What is Digg?78 Comments
- SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -11/+35You know what I'm not going to do?
Make diesel fuel in my house. - doctechnical, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21You can make your own Ethenol fuel at home, too. Just don't let the Revenuers catch you!
- bmeshier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I started making my own BioDiesel a few months ago here in Indianapolis. The most expensive part of the process is the Methanol (about $1.80/gallon). This is the first I've heard about tax evasion, I haven't had any problem. Here are pictures of my setup (in the garage)
http://meshier.com/2006/11/22/biodiesel-appleseed-reactor/ - crawfishsoul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Or putting their bio-diesel in their Honda Civic.
- jpop, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Just don't use your biodiesel in IL because their State Tax guys'll nail you.
- DoodlesMcPooh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I have used straight vegetable oil for over a year in my car with no modifications and no bad effects.
The car was only £200 so it is not worth spending money on.
You are supposed to pay 17p tax per litre that you use the the HM Revenues and Customs in the UK but I don't know anyone that does. - VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Nobody's going to Costco and buying jugs of vegetable oils for their cars. They get it from restaurants after they're done with it.
- lordmetroid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11***** them... What they don't know can't hurt you.
- bmeshier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I'm saving about $140/month in fuel costs, and for a hobby, it's worth it. Raw cost of materials is about $0.75 / gallon, beats paying $2.65 at speedway.
- VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Make it? I actually have a for-reals Bio-Diesel gas station down the street from my apartment.
- DorkmasterFlek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Making your own clean fuel and keeping the world greener? We can't have that now can we! Sure shows where our priorities are...
- khyberkitsune, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Backyard, then? Even vegetable oil can be used almost straight in a diesel car with almost mo modification since itcombusts because of compre
And it's not hard or dangerous to make vegetable oil in your backyard. ;) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13Smartest comment in this thread.
I can seriously see a bunch of digg morons trying it out and ***** their ***** up. - theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Just don't do it in Ill-Annoy. They will hit you with a $2500 bond and charges of tax evasion.
edit: jpop beat me to it. - sizbo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8biodeez nutz.
- bmeshier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I get my Methanol from Jackson Oil (http://jacksonoilsolvents.com/) in 55 gallon drums. It probably helps that I live in the racing capital of the world, where Methanol is plentiful.
- phunlee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5that's funny. your comma makes your link bad, too. :) that's funny.
- FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4But if more than a handful of people start doing this in your city, they will realize it's in demand and start charging for it.
- markuswells, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I do not care if you like the idea of making your own BioDiesel or not just DO NOT go to that website - the chemistry is all wrong and people get hurt using the info provided there
A more reputable site is:
http://www.biodoeselcommunity.org
I do get used Veg oil from restaurants for free (they want me to take it) and turn it into diesel and its VERY cheap . - mrharvey518, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'm sure they say it somewhere in this massive article, but really be careful when doing this. A buddy of mine burned his garage down. Just a warning.
- Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If anything they should be offering a Tax Cut for this *****.
- SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That's actually pretty cool. I like how the fire extinguisher is right there.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Or, it could be people pissed at people like you who are so in love with Digg you think that massive corporations would spend the money to hire people to astroturf a site like Digg...
Digg may be big, but it's not as big as CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC.. It's more cost effective for them to just pay for news-vertisements. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5noreturn..LOTS of people. More people than visit Digg. More people than know who Sergey Brin or Steve Jobs is. It is a far more common thing to do than probably MOST of the pathetic things you do.
- Katana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe $2.30 in the states, in england it's closer to $9-10 a gallon, so $5.14 a gallon would be pretty cheap over here.
- phunlee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah. I don't recommend it as a hobby. But if you're investing in it for your primary source of fuel, it's worth getting the equipment, etc. and doing it yourself... I know a guy who pays I think 33 cents a gallon after processing and expenses. He does get his oil free. And I think most restaurants are glad to see it go...
- robertc1964, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Really? biodeselcommunity.org? Are you a Lithuanian organization? Armenian? Rajasthani?
Last time I checked, the English spelling of diesel is, well, diesel. And, hey, whatta ya know, when I type in http://www.biodieselcommunity.org, I actually get to the site.
Don't let that whole spelling thing get you down, though. Most folks will tel yu itss noht thawt himpertent. Especially if you want people to learn something that might keep them safe, help the environment, blah blah blah. - Mu99ins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's the individual against the corporations, man.
- hawk0168, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Biodiesel is good (much better than ethanol anyway), but it's the issue of what your source is. If you use old cooking oil from a restaurant, that's good, but it's a simple question of economics. If a bunch of people do this, the vegetable oil will become more expensive than regular diesel. The only future I see for biodiesel is in small on-farm operations. For example, a farmer grows corn, soybeans, or another cash crop on most of his land, but uses some to plant an oilseed crop such as Canola. Presses the oil out of the seed with a special machine, makes biodiesel from the oil, and uses the leftover part of the seed (the "meal") as a food source for livestock. It's being done in Europe right now, but it's still under research here in the US. I'm actually doing some research with one of my professors to see if this will work on Minnesota farms.
Ethanol vs biodiesel.
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html
Oil seed crop yields
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
Canola is listed as rapeseed here. But a note about this journeytoforever site: I've tried to trace their sources, and I can't do it. They just go in a loop that leads back to globalpetroleumclub.com. That being said, their oil yields do make sense, I just can't verify them. - scythefwd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2virgin oil is much more expensive. Waste veggie oil from KFC, Kryspie Creams, chinese resturants, McDonalds, etc... is free. You can make a gallon of BioD for about 85 cents per gallon if you recyle waste oil that was going to be thrown away.
- kakapu4u, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For some blogs, I wish there were ads so we could reward the writer for putting up such cool content.
- AZBioDsl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ive been making biodiesel for about a year now using waste veggie oil from some restaraunts. I run it in a 2002 jetta tdi. As of right now it costs me about $0.75 a gallon to make. A friend and I make it in 250 gallon batches at a time. Its actually really easy to do once you get the hang of it. Don't get me wrong there are lots of things to take into account when making a batch (titration of the oil, water washing, how to get rid of the waste glycerin) the hardest thing to overcome is the space you need to do it. A big backyard or garage is necessary to brew in big batches. The next big thing will be biodiesel from algae.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/business/07algae.html?ex=1330923600&en=9d8493faef69e0fe&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss - violentvinyl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been researching the past couple of days. It looks like you can do this with a diesel car for well under $1500 in equipment, no mater which way you decide to go (pure WVO, or BD). That's a lot cheaper than all of my other hobbies (snowboarding, DJing, and alcohol).
Of course, if you don't already have a diesel car, the demand for them has gone way up, and the blue book value of a diesel car is often twice that of a non-diesel version of the same car. That and in the states, your currently limited to various VW models, domestic trucks, and old Mercedes. Although the 2006 Mercedes E320 is a nice car, and is also diesel. - mmbrich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Where are you getting your methanol so cheap!? I am paying almost $5 a gallon to make my BD with unless I drive an hour to get it cheaper (sometimes worth it).
- FLUX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is a very good source for the beginner in bio diesel
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_aleksnew.html
Bio diesel is a very viable alternative fuel source. We currently pay our farmers many billions of dollars every year TO NOT GROW stuff . The reason for this is our farmers are too efficient, if we turned them loose they would crash world prices on all the major food crops, but with bio diesel they can never grow enough oil seed crops to satiate the countries thirst for fuel and they can turn a nice profit to boot .Farmers became farmers to grow things not to sit and watch vast fields of dirt lie fallow. - rogueman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Uhh... if something catches fire, wouldn't be more sensible to have the extinguisher some place else? Like not in the middle of the fire?
- AuntyBub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The original diesel engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel, was run on straight peanut oil, you could basically just use vegetable oil now but since the engine design has changed you'd run the risk of clogging up your filters or if you have VW ruining your emissions control system. But your vehicle would still run on straight oil. Here is a site that has a little blurb about the history of the diesel engine, read on.
http://www.ybiofuels.org/bio_fuels/history_diesel.html - mmbrich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm totally jealous. The cheapest I can find here is 3.30 a gallon at the race track and I haven't bought there yet because I wonder about the water content (It's dispensed from a regular pump). I can get a 55 locally for about 4.30 a gallon but that still sucks compared to 1.80. If anyone knows a supplier in Colorado that is better, don't hold out on me!
- zugzub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mbreed2006
Your collage education is showing through isn't it. Whats the matter are you afraid because backyard chemist figured some of this ***** out? Making BD is simple. and its not very labor intensive
We go through thousands of gallons of fuel each year on the family farm. BD is a cheap supplement that keeps our cost down and allows us to be more profitable.
codye
Do you have any idea how much farm ground in the US is sitting empty? I can take you on a drive just a little north of me and show you thousands of acres of good farm ground thats sitting fallow and has been for years.
Depending on the route you take it can be a very cheap setup. We had a lot of stuff around the farm that we used to get ours going. All total we spent maybe $300 on equipment. Most of that was in specialty stuff, scales and safety gear. - BLKMGK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Broomet
Startup costs to build your own BIODiesel setup are pretty cheap. Many of the people doing this simply use old water heaters, even new ones don't cost squat if you've ever looked into it. A few food grade plastic barrels, some methanol, some (okay a bunch) water, a little power, and you can be good to go pretty quickly. The hard part is sourcing meth cheap, handling and buying good lye, and having a good source of cheap CLEAN veggie oil. Around here you cannot simply pull up to a local fast food place and pump oil - they have dedicated tanks for this already and they are PAID for their oil.
Around here it's actually easier to just get an old oil storage tank - say one used for heating fuel - and buy fuel in bulk. They will deliver to your home if you purchase a minimum quantity including 100% Bio-D if you want. taxes etc. will have already been paid too. Not as cheap perhaps as making it but lots less hassle. The ONLY reason why I've not done it this way is the woman doesn't want the garage to become a filling station. If prices go much higher though perhaps she will change her mind :-)
P.S. VW only warranties their TDI to run at some pretty low level of Bio-D blend. It IS very possible to have issues running Bio-D if it's not made right, especially if made from used oil and not properly filtered or if the PH is off. Washing and filtering are two very important steps! - PSPon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I saw this on Popular Mechanics for Kids... the good old days of educational tv..
- nkthen, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Good article on biodiesel
http://www.biodieselathome.net - forgeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cutting into the food supply, how? What about the waste fat / oils from meat packers that just gets thrown into the landfills.
http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm
Or lets fix the excess carbon dioxide, urban sprawl, and global warming with large rooftop rotating hydroponic tanks of alge using Grey watter.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greywater
Also, is the media not on a frenzy of how America is "obese".oO(*thinking* the picture of the "fat kid" shoving french fries in his pie hole) use that extra food for fuel and cut back on portions at the ole all-you-can-eat buffet. There is energy all over the place it is just a matter of using the energy that benefits us the most.
Peace... - BigSlacker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think you were to make it at home, you'd have to start with a packet of seeds and plow your entire yard over. That will probably get a quart or so a year.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Lyph...Digg is NOT big. Less than 1 person in 1000 has EVER heard about it. Less than 1 in 20,000 visit on any regular basis. Even less than that visit daily.
- codye, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I hope some of you know that if the demand for biodiesel increases, the amount of farm land needed to accommodate that demand will likely increase. That has environmental implications.
Forested land = farm land. - jhnmccain610, on 09/01/2008, -0/+0this is a very nice article. i really like it
http://www.biodieselathome.net - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Of course, when you factor in the start up cost, that $1500 a year savings doesn't look all that great.
- monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1is vegetable oil really cheaper than gasoline ?
- bdc352, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You know what's REALLY stupid? It's not buying alternative fuel/components/ingredients/yada,yada,yada...it's all of the ***** who bitch about $2.50 a gallon fuel but will not even bat an eyelash at spending $2.00-$2.50 A PINT for bottled water. If you are guilty of this then I have some land to sell you 100 miles south of here (I live in Panama City, Florida).
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