Watts Street Baptist Church - Make your own biodiesel!

Make your own biodiesel!

Fri Jul 23 2004 at 11:37am - soapbox · tech news

I ran into this the other day:
http://www.biodieselsolutions.com/products.asp

For only $3000 you can be up and transestherifying your own biodiesel
from industrial waste oils! Cost per gallon (assuming free waste
vegetable or animal fat oils) is $.70, plus an hour's worth of time,
per 40 gallon batch.

This is intriguing to me because this setup makes it actually feasible
to get a group of people together and take yourselves out of the game
of using petroleum fuels. Imagine that! The benefits of biodiesel are
astounding. The only real down-side I can determine so far would be
that your vehicle's exhaust would smell a bit like french fries (or
whatever kind of oil you used initially).

Let's run the math:

Current diesel fuel price per gallon: $1.74
(http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp)

Cost per gallon, if you make your own: $0.70
(http://www.biodieselsolutions.com/faq.asp#e5)

You save: $1.04 per gallon of fuel. If you wanted to pay someone
$20/hr for the time they spent making the fuel, the cost, per gallon,
would rise to $1.20. You'd still save 54 cents on every gallon.

Initial price of biodiesel equipment: $3000

Assuming one bought this just for themselves, did not pay themselves to
create the fuel, and consumed fuel at the rate of 10 gallons a week, it
would take a little less than 6 years to recoup the cost of the
equipment. That is less than optimal, so...

Assume one bought this, co-op fashion, with a group of 10 people, and
individuals within this group were paid $20 per 40 gallon batch for
their time and effort (lugging oil drums around town for free oil):

Initial price of biodiesel equipment, per person: $300.
Assume fuel is consumed at the rate of 10 gallons/week: $5.40 savings,
per week
Time to recoup initial investment: ~14 months, or ~7 months if an
hour's worth of time per batch is volunteered.

Paying $0 tax per barrel of fuel: priceless

Actually, McDonald's and co. should pay biodiesel makers to take their
fry grease off their hands... they ordinarily have to pay to have this
properly disposed of anyway, and that french fry smell those cars
produce is powerful free advertisement... :)

Discussion: Make your own biodiesel!

Laura Willard Sherrill on Sep 28 2004 @ 11:22am
biodiesel

There is a coop in Pittsboro where you can make your own biodiesel or buy theirs--for $3.00 a gallon. I've heard that cars on biodiesel can only go 45 mph tops. I've been hesitant to pursue it because I don't want to die on I-85. Anybody know?

Erich Smith on Sep 28 2004 @ 01:13pm
biodiesel

Of course I don't have the benefit of direct personal experience, but I can point you to the next best thing: the veggie van project has a FAQ that addresses this issue.

Laura Willard Sherrill on Oct 01 2004 @ 12:39pm
a map

http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/distributors/default.shtm

look at the distribution of suppliers--crazy!

the "lubrosity" factor is interesting--i imagine greasing your engine would make it run smoother!

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