bio diesel and WVO

[wal1809]

I want to see what we have here.  Fuel is scaring the $6.00 a gallon mark and we will never see decent prices again.  We are standing on the edge of America will not be the same, ever again.  We enjoyed a great many years of "Hey lets go to ?" and just get in and go.  I for one refuse to give it up.  I love my bus and will do anything to keep her running.  At the now $4.00 I have to tell you she will only make short runs and maybe one long  run a year.  

I am sure you all have seen my answer to that.  Well lets have a poll.  Let's get some numbers.  Tell us your fears, horror stories your whatever.  I am willing to help anyone on this board get started in alternative fuels if they simply ask.  So post up your vote and let's see where we are.

[wal1809]

Oh wow I clicked yes on my own poll.  We now have a 100% rating for alternative fuels.  How kewl is that?

[buswarrior]

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

[happycamperbrat]

one thing needed in the poll is for those of us who collection is illegal in our state  

[Ed Hackenbruch]

I was interested when we first started out in 04, but soon realized that, 1. since we fulltime and don't own any property anywhere, we have no place to collect and process it.  And 2. since we have a 35ft. bus we have no room for a tank for it.  We only have 2 bays, one that has our fresh and black tanks and our house batteries, and one for all off the tools, fluids, parts and other things that we need/want to take with us.  As a side note i remember reading back in the late 60's that the world was going to run out of oil in 30 years or less. Well here we are 12-15 years past that point and the population in the world has tripled or quadrupled and we are still finding oil.  And i well remember the gas lines of 73-74......wait for an hour to get a max of 5 or 10 gallons and/or only able to get it on even or odd days depending on the last number on your license plate.  Shortage my @$#! The gas companies just wanted to raise the price and said that suddenly they could not meet demand. So if the last refinery was built in 76 how can they meet demand today with 3-4 times as many vehicles on the road?

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Oh yeah, i almost forgot,  the one i liked best was the toilet paper shortage right after the gas shortage,........like we suddenly ran out of trees.

[Charley Davidson]

I am so sick of this "Time is money" crap, try to go to your bank & tell them you will give them X number of your time for the mortgage and see how that flies.

Our work week is based on a 40 hr week with the occasional overtime. Anything after that 40 is our family/hobby/leisure time that we "Don't" get paid for unless we have a second job of some sort.

So those who take a very small amount of time to collect oil, let it settle (all by itself) for a period of time, pump it (usually electrically) into an automated, unbabysitted filtration system that is onboard our buses are basically doing the same thing that those that have a garden in their back yard are doing but with less effort.

We do this for many reasons, a passion for being green, wanting to do something out of the box, not wanting to contribute to the raping of our own fellow Americans, saving money or giving people something to make uneducated assumptions about. The list goes on & on.

I really do not understand why we veggers get so beat up on & looked down upon. Doing the math Conservatively I have saved over $18,000.00 running 36,000 trouble free miles in my bus, that's a nice little paying part time job if you ask me.

[luvrbus]

Guys I'll tell you my spin on the fuel we are spoiled with prices Nancy keeps screaming about the billions of dollars the big oil companies get anyway we slice this pie you can call it a tax break or subsidized fuel as they call it South America and other countries.
If the idiots in DC do away with the Tax breaks for big oil Watch Out guess who is going to pay the price 7 or 8 buck for a gal of fuel just like Europe you better be looking for a different source and I don't even like the French fry stuff our fuel is subsidized and has been for years since the 70's when oil was 3 dollars a barrel then shot up to 12 overnight and has never stopped going up yet  

good luck

[Charley Davidson]

Ed, I have lived in my bus full time for a long time with no home base, I am able to collect,process and store many gallons on my bus for a straight WVO system, now BIO would be a bit of a stretch.

[Highway Yacht]

It is very hard to find WVO here in my part of North Carolina. Seems what little is out there is being fought over by the multitudes of people wanting it. Most places use to pay to have it removed...now days they are selling it to the highest bidder or saving it for their "friends". I even see people begging for it on craigslist too. I imagine that will only get worse as diesel prices continue to rise. I guess if you were in a location where there wasn't any trouble getting it, then it would be a great alternative to diesel.

Jimmy

[Barn Owl]

If I could I would like to. There is a problem on the horizon though called supply and demand. As soon as everyone starts lining up at the back door of all the restaurants, the cost of WVO production will go up, and it will be less attractive at best, or just not worth it, especially to those who are late comers and don't have the time to recoup the investment required. We don't generate enough bio to run every car using current methods, and there are good arguments against it. Bio is heavily subsidized, and many claim it takes more energy to make than we get in return. I have seen shows on oil producing algae that looks like a better alternative than current traditional methods. The bigger problem looming ever closer is the fact that we are on the doorstep of a world food crises. How do you thing the worlds true poor feel about us burning our food for fuel when they spend every waking moment trying to survive and not starve to death? I want renewable energy also, but we are making some decisions in the name of the environment that are costing lives, and not benefiting either.

Well I see Highway Yacht posted while I was typing, and I agree with what he said.

[artvonne]

  I wouldnt mind knowing more about it, and I dont really see the big deal with wasting some of my time to save a lot of money. Like was said, no different than having a vegetable garden. But better, because vegetables in the store start  to look pretty cheap after you buy everything and screw around weeding and tilling and de-bugging and pruning and hoeing and weeding and tilling and de-bugging and pruning and hoeing and weeding and tilling and de-bugging and pruning and hoeing. And then pick and clean and cut and chop and can and store and freeze and toss. Man im tired just thinkin about it.

 I also dont think its ever been fair to put all environmentalists in the same treehugger tent. The left would have everyone believe that only they are the real tree huggers, yet its been conservatives and hunters who have set the most land aside and promoted conservation. Everyone knows we all have an interest in clean air and water, just different opinions about how to reach it, and how far to shift the scale of balance between having people employed or protecting some rare cockroach.

 
 Over 20 years ago I was interested in running a diesel on WVO, but obviously not interested enough to play with it on my own. But then, the small amount of research ive read had never shown any clear advantage, at least not when diesel was running near $2 gallon and you hear of problems with coking up the combustion chambers, clogging, etc.. I like my life simple and trouble free. If I knew the engine would burn it without any trouble, that he tanks and filters and plumbing wouldnt clog up and leave me stranded, that the oil was free or very cheap...I would try it.
 

[LesBerg]

well, here's my take on it.

I have no firsthand experience with bio-d, WVO, or even owning a diesel powered vehicle, so I'm going to sit back and watch the market develop on that for a while.

That said, we just had our 08 Grand Caravan repossessed (happily, I might add), and we're looking to retire our 9.25mpg 1967 Ford F100. At $3.69 a gallon, every trip into town costs us about $25.

We're planning on picking up a 4 or 6 cylinder Jeep Wrangler / CJ to replace the truck and a corolla / metro / swift to replace the van.  The gas mizer will be the first choice for a toad and I'm going to leave it basically stock.

The Jeep, however; is going to get the propane treatment. Around here you can get propane nearly everywhere. Regualr gas ranges from $3.59 cash to $3.80 and diesel runs from $4.19 to $4.49. Propane? $2.45 at nearly any gas station. Between price and emissions, I'll take the extra time to tweak the timing, compression, etc, for a 'purpose-built' propane motor. Give that propane naturally has an octane rating around 130, you can use a compression ratio of about 11:1, so a 'purpose-built' propane-only motor will still have very similar power levels to a gas engine.

[LesBerg]

My ultimate plan for the jeep is to convert it to a hybrid vehicle. NOT a tree-hugging Prius style hybrid, but something much more tried-and-true.

I want to convert it a locomotive-style diesel-electric, though possible power it with propane instead of diesel.

The idea, at least for the moment, is to install a diesel or propane generator in the engine bay that has sufficient power to run the vehicle full-time without needing batteries. It would power an electric forklift motor attached to the 4cyl driveline (as it's tailored for a low output gas motor). Once I have the base diesel-electric part ironed out, I'll add a removable battery bank for 'silent running'.

Why for the diesel electric route? Mainly because industrial style engines are designed to run at extreme efficiency in a very narrow power band. Because of this, they are actually more efficient and a 'vehicular' engine. This is why a train can move huge load over tremendous distance at a very low fuel/ton/mile ratio. A Jeep is ideal for a conversion like this mainly because they are a light vehicle and the 4 cylinder drive train usually has good gearing.

Here's the funny part.

I want a battery pack that is good for about 4-6 hours over unimproved roads or scrubland, like southern Idaho.  I want the battery pack for the 'final push' into good mule deer hunting areas.    In southern Idaho, many people recommend a day-long stalk into the area you want to hunt in, with your camp about 3-4 miles from where you want to hunt. The other recommended way to get in is by horseback.  Well, I don't have a horse, so that option is out. And building a silent hunting truck sounds like fun. 

[buswarrior]

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