Biodiesel Notes And LinksI asked my Dad for some data about his work investigating the possibility of setting up a biodiesel production facility in Western Washington State. Here's some of the information he gave me; feel free to contact me (j0sh@nyu.edu) if you want to get in touch with him and I'm sure he'd be happy to provide additional information.
In the Northwest USA, it is Canola, a relative of rapeseed (and a not too distant cousin of mustard seed) is considered a prime candidate as an oil source from which to make BD. Farmers on the eastern edge of WA state, where they get 16 to 21 inches of rain a year (Canola needs ~ 16 -18" of rain to mature as a crop), feel they can get about 2000 pounds of Canola seed per acre. This is enough to yield about 100 gallons of Canola oil as BD feedstock. This is combined - in a chemical reaction - with methanol to make about 111 gallons of BD (the methanol makes up about 10% of the final volume of the BD). If you were to produce, say 5 million gallons of BD a year, it would require ~4,500,000 gallons of Canola oil (remember, the rest is methanol). This requires a Canola crop from a bit in excess of 45,000 acres (I actually calculated 48,000 ac). However, one only grows Canola every 3rd or 4th year. Other crops can be grown on the intervening years. However (again) most of the crops grown in this area use Pursuit as a Herbicide (i.e., dried peas, beans and lentils). IF you use Pursuit on the land, you cannot plant Canola for AT LEAST 40 months (and up to 7 years, depending on the soil, amount of rainfall/irrigation, et cetera). That means the farmers must find crops other than their usual ones for the intervening years on the land to be used for Canola production. Further, even if they don't use Pursuit, if they plant only every 4th year, they need four times the acreage that you need in a single year to be able to provide Canola seed to a crushing mill to generate oil as feedstock for a BD plant. This means that to have feedstock for even a small 5 million gallon a year BD plant, you need farmers to commit almost 200,000 acres. Further, this land is - every fourth year - NOT used to generate food for the hungry masses, but instead, is generating fuel for their vehicles.
Also, BD is generally sold as B5 or B20, that is, either 5% or 20% Biodiesel. It is NOT 100% BD. One hundred percent BD would, over a period of only a few months, eat up the rubber hoses in current diesel engine installations and potentially cause other problems. So, most of the "vegetarian" diesels you see proudly displaying bumper stickers to that affect are actually running on either 5% or 25% BD mixed with dead dinosaurs (petro-diesel).
On another note, there is a body of work out there that points to the fact that ethanol is not a good choice as an alternate fuel in that it takes almost as much energy to produce the ethanol as you get out of it (as little as 5% more energy made than used) PLUS you use a LOT of corn that could either feed people or feed cattle that would then feed people. In addition, it used a LOT of water in the process and many areas are now concerned about the lowering of their water tables and the possibility of running out of water for the general population in the areas of some of the ethanol plants.
Here are some URLs that could be fun or of interest:
Finally, my Dad kindly made a chart of prices for some potential feedstocks and a simple flow chart of a BD from seed oil production; contact me if you're interested.
Jeff's notes/questions: Thanks, J0sh, that was very informative. Also, I find it interesting that in order to process the canola oil you need methanol (how much is needed as an input, and where does that methanol come from?). ilteris: I came across a talk titled: "Changes in the Land: Environmental Stresses and the Terrestrial Biosphere’s Capacity to Store Carbon" from MIT World. watch here. Altough it wasn't mainly about biodiesel per se, I still found it vaulable to give us different approach where he tells about China’s $7 billion dollar investment in Borneo in 2005 to clear tropical forests in order to create palm tree plantations to produce biofuel and some similar invesments in Brazil and Savannah where results of those effecting the carbon level of the world in the long run. |