Sourcing Oil, Biodiesel Trains and Algae Futures…
Get Friendly With Your Local Restaurant
Are you looking for somewhere to get hold of waste cooking oil to use in your biodiesel making experiments? Contact your local eating places…they're probably throwing a ton of the stuff away each day.
Check out Lucas Manteca who owns a seafood restaurant. The environmentally conscious owner wanted to make his restaurant as enviro-friendly as possible so instead of throwing out his waste oil as sewage he gives it to a company called Waste Oil Recyclers….who then proceed to go and sell it off as biodiesel and make a pretty penny.
Now of course, what you want to do is get in there first before these new companies, which are springing up all over the place, get there first!
Do you use local contacts? I'd love to hear about it, leave a comment below…
Biodiesel Trains?
Over here in the UK, they're trialling a South West Train run on diesel, soya beans and rapeseed oil over the Exeter-London-Salisbury route.
Over the next few months they're going to decide whether it improves the speed, engine or emissions.
…bet it's still not on time though! (cheap shot I know)
Pond Life May Power Cars And Planes In The Future
A company called Sapphire Energy claims to have developed a green crude oil that is identical to regular crude oil… but which doesn't affect climate change and doesn't need acres of land to produce.
Too good to be true?
Sapphire has so far raised about $50m in venture capital recently as investors see "green crude" as the future of oil supplies.
Of course this type of algae biodiesel has been discussed on this site before but where Sapphire claim to differ is in not just concentrating on producing ethanol and biodiesel but instead creating traditional crude oil. As for what type of algae they are using Sapphire are keeping quiet although commentators say they're likely to be using a genetically modified cyanobacteria, otherwise known as blue-green algae. These organisms are capable of doubling their mass in an hour!
Sapphire hopes to be at a stage of commercial production within 3 to 5 years.
They do of course have their critics, John Loughhead of the UK Energy Research Centre argues "it's a very sound idea but…are they able to do anything practical in an efficient way" he goes on "They also have the classic renewable's problem in that you're dealing with energy from the sun…so you're only getting peak conditions around 0.5KW per square metre. You need vast, great big farms."
Algae is one alternative fuel source we here at biodieselfuelonline are optimistic about, we'll have to wait and see what the future brings. You may enjoy the algae discussion from this earlier article.
(Thanks to The Guardian UK for source material)
Leave a Comment
Comments on Sourcing Oil, Biodiesel Trains and Algae Futures… »
Can you advise what price we can get for Jatropha processed oil for Biodiesel production. We have large quantities available for sale from our
Vietnam production for export.
Thanks actllc@hotmail.com
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Can traditional waste motor oil be used the same as vegetable oil for bio-diesel? Thanks
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I believe Algae biodiesel will outsource other alternative biofuel source as more developments and inventions are done to boost production and processing.
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I HAVE USED BIO DEISEL FOR A 3 MONTH PERIOD WITH NO PROBLEMS, BUT THE GLOW PLUGS IN MY BERLINGO WERE SHOT TO BITS ACTUALLY MELTED AT THE TIPS, IS THIS A RESULT OF USING BIO FUEL?
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I think the biodiesel made from microalgae has large potential in subsitiute energy.
but it seems that microalgal biodiesel still has many barrier which needs to overcome. for example, open pond way to cultivate microalgae has many uncontrol parameter which likes temperature, light density or other bacteria competition and so on. as for this problem, it should has some evaluation to confirm that is this available in the future. I am interesting in this issue very much and doing assessment something like that, so do you have any information about open way pond cultivation for microalgae expecially in marine microalgae? shuch as the real processes, required equipments or correlation between microalgal growth and temperature, light density and so on. I can do the net energy and net GHG emission if I have those information above.
ccccc999@hotmail.com
issa
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Hey Matt, feedstock is a lot harder to find than you think, I've never heard of anybody throwing it away. Griffin Industries has contracts with most of the restaurants around here. They will not sell it,they don't even use it for Biodiesel. They make Biodiesel with virgin oil, They get a big tax credit to make it affordable.
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Used motor oil contains trace amounts of metal, it would take a while to filter. Also it would not be biodiesel because its a petro. product
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Melted glow plugs could be caused by the engine running lean , that would cause it to run hotter. Have you changed your fuel filters , if not they could be a problem . restricted filters could cause cause a lean condition
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oil from algae will be the greatest contributor of raw materials in the future,but it contain high % of poly unsaturated fats,therefore thermal oxidation stability will be affected if you will follow biodiesel std.so it need further refining but i have no doubt, green algae oil will bring the rm cost lower.all green algae produced oil but some species produce more than others.collecting algae in polluted river banks is a lot of fun,because you will produce your own biodiesel.you will see algae anywhere,as long as there is clean or not clean water,,since sunlight is every where and it absorb co2 from air.to keep one kind of algae in an open pond is impossible because contamination is open to anything,so what will happen is you will have mis population of algae and bacteria.
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You're correct that some algae species produce more oil than others. Were you aware that if a company that had multiple designs and applications for their PBRs (Oh yeah, just like my company.) that depending on which specific liquid fuel was being produced, the specific species of algae grown to make that fuel changes. The species Botrycoccus Braunii, is the only algal species which produces lipids with a hydrocarbon chain molecule physically long enough to make "bio-gasoline". At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are a few species of algae which produce lipids that make fantastic bio-jet fuel. Almost everything else (algae species) that produces lipids can be used to make biodiesel. Right this minute, the only thing keeping us from demonstrating all of this on an industrial scale is the lack of a business plan. A R&D Engineer I am. A Businessman I'm not. If someone can help me out with a business plan, in 24 months or less, I'll make them enough money through the company stock we will barter for, to retire on a gold trimmed yacht surrounded by half-naked Polynesian women. Anyone?
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Someone help Matt out here, I'd love to see his plans come to fruition.
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Thank you Mr./Ms/Mrs. Admin for the vote of confidence and the kind of neat fact that what you wrote was NOT a request. That's why you're the Admin & I'm definitely not. The facts are that the day I can send the plan to the by now vibrating investors who are no doubt losing their minds over just where the Hell I've been, I would be shocked and amazed if funds weren't disbursed within 30 to 45 days allowing the immediate remittance for the only debt we'll be carrying (the Biz Plan). I'm not talking about $5 or $10 million, I'm talking about (totaled together) hundreds of millions of dollars and this specifically includes provisions for co-locating pumps and/or co-op filling stations to enter the retail market in a small way almost immediately while the change over to biofuels in the land & sea cargo and airline markets is intended to be driven by the decentralized availability of fuels produced at or near the point of consumption.
No, I'm not kidding. What we're capable of doing IS that BIG. Anybody? Anyone at all?
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I recently mechanically solved for the most difficult chemical variable within a sealed PBR. Dissolved Oxygen removal (without harming the alga) can be simpler and cheaper than I ever thought it could. We now have the ability to measure and control ALL of the variables pertaining to rapid algae growth within our continuous industrial sized algae oil production systems.
Our 2nd round of funding is in negotiations now. Commercialization of algae based fuels really comes down to acceptance by vehicle makers of a replacement for the test fuel called, Indoline.
The manufacturer's issues, are our issues.
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