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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Friday, October 21, 2011 at 13:33:40 :
In Reply to: Either way posted by clueless [186.15.41.102] on Friday, October 21, 2011 at 12:15:47 :
It is cheap if you own a chemical plant and can order a rail road car load of it. Chemical companies don't want to deal with the little guy here. There isn't enough money it it to be worth the hassle, and they're always paranoid that somebody will use some chemical to make drugs or bombs. There are middlemen who will sell to the little guy, but the price is around $200 for a barrel, plus freight. Haz-mat freight is a killer too. Then you also have to get the lye (which is on the DEA "watch list" as a meth chemical) and dispose of the glycerin and other waste. To make meaningful amounts of biodiesel (thousands of gallons) you're basically setting up a chemical plant, with all its hazards and regulations. A lot of guys are sliding through under the radar, partly because nobody in government wants a headline saying they put a small-time biodiesel guy out of business, but sooner or later there's going to be a fire or explosion in some suburban back yard or some heap of glycerin and lye left for the landlord to clean up.
I bet most guys making biodiesel haven't even tried to see if their rig will run on unmodified vegetable oil. I know that before the "biodiesel" craze started, there were some who mixed filtered used fryer grease with #1 diesel (kerosene) 50/50 and ran that. One guy I knew of ran it in a VW Rabbit diesel. The guy who ran straight vegetable oil in his M35 had a 2-tank setup so he could start and stop on regular diesel but run on vegetable oil, headed with a coil in the tank that he ran engine coolant through. In your climate (CR) you probably wouldn't need any heating coil. I believe in the KISS principle. Keep it simple.
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