Re: Most People Will Never Know About Biodiesel

Nov 20, 2006 3 Replies
J



> Just a bit of pity there isn't enough land to grow enough crops
> to provide more than about 10% of the diesel demand (that's
> from the biodiesel suppliers own "trade group". Getting
> a few basic facts right would be a good idea - biodiesel may
> help a bit in the short term, but it's not a long term solution.

And the other bit of info often forgotten is this: To grow any sort of half decent crop of rapeseed (or whatever) requires nitrogen fertilizer. Fertiliser manufacture requires large amounts of energy from gas, oil, coal or whatever. As I see it the biodiesel thing is largely snake oil!


Julian.


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I

While it's not likely to be of much use as a mass-market fuel, at least it potentially offers a means of getting rid of waste from the food industry. About 3 years ago I pointed this out to my favourite curry house in Reading, they started running their delivery vans on their own waste oil! Not sure if they still do it or not. The chap who owned the place was surprisingly mechanically savvy so I hope he watched out for the pitfalls.

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B

I was under the impression that waste oil from the food industry was/can be recycled anyway - might be wormg though.

Richard

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I

Sure, but they get charged for the oil to be taken away, and then they run the truck on dino-diesel so it saves them money twice (no recycling fee and no diesel costs) and means their delivery vans are out of the carbon cycle.

Also oil gets recycled once IIRC, first it's pure oil, then it's sold as "reclaimed" oil, then I don't know what happens to it.

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