Biodiesel plants coming to Houston & NOLA

[Ankf00]

A small Houston company said Wednesday it has created a joint venture with two investment firms to build biodiesel plants here and in New Orleans capable of producing more gallons of the fuel per year than American drivers used in 2005.

Riverstone Holdings, The Carlyle Group and Houston-based Green Earth Fuels plan to construct two facilities beginning later this year.

They would each be capable of producing 43 million gallons of biodiesel per year, mostly from soy or palm oil at first, said Michael Hoffman, managing director of Riverstone.

:cool:

[mapguy]

:thumbup:

I've been busy converting my fooking amazing Ford Escort to biodiesel. Found an old diesel Rabbit pick em up out in the sticks and stole the carb. I'll be saving money in no time! I used a big mo-fo swaging tool to widen my fuel recepticle to take the bigger diesel nozzle. Ain't looking purty but just think I can spend the money I save on Belgian Ale.... :gomer:

[Wheel-Nut]

Can you run the Jetta on that stuff Ank?

if Toyota imported this to the states I'd buy a diesel.

Hilux

http://hilux.toyota.com.au/TWR/content/static/7580.jpg

[Ankf00]

I like Toyota trucks too :)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y14/hookemdet/B3344647-3sm.jpg

[racer2c]

I'd buy into any alternative if it meant not being dependant of foreign oil.

But were is the soy or palm crops being grown? I read that the problem with corn based ethanal is that we would need a country three times the size we have with everyone growing corn in order to meant our current usage.

we need a paradigm endless energy source that only we have and know how to make, like cold fusion or the perpetual motion machine. :)

[Ankf00]

corn based ethanol == buttload more BTUs to produce than cane based ethanol

cane ethanol == practical, corn ethanol == infeasible

[JLMannin]

Where is the energy input going to come from to do the chemistry of the conversion from vegatable oil to bio-deisel anf glycerin? I bet they will burn fossil fuel (coal and natural gas). Furthermore, what will all the farm equipment, trucks to transport the gain to the processing plants, etc, come from? I will go out on a limb and guess that fossil fuel will also be used for this as well (oil). Also, what will they do with all that glycerin? There is only so much K-Y jelly a nation can use.

[JLMannin]

corn based ethanol == buttload more BTUs to produce than cane based ethanol

cane ethanol == practical, corn ethanol == infeasible

DING! DING! DING! DING! Someone who understands the fundamental laws of themodynamics. Corn based ethanol's sole purpose is purely political and will actually increase dependence on foreign oil and increase our burn rate for the one fossil luel we actually have a lot of, namely coal.

[Ankf00]

no sulfur, reduced CO, CO2, and non-methane hydrocarbon emissions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-diesel#_note-www.nrel.gov.810


A 1998 joint study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) traced many of the various costs involved in the production of biodiesel and found that overall, it yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil fuel energy consumed. [2] That measure is referred to as the energy yield. A comparison to petroleum diesel, petroleum gasoline and bioethanol using the USDA numbers can be found at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture website[3] In the comparison petroleum diesel fuel is found to have a 0.843 energy yield, along with 0.805 for petroleum gasoline, and 1.34 for bioethanol. The 1998 study used soybean oil primarily as the base oil to calculate the energy yields. It is conceivable that higher oil yielding crops could increase the energy yield of biodiesel.


Feedstock US Gallons/acre
Soybean 40
Rapeseed 110
Mustard 140
Jatropha 175
Palm Oil 650
Algae 10,000
article says plants will use soy & palm oil,

[datachicane]

DING! DING! DING! DING! Someone who understands the fundamental laws of themodynamics. Corn based ethanol's sole purpose is purely political and will actually increase dependence on foreign oil and increase our burn rate for the one fossil luel we actually have a lot of, namely coal.

Exactly.

To take this a step further, substitute 'hydrogen' for 'ethanol', and you'll understand why the likes of BP run all of those glossy full-page hydrogen gee-whiz ads.

Hydrogen==lossy energy transmission vector, not energy source.

It's bloody unlikely that the solution to the problem will come from a miracle fuel that will allow suburban housewives to continue to use 6,000 pound SUVs to carry a twenty-pound child and 1/8th ounce of vanilla back from the grocery store. 25mpg sport sedans carrying a single adult on an 80-mile daily work commute won't work, nor will hybrids that yield a handful of percentage points better economy at the expense of a gigabuck toxic battery pack that must be replaced every few years.

In short, the answer will more than likely involve some lifestyle changes, which is a much tougher sell than mere technology changes. The modern four-stroke gasoline engine is a staggeringly efficient piece of engineering, if we allow it to be- it's not a lack of efficiency that's the problem, it's finding any energy source that could perform the Sisyphian tasks above for a nation of 300 million, plus a billion Chinese in twenty years.

Fifty years ago you could buy a two-stroke two-passenger ISO/BMW Isetta, or an even faster and more efficient four-passenger Heinkel Trojan that yielded 70+ mpg. There's an outfit in the UK now that builds beautiful 'glass Isetta replicas powered by a 250cc four-stroke Honda- it gets 90+ mpg. Given the engineering resources of any of the major automakers, a small, efficient, 90-100 mpg city car should not be out of the question. I don't blame them for not doing it, given the kinds of vehicles we vote for with our wallets.

Fuel and engineering are not the problem- a society addicted to Escalade-style bling and the hour-long commutes that come with suburban lawns are. It's just a lot easier to blame greedy foreigners, greedy oil companies, and greedy automakers than to change ourselves.
</end rant>

[racer2c]

Exactly.

To take this a step further, substitute 'hydrogen' for 'ethanol', and you'll understand why the likes of BP run all of those glossy full-page hydrogen gee-whiz ads.

Hydrogen==lossy energy transmission vector, not energy source.

It's bloody unlikely that the solution to the problem will come from a miracle fuel that will allow suburban housewives to continue to use 6,000 pound SUVs to carry a twenty-pound child and 1/8th ounce of vanilla back from the grocery store. 25mpg sport sedans carrying a single adult on an 80-mile daily work commute won't work, nor will hybrids that yield a handful of percentage points better economy at the expense of a gigabuck toxic battery pack that must be replaced every few years.

In short, the answer will more than likely involve some lifestyle changes, which is a much tougher sell than mere technology changes. The modern four-stroke gasoline engine is a staggeringly efficient piece of engineering, if we allow it to be- it's not a lack of efficiency that's the problem, it's finding any energy source that could perform the Sisyphian tasks above for a nation of 300 million, plus a billion Chinese in twenty years.

Fifty years ago you could buy a two-stroke two-passenger ISO/BMW Isetta, or an even faster and more efficient four-passenger Heinkel Trojan that yielded 70+ mpg. There's an outfit in the UK now that builds beautiful 'glass Isetta replicas powered by a 250cc four-stroke Honda- it gets 90+ mpg. Given the engineering resources of any of the major automakers, a small, efficient, 90-100 mpg city car should not be out of the question. I don't blame them for not doing it, given the kinds of vehicles we vote for with our wallets.

Fuel and engineering are not the problem- a society addicted to Escalade-style bling and the hour-long commutes that come with suburban lawns are. It's just a lot easier to blame greedy foreigners, greedy oil companies, and greedy automakers than to change ourselves.
</end rant>

Good post.

[chop456]

From the upcoming issue of the journal of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences: (And no, believe it or not, I'm not a regular subscriber :gomer: ).

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/short/103/30/11206


Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production, whereas biodiesel yields 93% more. Compared with ethanol, biodiesel releases just 1.0%, 8.3%, and 13% of the agricultural nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticide pollutants, respectively, per net energy gain. Relative to the fossil fuels they displace, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 12% by the production and combustion of ethanol and 41% by biodiesel. Biodiesel also releases less air pollutants per net energy gain than ethanol.

Despite living in the middle of Beandom, it's still extremely hard to find B100 at a retail pump. There are only 2 Chicago area stations I know of that sell a B5-B20 blend. It's easy to buy from a co-op if you're a farmer and using it for off-road equipment, but I'm not. Homebrew isn't really an option if you're living in an urban area. I wish it was easier to find. My car loves it.

It's promising, especially as the prices of BioD and dino-diesel draw closer.

[datachicane]

From the upcoming issue of the journal of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences: (And no, believe it or not, I'm not a regular subscriber :gomer: ).


Ethanol yields 25% more energy than the energy invested in its production


The important thing to remember is that that percentage is variable depending on the sugar content of the crop.

Corn doesn't have anywhere near that high a yield, although ADM would like you to believe that the yield from the Brazilian operations using sugar cane is comparable to what we can expect here. Wonder why that is... :thumdown:

[JLMannin]

The important thing to remember is that that percentage is variable depending on the sugar content of the crop.

Corn doesn't have anywhere near that high a yield, although ADM would like you to believe that the yield from the Brazilian operations using sugar cane is comparable to what we can expect here. Wonder why that is... :thumdown:

Simplified process of making EtOH from sugar cane --> filter off the crap, ferment it, distill it.

Simplified process of making EtOH from corn --> soften the corn by soaking it in hot water for two to three days. Grind the corn, centrifuge off the germ and the fiber. Mill the snot out of it to release the gluten. Centrifuge the gluten off. Add enzymes and heat for several hours to convert the starch to sugar. Filter off the crap, ferment it, distill it.

All that front-end processing takes a lot on energy and cuts the energy yield significantly. If you listen to the corn growers accociation, they claim there is a net energy gain. The oil companies claim that there is a net energy loss in the production of EtOH from corn. I think that best case, its a small net loss.