider this to be regular diesel fuel with an additive.  It is similar to gasoline that uses a 5% ethanol additive.  (oil companies used the toxin MTBE until they realized how bad it is and switched to ethanol)

The American Society for Testing and Materials created a standard testing procedure for biodiesel known as ASTM D6751.  Biodiesel for commercial sale must be tested to make sure it meets this standard before it is approved for sale as a fuel.  For more information on the process of making biodiesel, see these NotPetroleum-approved links for information and technical discussion:

Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial

InfoPop Biodiesel Discussion Forum

What is NOT Biodiesel?

Biodiesel is NOT waste vegetable oil, plant oil or animal fats.  Those are all feedstocks that are used for making biodiesel.

Biodiesel is NOT vegetable oil mixed with diesel.  Some people use this as a fuel in diesel engines but it is not biodiesel.  This can work as a fuel since it cuts down the viscosity or “thickness” of the vegetable oil so that it will run in a diesel engine.  This is not recommended as a fuel for modern diesel engines.  It can work in some engines but requires an in-depth knowledge of the internal components of different types of diesel engines and some understanding of thermodynamics.  If you are not a tinkerer and are not technical, don’t try this.

One of my Biodiesel Jetta TDI's

Does Biodiesel “just work” with a diesel engine?

Yes and No.  You can dump biodiesel in a diesel engine and it will burn as fuel.  However, since biodiesel is an alcohol, it will eventually degrade seals and hoses that are not rated for alcohol.  The most common material for making alcohol-resistant seals and hoses is called a “fluoro-elastomer.”  The most common version of this is called Viton and is made by Dupont.

If you are running B20 biodiesel in a modern diesel vehicle, the dilution factor will help prevent this degradation.  Also, most modern diesel engines use viton seals and hoses with viton lining.  If you would like to use pure biodiesel (B100) in a vehicle, make sure your seals and hoses are viton or have been replaced with fluoro-elastomer materials.  Most auto parts stores carry “high pressure fuel hose” which normally has a fluoro-elastomer lining and comes in several sizes.  To be certain, make sure the host is marked with the following designation: “SAE30R9.”  Hose with this marking has the viton lining.

Most vehicles are warranted for only B5 and some for B20.  If you run less diluted versions of biodiesel you will void the warranty.  Make sure you take this into consideration before running more than the recommended blend of biodiesel in your vehicle that is still under factory warranty.  One last word to the wise: remember that viton is “alcohol resistant” and not “alcohol proof.”  If you run B100 on a regular basis, you will eventually have to replace the viton seals and hoses.  However, the life is probably closer to the regular replacement cycle on hoses that are used with regular diesel fuel.

Do I need to “convert” my car to run on biodiesel?

The only conversion necessary is to make sure that your hoses and seals are made from an alcohol-resistant material like Viton.  (see information in the section above)

"Clifford" my biodiesel Dodge Cummins 12 valve

How do I make Biodiesel?

Biodiesel does not require a special facility or laboratory to produce the reaction.  However, it can be dangerous and could cause bodily injury or death.  I would NOT recommend doing this in your garage or at home.  There are good instructions on the internet on how to make biodiesel yourself and some commercial devices to make the process less cumbersome if you have a safe place to make it and have knowledge of Chemistry.  Proceed at your own risk!

Where do I buy Biodiesel?

The best way to find commercial biodiesel retailers in the United States is to use the biodiesel finder site at the National Biodiesel Board.  If you are located in other regions, I would recommend googling “biodiesel” and your location to do some research on where to buy commercial biodiesel.  Make sure you are buying from a licensed facility.  If not, make sure the fuel is tested and certified ASTM D6751 to prevent damage to your vehicle from dirty, un-reacted fuel or worse.

Can I run my car on vegetable oil?

You can run a diesel vehicle on vegetable oil.  However, it is much more difficult than using biodiesel.  I used to teach a class to elementary and middle school children on running cars on vegetable oil.  The easiest way to explain it to them was to tell them there are three basic steps to making waste vegetable oil work as a diesel fuel: “Get it CLEAN, Get it DRY and Get it HOT”

One of my Experimental Veggie Vehicles

There is much debate around what is required to make a diesel engine run on vegetable oil and which types of engines will work.  Here are some NotPetroleum-approved links to find out more information on how to make this work.

Greasology WVO Tutorial

InfoPop SVO Discussion Board

What do I have to do to make waste vegetable oil work as a fuel?

Get is CLEAN, Get it DRY and Get it HOT.  Choose an older diesel Mercedes built before 1986 if you want to experiment. However, make sure you like to tinker with car maintenance yourself since these cars are old and require a lot of regular maintenance.  After all, they are at least 25 years old and are often neglected.

VeggieRanger Teaching a Class on Veggie Fuel

Do NOT buy a new $50k diesel truck and hand it over to a hippie to convert it to vegetable oil.  There are sophisticated vegetable oil conversion kits that will work with new trucks if they are installed by a professional.  If you want to go this route, google “Frybrid” and “Vegistroke.”  These systems do work but only if you are experienced at preparing the oil as a fuel.

I hope this has given you enough information to better understand biodiesel and how you can use it as an alternative to petroleum.  Biodiesel isn’t the only solution for getting us off of our addiction to petroleum but it certainly can be a part of the solution and/or serve as a bridge to future technologies that are NotPetroleum!

Electric Light Rail System in Salt Lake City, Utah

While visiting Salt Lake City this week, I rode one of UTA Trax’s electric light rail cars.  I didn’t have a place to go or somewhere I had to be at the time.  I just wanted to go for a ride because an electric streetcar is fun to ride for a clean energy enthusiast. We don’t have streetcars in Atlanta anymore so this was my opportunity to experience what was a part of everyday life for city dwellers in the early 1900’s.  I couldn’t wait to buy my ticket and go for a ride!

Light rail is thought of as a utilitarian form of public transportation.  However, our grandparents used it both as a way to get from point A to B and as a form of entertainment.  In the late eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, street cars and light rail were commonplace in most metropolitan areas.  My wife’s grandparents remember riding the street car on Peachtree Street in Atlanta in their Sunday best after church.  They didn’t have a destination.  The streetcar was the destination and the entertainment.  There was a slower pace of life that allowed people to often enjoy the trip more than where they were going.

Street Cars Stacked in a Junkyard, 1956

So what happened to this form of entertainment?  Some will tell you that mass production of the automobile in 1908 was the catalyst that doomed the electrified streetcar to the scrapyard.  Others will speak of the National City Lines conspiracy where companies representing autos, tires and the oil industry formed a company that pressured city governments to pave over rails and send the streetcars to the junkyard to make way for internal combustion engine-powered buses that needed tires and petroleum to run.  Internal Combustion by Edwin Black has detailed research on this theory.  I hoped that my experience on this electric rail car would help me form an opinion after reading studies on most of these theories.

I purchased my full fare ticket and waited for the next rail car to arrive at the station.  When the cars pulled up, I pushed a button, the doors opened and I climbed up for a ride.  The first thing I noticed when sitting down was the familiar surroundings from riding city buses and subway trains growing up.  After sitting down and looking around, I could have easily been on a diesel bus.  The sounds were familiar.  Beeping from the warning system that the doors will be closing and the rushing sound of air from the climate control system was very familiar.  As we pulled away from the station, the only missing sound was the roar of a diesel bus engine.

Here’s what I noted from my short excursion:

Riding streetcars isn’t much different from riding a subway. They have a set path and don’t deviate from it.  Buses have set routes but they can be easily changed by providing new directions to a bus driver.  Light rail requires laying new tracks and integrating it into existing tracks before the route can be changed.

There were still lots of cars on the road.  It was obvious that having a streetcar in Salt Lake City didn’t cause most drivers to get rid of their cars and ride public transportation.  The street car I was riding on was half full but there were lots more cars driving all around us.  It is clear to me that there are two requirements for the adoption of clean public transportation: building the light rail system and convincing people to use it.

A great way to see the sites. I picked a route that took me straight through the city by the convention center, temple square and the stadium.  I could have easily stepped off of the train, visited the sites and stepped back on the next street car.  However, I was there for the ride and could see the Mormon temple from the outside and the rest of the sites with ease.

My overall impression of the electric streetcar was that it is a functional and clean form of transportation that should be pursued by most cities.  While current sources of electric power are not clean, building electric transportation systems and vehicles will help us prepare for more cleaner sources of electric power that will replace coal as the grid is updated over time.

Modern Light Rail Cars in France

Currently, electric light rail is very common in Europe and more than fifty US cities have deployed electric light rail with many cities in the process of planning electric light rail systems, including Atlanta, the home of NotPetroleum blog.

My hope is that we’ll see a revitalization in urban areas in the US with electric light rail and street cars for public transportation.  Not only will it reduce our consumption of petroleum but it will help us to reconnect with our neighbors and fellow citizens.  Driving carpool in a minivan is a very isolating experience.  You can ask any Mom or Dad who has this daily duty.  Imagine jumping on an electric tram with other neighbors and heading to the grocery store, dry cleaners or even school?

As I ride down Main street Salt Lake City, I realize that light rail is a part of the solution for our clean energy future.  There will need to be many innovations and solutions to help foster adoption of clean transportation but electric light rail should surely play a role in weaning us from our addiction to petroleum.

Bloom Energy and the Electric Car

Bloom Energy, after operating in secrecy for more than eight years, has now unveiled a fuel cell that could change the way we think of energy and the grid.  Bloom introduced a potentially game-changing product that could provide us with a local, on-demand power source with the potential to help us power new devices that will wean us from dependence on petroleum.  Today, mass adoption of electric vehicles is a threat to the stability of our centralized power grid.  Local power generation solutions will help reduce the load on the grid as we shift to alternative sources of power and mobility.

At the heart of the Bloom Energy Server is a solid oxide fuel cell with some proprietary innovations that allow it to enter the market as a solution that rivals efficiency and price of any existing fuel cell.

Exotic Metal Catalyst?

One of the limitations of most fuel cells is they require the use of exotic metals such as platinum and palladium for the anode and cathode.  Solid oxide fuel cells are able to use more traditional alloys for catalysts since the electrolyte is a dry, ceramic material.  In the case of the Bloom Energy Server, the cells use a “sand-like” substance for the electrolyte wafer.  The anode and cathode consist of proprietary “inks” that are applied to the electrolyte and stacked together to build the cell.

Ceramic electrolyte with anode and cathode "inks"

Fuel Source?

Fuel cells in the Bloom Energy Server can use several different types of fuel sources including renewable or fossil-based gases.  In the current Energy Servers, there are installations that operate both on natural gas and reclaimed bio-gas.  According to Sridhar in a 60 Minutes interview, the fuel cells can even be powered by solar.  We believe that he is referring to the Energy Servers’ ability to reverse the reaction and create oxygen and fuel from an energy source.  If this is the case, the energy source could be from solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, biodiesel generators or conventional grid electricity.

Distributed Grid Security vs. the Centralized Grid

One of the features of the Bloom Energy Server is its ability to generate electricity at the point of consumption.  With the traditional electricity grid, power is generated at a central plant and then distributed to the point of consumption using transmission lines.  In route to the point of consumption these lines can lose as much as 80% of the generated electricity.  The Bloom Energy Server is located at or near the point of consumption and converts the fuel into electricity without requiring any loss of efficiency through transmitting the power over long distances.  By using this model of power generation, the Energy Server will always be more efficient at generating electricity than the current national grid.

With mainstream electric vehicles hitting the market by 2011, the Bloom Energy Servers are a timely innovation.  My hope is that residential versions of these fuel cells will arrive before Bloom’s projected date of 2015 (at the earliest)

When thinking of ways to help kick our petroleum addiction, it’s hard not to be thinking of the Middle East and their grip on the World’s energy supply.  Sheiks pump oil, we pay for it,  sheiks get rich and powerful.  Some sheiks use the funds to bolster Taliban-ese societies that oppress their people and help spew anti-American rhetoric throughout the world.  Some of our dollars make it back to terrorists that kill our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Some of our gas dollars probably funded the flight training and logistics terrorists used to kill thousands of civilians at the WTC in 2001.

While reducing our dependence on foreign oil is by far the most effective method of diffusing this vicious cycle, I can’t help but ponder how the current wave of democratization of the Middle East will affect this?  Thomas Friedman posted a very informative opinion article on the NY Times Wednesday that describes a wave of change happening throughout the Middle East.  If anyone has their pulse on the Middle East, it is Friedman.  From his firsthand knowledge of the political environment (through living and reporting there  for years as a journalist and correspondent)  and through his Pulitzer Prize winning book on Middle East politics and social environment, From Beirut to Jerusalem,  Friedman is most qualified to report on this topic.

Unlike the elections of the 80s and 90s in the Middle East where most autocratic leaders that allowed elections always received 99% or more of the vote, covering elections today has more uncertainty and is a more interesting story.  A story that keeps voters up at night awaiting election results.  In the case where there is concern of fraud, it is no longer the status quo.  Today, you will find voters protesting the injustice in the streets using technology such as Twitter, IM, Facebook and other social media tools to organize.

There is a wave of change moving through the Middle East fueled by the taste of Democracy and the enablement of technology that gives people the social media tools to organize like no other time in history.

I was reading a blog post today about “wind belts” that extract energy from wind blown across belts. Remember when you made a whistle by blowing across a piece of grass held between your fingers? The energy that generated the whistling noise is the same energy they are harnessing here. Take a look and let me know what you think

David Mackay’s new book is a great resource for preparing for life after petroleum. Read Mapawatt’s review of the book. You can buy it on Amazon or download it for free.

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air

In a clear and concise review and essay, Robert Zubrin lays out the case for Methanol becoming the energy carrier for the 21st century and beyond.

Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and president of Pioneer Astronautics, comments on the book,  Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy written by Nobel laureate chemist, George Olah.  His commentary takes a very technical tome and provides a concise summary of the case in language that the average reader can understand.

Read the entire essay, The Methanol Alternative, at New Atlantis.

Responding to a question from a city councilwoman about transportation and infrastructure in the stimulus bill during a town hall forum in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Obama said that the days of just building sprawl are over.

From a transcript provided by Transportation for America:

Not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levies, our dams, but we also have to plan for the future. This is the same example of turning crisis into opportunity…Now, look, this is America. We always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the intercontinental railroad.  He helped start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you’re in the middle of crisis, you’ve got to keep your eye on the future. So transportation is not just fixing our old transportation systems but its also imaging new transportation systems.

That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. That’s why I would like to invest in mass transit because potentially that’s energy efficient and I think people are alot more open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to build communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That will make a big difference.

OAKLAND, Calif. — It will cost $515 billion annually through 2030 to wean the world off fossil fuels in favor of clean energy sources, according to a report released last week by the World Economic Forum.

Onshore and offshore wind, solar thermal and photovoltaics, waste-to-energy, geothermal and next-generation and sugar-based biofuels were identified as large-scale clean energy sectors that governments throughout the world should pursue to address energy security and climate change, the report (PDF) said.

The report, released at the annual meeting in Davos, suggests the transition to clean energy should be included in government stimulus plans, which is similar to U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to include billions in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in the massive stimulus bill making its way though Congress.

The report’s release comes within days of Texas awarding $5 billion in projects aimed at propping up capacity of the state’s transmission lines, which currently cannot handle incredible growth in wind energy generation.

When the projects are completed, there could be up to 2,900 miles of new power lines. Texas leads the country in wind generation, and current power lines are near capacity.

Over the past year, I’ve researched ways in which I can simplify my life in a healthy, organic way.  It involves getting back to older ways of life.  Living before fast-food, frozen meals and preservatives.  We’re raising fruits and vegetables in a garden in our yard and frequenting organic farmer’s markets near our home on the weekends to shop for our family.

Here is a website created by a couple in Louisiana that got tired of living in a fast-paced world and made major lifestyle changes to create a better life for themselves.  Enjoy reading about their new-found freedom.

While lifestyle changes are not the easiest for everyone, this family found that simplifiying their life greatly improved the quality of the life they are living.  Not to mention the amount of petroleum they are saving by removing themselves from the rat race!