For us, usable farm land has been converted to mini lots w/big houses on them. Funny part is the new residents saying they are living the "country life" in a city type division w/HOA's.

IMHO, one needs at least two acres, and some livestock to experience a tast of country life.

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RRGrassi


70's Southern Pacific #5608 Fairmont A-4 MOW car

13 VW JSW 2.0 TDI 193K, Tuned with DPF and EGR Delete.

91 W124 300D Turbo replaced, Pressure W/G actuator installed. 210K

90 Dodge D250 5.9 Cummins/5 speed. 400K

I agree it doesn't seem like it would be. But I'm talking about commercial (as in, licensed fuel vendors who are required to test fuel) who are trying to get their hands on every ounce of WVO they can. There must be some reason. Besides, judging by the quality of some diesel I've seen, I don't think they have to worry much about ASTM "standards"

Yes, these are fuel resellers, so it is required.

As indicated by the featured article of this thread, along with personal experience of many "greasers", the "free WVO" thing is ALREADY over, or will be VERY soon. Eventually, the only individuals using/collecting WVO will be the ones who either
1) own restaurants,
2) live in rural areas (where for one reason or another the rendering/biofuel companies are NOT coming),
or
3) have locked down WVO sources with restaurant owners with whom they are on friendly (ie clean, professional, and PAID) terms.

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'79 300SD
'82 Chevy Chevette diesel

I agree, I just don't what diesel price point will cause commercial BD to become mainstream (so you can actually find it), and if all the new diesel cars that are about to become available will be approved to use greater than B5 under warrantee. I don't expect to see a BD pump on every corner until/unless the car manufactures cooperate (like E85 is being supported by some manufacturers, regardless of what we all think of E85). I suspect this is still a few years away.

They don't have to. If you are collecting thousands of gallons a week and mixing it all together you'll arrive at an average quality for the oil and then you gear your process to that. The food particles and junk in the oil are all filtered out early in the process, and another trick is to use just a touch more lye than what the oil's ph actually requires. Most of the remaining impurities drop out of the bio with the glycerol in the settling phase of production, and when you are recovering the excess methanol the excess unreacted lye hooks up with the fatty acid molecules and drops out as soap. Using these kind of methods they only have to do periodic random sampling to make sure things stay on track.

Like others have said, free WVO is already over for the most part. Comercial bio is already cost effective. We have a medium sized production plant in Arlington WA just north of Seattle that produces all their bio from WVO. I haven't checked lately but last time I did, they were selling it for about $0.50 a gallon less than petro.

NAH, you don't want to go using bio - leave it for me!

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1984 300 Coupe TurboDiesel
Silver blue paint over navy blue interior
2nd owner & 2nd engine in an otherwise
99% original unmolested car
~210k miles on the clock

1986 Ford F250 4x4 Supercab
Charcoal & blue two tone paint over burgundy interior
Banks turbo, DRW, ZF-5 & SMF conversion
152k on the clock - actual mileage unknown

First, even WVO is cleaner burning that #2 and Biodiesel is much better than either WVO or #2. Out of the numerous components of diesel exhaust, only one NOx is slightly more, but the total reduction of the other pollutants is a much bigger issue, especially the soot issue. NOx can be taken care of with a cat, when the soot is out of the equation. The main reasons that cats are not on more diesels is their tendency to get blocked with soot (First hand experience, 99 F-350 had a cat. Almost total blockage at 125K miles)

As to using the WVO for feed stock, most other countries do not allow this to happen. Not sure exactly why, but from some of the WVO I've seen, I would hate to have it feed to something I was expected to eat later.

For everything there is some trade off. Some are better than others. If NOx was a primary issue, then EGRs would be required to be in operation, regardless of the age of the vehicle or the availability of parts. Once again, with the EGR, having it working is a trade off for other issues such as fuel mileage or power. I personally think the EGR engines get to a point of diminishing returns, especially with older engines.
If soot buildup was a major reason to eliminate the EGR, to help the engine breath better, then a switch to Biodiesel would have eliminated virtually all of the soot problems with the recirculating exhaust gas.

You could look at it this way. Last week Congress voted to cease stockpiling oil in the Strategic Oil Reserve, which was 77,000 barrels of oil per day. To equate the amount of diesel saved from that same amount would only egual 11,800 barrels or just under 0.5 million gallons. Ironically, the overall Biodiesel production was averaging over 1.3 million gallons a year although the actual production capacity is closer (or will be within the year) or 9.5 MGPD.


Every little bit helps.

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87 300SDL - 215K Miles !!
99 F-350CC Dually PSD - 190K
86 300SDL - 189K
All on B-100

Offer them a certain amount back as tankable biodiesel. A few gallons of biodiesel is probably worth more to them than a few extra dollars for them to give to the oil overlords.

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'83 300DTurbo http://badges.fuelly.com/images/smallsig-us/318559.png

Broadband: more lies faster.

This is a little off topic, but...

What does the NOx get catalyzed to? The catalyic converters were introduced to "afterburn" the excess hydrocarbons in the exhaust gasses. The TrapOx was introduced to trap, and oxidize (i.e. burn) the soot particles. From what I recall, at least some of the NOx variants are pretty stable and the catalyitic convers don't really touch them at all.

They are. It is illegal to disconnect, disable or remove them. If they were installed on the vehicle when new, they must remain there, and functional, for the life of the vehicle. A bunch of yahoos violating the law doesn't make it go away.

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'83 300DTurbo http://badges.fuelly.com/images/smallsig-us/318559.png

Broadband: more lies faster.

They don't, if you want to reduce NOX you need to react it with ammonia (like the new bluetec system). That process has been used to reduce NOX in commercial applications for decades. NOX formation is simply a function of combustion temperature and available O2.

That would be (and is) a GREAT solution IF the restaurant owner owns or has someone in his/her family who owns a diesel. That's not too common.

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'79 300SD
'82 Chevy Chevette diesel

So is that what that special Bluetec "juice" basically is?

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'79 300SD
'82 Chevy Chevette diesel

That's the point, you do need to demonstrate that every batch BD meets fuel standards if you plan on selling it to anyone with a vehicle under warrantee without being sued (assuming the BD producers can convince the engine manufacturers to endorse it's use beyond B5). If the BD produces do not do that, they will always be marginal. If they ever get to the point where they can sell high quality fuel that is approved for new vehicles, they will become relevant. Until then, it's just a sideshow.

It's actually a urea solution that releases ammonia when exposed to exhaust gasses.

Sorry, in terms of testing we're talking about two different things. I'm talking about testing and "normalizing" the condition of the WVO prior to BD production - and how they control its effect on the end product. You're just talking about testing of the end product.

And sure, they have to test their end product for meeting standards, but so does every other fuel producer. When they are averaging the quality of their WVO feedstocks as I described, why would they have to test their end product for meeting standards any more than producers of dino-diesel? BD production is a very simple chemical reaction process (heck tons of people produce ASTM standard bio in their garages) and as long as the feedstocks and process don't change, the end product quality shouldn't vary any more than end products of distilling/cracking petroleum.

Am I somehow missing your point?

__________________
1984 300 Coupe TurboDiesel
Silver blue paint over navy blue interior
2nd owner & 2nd engine in an otherwise
99% original unmolested car
~210k miles on the clock

1986 Ford F250 4x4 Supercab
Charcoal & blue two tone paint over burgundy interior
Banks turbo, DRW, ZF-5 & SMF conversion
152k on the clock - actual mileage unknown

My point was that WVO is an unknown feed stock that could vary considerably (it is a waste product), there would be no way of ensuring it's quality without constant testing to ensure there were no soluble contaminates (salts, sugars, etc.) left in the fuel. I assume that a producer would test every batch of feed stock prior to the expense of processing it to avoid waste.

I don't know what people produce in their garages, but I certainly wouldn't touch it without seeing the test results first.

What I'm saying it that although one individual pickup of WVO, or even one truck full, may vary somewhat in quaity, by the time you mix a few thousand gallons into one storage tank that is constantly having oil taken out of it and put into it, the mixing is going to normalize the quality. Small variations average out in any kind of large aggregate. Same is true of crude - there is a pretty broad quality spectrum from one well to another, but when it all gets blended together in tanks holding thousands of gallons it becomes pretty homogeneous.

I'm sure they do a lot of testing - because they are no doubt required to in order to retail their product. But even if they test every 1000 gallon batch, how hard can it be? It is undoubtedly done in-house and records kept on each batch tested to satisfy the regulatory requirements.

__________________
1984 300 Coupe TurboDiesel
Silver blue paint over navy blue interior
2nd owner & 2nd engine in an otherwise
99% original unmolested car
~210k miles on the clock

1986 Ford F250 4x4 Supercab
Charcoal & blue two tone paint over burgundy interior
Banks turbo, DRW, ZF-5 & SMF conversion
152k on the clock - actual mileage unknown