Bio diesel - possible plans for the future

[Furrtiv]

Hello all, sorry I've been away for a bit, too much going on with life, the universe and everything. Yes. i know the answer's 42.

Anyhow, I have a plan for the future, well, a couple of years or more into the future; when, hopefully, I have sorted out the current dreadful mess that is my personal finances, I plan to exchange the Honda for something else. Now, I'd like to try something a bit different, and would like to get an older diesel car, maybe a pick-up or something suitable for both on- and off-road.

The question I have is this; would an older diesel car/pickup be suitable to run on biodiesel? Preferably 100% waste veg oil (I know that some serious conversions may be required for it to run in the winter). Also, having looked for, and found very few, outlets for this stuff, would I have to make it myself? That is a daunting prospect; I could buy a tank and store it, but I don't know where I'd put the tank!

Is it even worth it, for an older car (I'm thinking eighties, maybe nineties)? Would insurance be difficult to come by?

I suppose I could just buy the vehicle and then decide later.

Mind, this is all far off in the future, at least two years.

Any ideas, suggestions or guidance would be most appreciated, thanks.

[bmcecosse]

Yes - the older Citroen Saxo 1.5D engine (also used Metro 1.5D) seems to be a favourite for running on old veg oil. But where to get it? Are you going to go round the Chippys with a hand cart begging their old oil ? New veg oil is ~ £1/litre in the cash and carry - so scarcely any cheaper than pump diesel which is now 106.9 around here - and likely to go cheaper. By far the lowest cost motoring is with LPG - so look out for a cheap car with LPG installation!

[paulhumphries]

Free "fuel" from chip shops etc is virtually impossible to get. After all why would they give it to you when they can sell it to an oil collector.
Also remember anyone who uses oil, and has waste, will have hundreds of people after it so you will be at the bottom of a long line unless you have some sort of direct access via work, relative, friend etc.
There is a legal requirement for businesses to account for their waste. That means collectors should have a waste disposal licence also a waste transportation licence. Businesse are suppose to ensure the person who collects the oil is a licenced otherwise they fall foul of the authorities themselves.
I've run diesel on veg oil for years and the only place I managed to get waste oil was from the local school. My wife is a teaching assistant, a friend is the cook, I already had permission from governors to enter school grounds with a vehicle (I'm register disabled), and I've been Police checked for working with children so nobody was required to escort me within the school (I'm their Xmas Santa so am already known). Even then it took months before the education authority gave permission to the kitchen to let me collect the oil. A lot of hassle for little gain.
I know someone who thought they had found a source of used oil so bought several hundred ltrs only to find it's like treacle and need further processing (filtering / dewatering) before they can risk putting it into their vehicle.
Personally I'd only consider fresh oil and currently it's actually dearer then pump diesel (115p yesterday at Aldi).
When fresh veg oil was under, say, 60p then a diesel car that would run on it would be great but now an economical petrol running on LPG is going to probably work out cheaper per mile.
Saying that my old Land Rover is diesel and I have my Minor, albeit off the road at present, for economy

Paul Humphries

[bmcecosse]

My 'hand cart' was a bit tongue in cheek Paul! I well know they can 'sell' that old oil. Maybe grow your own sunflowers and/or rape - and then press out the oil for home consumption ?? I wonder how many acres it would take to feed say 10,000 miles of personal motoring ??

[paulhumphries]

My 'hand cart' was a bit tongue in cheek Paul! I well know they can 'sell' that old oil. Maybe grow your own sunflowers and/or rape - and then press out the oil for home consumption ?? I wonder how many acres it would take to feed say 10,000 miles of personal motoring ??

I wrote my message before reading yours but the hand cart is quite apt as it's a horrible job collecting waste oil and you don't want it anywhere near your boot (I used a trailer).
I did look into growing, say, 5 acres but the (friends) land got used for other purposes. I can still have a smaller area but prefer it to be an allotment instead to grow root crops - as long as the horses keep out Biggest problem is getting it pressed as you would still need to pay someone to do the job. The equipment cost so much it's not viable to buy yourself. Then there is transportation of several tons of rape seed plus collection / storage of the oil. It really need a group of people to make it worth doing so the work can be shared.

Paul Humphries.

[linearaudio]

Just about hopeless, I would say. A couple of years ago when the Chippies WERE giving their old oil away I tried doing it properly, "cracking" the oil by mixing with caustic soda & methanol. Methanol is horrid price & not easy to get more than 5litres at a time. The whole lot has to be monitored within tight limits & temperature to work, takes hours,yields about 60% caustic fouled glycerine which you can't do anything with, then the final result needs washing (yes, with water) to remove unused caustic solution, which you will find you can't legitimately get rid of. Get the mix wrong and you end up with 100% caustic rubbery slime which you can't do anything with (guess how I know!). So instead lots of people just filter the lumps out of old oil with a "sock", available on ebay for the job, but you still have unknown water content, and starches etc. Also by the time some outlets change their oil it is more like treacle than anything! Buying refined biodiesel from a professional convertor, such as supplies your local taxis/buses turned out to save me about 2p/litre over pump prices, and you had to supply your own containers as the law does not allow dispensing from the supply gun into your tank directly without a different licencing structure! Best just to run on 50/50 diesel & new vegetable oil if you can get that at a good price. As said above the 1980's design XUD peugeot/ Citroen engines will run OK on anything within reason. I've heard of people using heating fuel (illegal) and seizing the injector pump as it wasn't oily enough-what do they say-cheats never prosper!!

[bmcecosse]

Your caustic slime would make good soap! I seem to remember the process is know as Saponification! I was Eng Manager in the only Rape process plant in Scotland (400 tonnes/day) so I well know the machinery to press oil from seed!

[dalebrignall]

i used to work on a farm on a good day you will get a tonne and a half an acre,so you will need a lot of land bmc to grow your own fuel for a years motoring.

[rayofleamington]

was Eng Manager in the only Rape process plant in Scotland (400 tonnes/day)

was that before or after you worked as a safety officer in a munitions plant?


Anyway - waste veg oil. It is still possible to get it for free but sources are limited as big supplies are already snapped up.
Using a significant quantity of food quality virgin veg oil is a very unethical thing to do. This has raised the global price for cooking oil and many people around the world who could barely afford to eat will find life harder as a result.

Waste veg oil needs to be filtered - this takes time (a lot of time unless you spend serious money on automated equipment). It takes even more time when you do it in your garage at sub zero!
If you get the right car you can use it at 50% without much hassle. People use various things to thin it down including 10% white spirit but I fouund 50% diesel/WVO was fine in my old Merc and Land Rover.
The next step is to have seperate tanks and a changeover valve, so you can start on neat diesel and run neat veg oil with pre-heaters.
The alternative is to crack the veg oil, which uses some rather non-environmentally friendly chemicals needs more equipment and uses enery. Methanol (eek) is available in bulk but this can add to the complications rather than reduce them.

I had an 80's Land rover (25-30mpg) and an 80's Merc (30-40mpg) but with all the effort you'd be better off getting a 90's Citroen ZX (very cheap) or late 80's Golf and doing 50 - 55mpg on normal Diesel!

[linearaudio]

i used to work on a farm on a good day you will get a tonne and a half an acre,so you will need a lot of land bmc to grow your own fuel for a years motoring.

Yet the "enviro" brigade are happy to bulldoze forests and starve thousands to produce what is never going to be a practical answer to fossil fuel. Funny how inconvenient facts can be glossed over when a subject gets in the political limelight! Your ton-and-a-half an acre sounds good, how many litres of oil would that produce, as a matter of some interest?

[rayofleamington]

Yet the "enviro" brigade are happy to bulldoze forests and starve thousands to produce what is never going to be a practical answer to fossil fuel.

one third of the worlds farm land would be required to replace fossil fuel... And if you believe statistics, it takes 10 times more land to feed people who eat meat than those who don't...

Personally I'm after a steam powered car, and a small forest.

[dp]

Hmm haven't checked recently but last year when I asked at the local chip shop they had to pay to have their oil taken away and since it was by volume they would be happy for me to syphon stuff off.

On an old Merc (the 17 year old subject of my RAC rant thread) I got up to about 80% in summer, got a bit cocky, didn't use any diesel at all and then couldn't get the car started. A warm day and recharged battery got it goung and once started was fine. Moral: Don't mix too much and be sensitive to the engine becoming difficult to start.

From an economic and environmental view only waste veg oil is viable. As said above, you have to filter and be careful of water being in the waste oil. There is a filter that will actually dewater out there. Or you can take a chance anf filter through a pair of jeans or a newspaper.

Lucas diesel fuel pumps will not cope well with vegoil as they rely on the lubricity of the fuel to work. They've been said to fail almost immediately. Bosch pumps are okay and Mercedes ones potentially best as they are lubricated by engine oil.

Only the first 2500l per year are duty free, after that it's 26p per litre VAT I think.

Some links:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
http://www.biotuning.co.uk/Home.htm
http://www.fourwinds-ii.com/mrfunnel/mrfunnel.htm

[ASL642]

I've heard it gives off a delightful small of fish and chips when you drive, is this really true?

[rayofleamington]

Or you can take a chance anf filter through a pair of jeans or a newspaper.

a J-cloth should give you about 5 to 10 microns - if you're handy with the sowing machine you can make half size pillow cases out of them. Surface area is the key to faster filtering, not more pressure. Any filter becomes less of a filter inder pressure as the dirt gets pushed through.

I've heard it gives off a delightful small of fish and chips when you drive, is this really true?

I only ever got the smell of a burger van. - it was known to make people hungry.

Bear in mind that you will very quickly have a blocked fuel filter as the veg oil keeps the dirt / slime in your fuel tank in suspension and therefore passes it through to the filter. After that your fuel filter will need changing more regularly due to sludge.

[linearaudio]

Thats a very valid point about the frequent filter changing. Certainly in the last year all our local chippies have wised up and want paying to take their oil away. Most of the best goes to our local fireman, and yes, his old Citroen DOES smell just like the chip shop!!

[bmcecosse]

Ray - Rape job was before Munitions job! The RApe factory was highly flammable - lots and lots of Hexane used in the extraction process. Using that 2 stage process (pressing followed by solvent extraction) we got just over 200 tonnes oil from the 400 tonnes seed each day. We also got just over 200 tonnes of animal feed meal! The reason it's over 400 T total is down to carefully controlled moisture content in the meal ! Before pressing we 'flaked' the seed through large granite rolls - followed a long cooking process with some steam injection, and then finally to the presses! At that stage we got ~ 100 T per day of oil from that 400T seed. And that oil was then pressure filtered before passing to the tank farm. So - to do even a simple press operation requires quite a bit of equipment and considerable energy input. Simple 'virgin' pressing of cold rape seed is very unlikely to be any use - the seed is so small!

[Furrtiv]

Ah, okay then, it'll probably be LPG! It was just a thought, I didn't realise there was so much more to it (and I'm very aware of the problems facing food crops being used for fuel)!

[bmcecosse]

LPG is the lowest cost way - unless you can manage with a small electric car for short local journeys.

[rayofleamington]

I prefer my bike for short journeys. Not much good for the supermarket run though.

[linearaudio]

LPG is the lowest cost way - unless you can manage with a small electric car for short local journeys.

Only low cost due to the government subsidy, which they were threatening to remove recently. I'm sure if LPG "took off" that subsidy would reduce or disappear, rather in the manner which diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, and then became popular....I like the idea of electric for local trips, which is probably a major use of cars, thinking of buying an old milk float(with good batteries), now that would be different on the school run!!