bio diesel and WVO

[wal1809]

You better start recording every single minute of your time you have to invest in WVO, in order to save a few dollars. Otherwise, your economic comparisons are inaccurate. Your time has to be worth something, mine sure is!

I'm going to burn diesel, paying "them" for collecting, processing, storing and distributing it to readily available fueling stations, conveniently located all over the road network of the continent.

Funny, short memories, wasn't the end of America supposed to happen in the early 70's when oil went nuts the first time? I don't see any pictures on the TV of shortages or line ups at gasoline stations?

But, of course, most of us weren't paying the same kind of attention in 1973 as we are now at this advanced age of 2011.

What changed our priorities? Equipment stop working??

The same crap, all over again, oil is running out, pollution will kill us, evil foreign people, government is borrowing too much money to make war and spaceships, robber barons are ruling us...

edit: forgot to include political corruption and upheaval...

Yes, 1973 and 2011 sure sound a lot alike.

Have we wondered how, oh how about 1982 and 2020, might compare....??

happy coaching!
buswarrior

I understand your point very well.  If I didn't like bio diesel and didn't have to afford it I probably would not.  We all have our cut off price when it comes to a point we will no longer be able to afford it as a luxury.  I guess I mean where is your cut off where you simply say I am not going to pay them anymore?  I know that might be a personal question but if you want to answer, what is your magical number that you decide to no longer drive your bus for pleasure any longer.  Mine has already passed.  As it stands now with WVO we are able to get in and go to Northwest New Mexico just because it is there.  Now fuel is the last thing we even have to consider affording.  I have 1500 gallons ready to right now.  Times will get tight in the future but at least I am no longer shackled to middle man's pump for now.

[Charley Davidson]

Charley, settle down,

I said "Your time has to be worth something, mine sure is!" which is quite different from "Time is money".

Time spent on one thing, takes away from something else. So, for instance, instead of snuggling up with a fine beverage and a loved one, someone may choose to go collect WVO. That has to be worth something, wouldn't you agree?

And in much the same way, we also need to consider that to have cash, we have traded our labour for dollars to spend towards our fuel goals.

How do you propose we fairly compare the true costs of running WVO versus diesel?

You can't hide the costs of collection, which usually entail time spent searching and negotiating for some WVO, driving(fuel burn), carrying, transferring, some purpose built equipment, storage, depreciation/upkeep of all the hardware, and the labour which had to be traded against the "savings" of not pumping traditional fuel.

Buy two new tires for your WVO trailer, a bunch of fresh hose, running a pick-up you wouldn't have otherwise,etc.

By all means, run alternative fuels if you desire, the process sounds quite satisfying, but don't expect to get a free ride when comparing apples to oranges.

So, $18 000 dollars over what time frame, for what investment of time and associated costs of collection?

Convince us, some of us may join in, some of us will decide the value of the time commitment tips the balance in favour of diesel.

I'm all for informed decisions, it strengthens the hobby!

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Do you snuggle up to a beverage & a loved one 24/7 on your off time?

If I/we use your "time is money" thing then nne of us should own a bus period.

The $18,000 was over a 3 year period but the bus set idle for many & I mean many months without being driven, my collection time has been minimal. And most of the time I'm getting 200 to 300 gallons at a crack. One time I was parked in a southern Il. town & looked out my window at the 2 restaurants and literally seen 600 gallons of oil in cubies that I got for free. Yes it's messy, yes it's work but I just call it "Sweat Equity fuel"

I have about $2,500 in my system only because of trial and error. If I were to build another (for my self) it would cost way less like maybe $1,000.00

Oil was easier to get when I was traveling more so than now that I'm based somewhere. I guess it was the fact that people could actually see that I was burning it in my bus and they were interested and wanted to be a part of what I was doing.

[TomC]

Interesting to note-I was looking at my fuel log, and in 2003 I paid $1.65/gallon for fuel.  These prices will not stay up-they will come back down into the mid $3.00 range-but probably not until the end of the year.  What is happening is what happened in 2008.  We have plenty of fuel, plenty of production and Libya makes only about 1% of worlds fuel. So it is all a bunch of you know what.

Last year all the Biodiesel that was produced in the Billions of gallons was good for about 8 weeks to run the country on it.  We just don't have the production-yet-to run all the cars, trucks, buses, RV's, trains, ships, airplanes on Biodiesel.  It will happen one day, but probably not in our lifetime.  Good Luck, TomC

[happycamperbrat]

Good point Tom! We cannot produce enough bio to take care of all the diesels on the road. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, algae is the hope right now.

[Highway Yacht]

Interesting to note-I was looking at my fuel log, and in 2003 I paid $1.65/gallon for fuel. 

I last filled up less than 6 months ago and I only paid $2.89 a gallon for it and I thought that was high. Today at that same station the price is $4.04 a gallon. Thats a 50% increase in less than 6 months. I sure hope it does come down before too long.

Jimmy

[LesBerg]

so is anyone running a propane / diesel dual fuel setup? It's one of the modifications I'm keeping in mind to cut fuel costs.  Without the liquid draw tank and primary fuel lines, the system from Technocarb runs about $2500.

[wal1809]

Les I have done no studies on the subject as I have been immersed in WVO for the last 4 or 5 years, literally at times.

[Busted Knuckle]

Well I have to say I'm totally envious of those of you that can use alternate fuels!

I have seen several different systems that run successfully (Charlies included) and would love to be able to do it.

But in our business it just plain would not be feasible! Our customers demand all the luggage space available and wish there was more. And they would never go for us having to make multiple fuel stops or have to pull over to pump some from one tank to another or even have to search out a source for a special fuel.

On the rare occasions that we do have to refuel mid-trip we are slaves to the large chain "Travel Centers" where the group can all unload and get snacks, a meal, just shop or whatever while we quickly dump 150-200 gallons of over priced fuel in the tank in order to get them back on the road in a reasonable amount of time!

SO yes I like seeing those who have/do "think out of the box" show what they've done and prove it can be done and how to do it.

Who knows some day I may just say the heck with all this and convert one of the old buses just sitting here taking up space because I can't sell them for near what I need to in order to get rid of them. And I assure you if/& when I do I will be looking at using alt fuel!
  BK 

[wal1809]

Well thank you BK.  I can definately understand the amount of room thing.  I am thinking in my head about a 200 gallon tank.  It would be as tall and wide as the bay and take up 2 feet of the bay.  That would be 200 gallons or 1400 miles.

[wal1809]

Well thank you BK.  I can definately understand the amount of room thing.  I am thinking in my head about a 200 gallon tank.  It would be as tall and wide as the bay and take up 2 feet of the bay.  That would be 200 gallons or 1400 miles.  So far as pumping a small tank from a big tank.  That is just a flip of a toggle.  good old electricity can handle the rest.

[belfert]

I don't put a pricetag on time I spend away from work.  I get paid a salary so I couldn't work overtime to make more money.  It would be hard to work a second job because I'm almost always on-call at my regular job.  If I spend a week of spare time painting the interior of my house I don't look at the time spent as costing me anything.  If I paid someone it would cost probably $2,000+ for the job.  If I had spent more time at work I wouldn't have made any additional money.

I don't do WVO because I don't have room for more tanks and I don't want to hunt for WVO while on the road.  My big yearly trip consumes 525 gallons of fuel.  I would gladly trade my spare time for fuel rather than spend my hard earned money on fuel if WVO were practical for me.

[wal1809]

I don't put a pricetag on time I spend away from work.  I get paid a salary so I couldn't work overtime to make more money.  It would be hard to work a second job because I'm almost always on-call at my regular job.  If I spend a week of spare time painting the interior of my house I don't look at the time spent as costing me anything.  If I paid someone it would cost probably $2,000+ for the job.  If I had spent more time at work I wouldn't have made any additional money.

I don't do WVO because I don't have room for more tanks and I don't want to hunt for WVO while on the road.  My big yearly trip consumes 525 gallons of fuel.  I would gladly trade my spare time for fuel rather than spend my hard earned money on fuel if WVO were practical for me.

Well that is about as straight up and good an answer as any.  Thank you for throwing in your thoughts out there.

[artvonne]

  While ive never ran anything but diesel, I do understand they wont start on veg oil, you have to start up on diesel and warm the oil. I guess im not following all the stopping every 100 miles to pump oil. If your running veg, you should only need a small tank for diesel, perhaps 10 gallons. Use the main tank for the veg oil.

  Has anyone done any testing to see how cold the engine or oil could be and still start? Might it be possible that if it once started on diesel it could be immediately switched to cold oil?

  And while were on the subject of testing, has anyone seen any evidence regardling coke formations in the combustion chambers or injectors?

 

[5B Steve]

  While ive never ran anything but diesel, I do understand they wont start on veg oil, you have to start up on diesel and warm the oil. I guess im not following all the stopping every 100 miles to pump oil. If your running veg, you should only need a small tank for diesel, perhaps 10 gallons. Use the main tank for the veg oil.

  Has anyone done any testing to see how cold the engine or oil could be and still start? Might it be possible that if it once started on diesel it could be immediately switched to cold oil?

  And while were on the subject of testing, has anyone seen any evidence regardling coke formations in the combustion chambers or injectors?


   If you add 2-ethyl-hexel nitrate (1-112) 1qt -112 gal, it will lite without any problems.


  Steve 5B....
 

[wal1809]

A lot of WVOers are using there main tanks for wvo and using a small tank for diesel start up.  I just didn't want to do that.

So far as start up.  Your engine will start on cold oil.  You don't want to do that.  Cold oil is what creates coking of injectors and sticks the rings.  Cold oil does nit flow well either and can cause high pressures in the pump.