ALCOHOL can be a GAS and Biofuels

[1NRG24Seven]

Hi Theremart... I understand your delema in getting accounts, the main objection from the restaurants point of view is service. If they are convinced you are capable of first picking up the oil and are a business doing so they are more apt to deal with you. On the other hand if your just another guy wanting oil, and they get many, they are not interested as most of em are flakes who make a mess getting it and then never clean it up or they get some oil for awhile and stop picking it up putting the business owner in a possition to find another service, which can take time to set up, meanwhile their oil is full and started to spill over if rain gets in it. So realize its up to you to sell them on your service. We here at Creekside Ranch also pick up waste motor oils. To do this we had to get a certification by EPA which is very easy, They want to know how its stored and where and want to be able to inspect the site for contamination. Point is here that I made up business cards with the name of the company and on the card we list all the oils we pick up, including waste veggie oil. This gives more credibility to a prospective restaurant owner that your not some flaky fly by night individual looking for a free veggie oil ticket without any regard to their needs. Its all in how you present yourself and your proposal. I have gone out and with little effort picked up five new accounts in one day. I also show up with a truck equipped with means to pump it then and now that they can see. This gives them even more confidence that I am capable and service many accounts, and not that I will return with a half baked idea that usually results in a mess for everyone. I have found some business would rather pay 30 bucks a month from the larger companies then to deal with me even, this happens. So I can not even sell them all on my service for free. I am not concerned as there are plenty of more fishes in the sea. I am in the process of tripling my accounts this year. I currently have close to thirty, I want about 100 or more each producing 50 gallons or more a month. One other tip...if you do get an account make sure they have enough drums so you do not have to pick up in winter, or good luck pumping it, you can take a propane weed burner with you to heat the drums then pump it. I find it easier to wait for spring and pump it then. I like to leave my accounts with at least 4 55 gallon drums and or a 250-300 gallon container This means I only have to service them on average every 3 months, less trips for me and larger loads makes for better economy and time savings. I travel in a radius of 100 miles here for oil. That can add up to a lot of fuel burned and other expenses for the truck. I have no choice being out in the middle of no where, so its to my advantage to let my accounts store most the oil until I can make my rounds.I only pump oil on average a couple days a month if that. In fact I work very little at this. I try and work smarter not harder as I am basically a lazy redneck hickabilly who does not drink beer.

Hope this helps....24

[1NRG24Seven]

Once you start making bio-diesel you will run into many a good deals to trade your finished product for equipment or tanks or stuff you might be able to use to increase your venture. I have traded bio-diesel for fuel transfer pumps, tanks and other misc. items. Here is an example of a 700 gallon tank that fits on the back of my flatbed truck nicely and is used to deliver fuel if needed and is used for my red neck dust abatement invention for gravel driveways and roadways in front of farms and ranches. I will post pics of this device and how to build one later in the thread.

I traded 25 gallons of bio-diesel which cost me about $12.50 to make for raw chemical costs (this does not include what It costs in expenses to pick up used cooking oil which may be much more) The finished bio-diesel at that time was worth about $3.00 per gallon. So from the prospective of the guy I was trading with he was getting $75.00 of value for his tank he picked up for $25.00. Tank is fine with no leaks and probably worth more like $2-300.00. New tank like this can cost $2 bucks per gallon capacity or more.

I picked up 12-275-300 gallon plastic totes with steel cages around em from a farm co-op because they were non returnable for $90.00 total. One of which is seen in the previous post showing it full of clear oil. The totes I have without cages are triple wall thick plastic and bought 17 of these from a Resin supplier out of Vancouver Washington. I only paid for the totes that were clean of resin for $25.00 each, the dirty ones they gave me for free as they cost more to clean them then they were worth as used being they had epoxy resins in them. One of the 220 gallon plastic totes came with 60 gallons of epoxy resin in it valued at $100.00 per gallon...and they even through in the hardner they were so happy I took it off their hands. It was a custom mixed epoxy a client of theirs was not happy with its working characteristics, so they took it back and ate the costs. I work with resins also so it was a good deal for me so I can make molds for my high temperature solar reflectors and other Items. I will post a thread later on this project.

Deals are to be had all over the place when people know you make bio-diesel...its like the new cool thing and buzz word and everyone wants to try some, so this can work for you in gaining much needed stuff for your venture.....24

here is the pic of the 700 gallon diesel fuel tank....cost.. 25 gallons of bio-diesel

[wantfreeenergy]

Those are some good tips for picking up accounts.

I've also been curious how you were planning on being able to reduce your costs down to 15 cents per gallon of biodiesel? Is this simply by capturing the methanol?

Have you ever used ethanol to make biodiesel? I read somewhere that it's possible, but it's a little more difficult? That could really drive the price per gallon down. One could just use grass clippings from the field or pretty much anything and make some ethanol.


theremart - here's a really good site Making compost: Journey to Forever organic garden and I found the page that I learned from a few years back on how to make quality compost. The heat of the pile will be nearly double what you've been experiencing. So long as the temperature of 80 you say you have is farenheit.

Also I should note that I didn't put it in containers like they did. I just put it in a pile within a three walled structure made from stacked cinderbrick with plenty of gaps in the brick. I made a decently large pile of compost. And another thing I didn't do was, "#4 useful additions". I noticed the pile would really heat up when following the advice of, "Adding liquids; household compost activator".

I also followed the ratio of greens to browns. From the proper ratio of greens to browns, having a damp pile, and adding activator. I always had a HOT pile.

I dunno, just some things I did when I made a heaping compost pile. Maybe you already know this stuff, but I just wanted to share my experience incase it would be helpful. And it was always fun to see the freezing cold with ice and snow, then take a look at the compost heap with no snow or ice on it and see it steaming away.


Didn't mean to hijack the thread a little there. On with the biodiesel.

I was thinking last night about getting my GEET setup back onto another engine I've scrounged up. Then I could run biodiesel through it. But then I thought, wait a minute, I could just run the waste veggie oil without turning it into biodiesel.


I'm back for a little more hijacking. LOL theremart - I just watched your video about the heap cools off. And I don't the different process from doing a compost heap using yard trimmings vs a pile using wood chips. So I don't know how useful my experience would be for your situation. But one thing I was thinking of if you were to use the yard trimmings as compost was to tear out half or a quarter of the pile and start it new as the pile begins to turn to compost and loses it's ability to generate heat. And work around the pile in circular direction. Then you could just do a quarter section every week or so when the pile begins to become compost. This would keep the pile hot as certain areas cooled off. But I don't know anything about making a compost pile out of wood so everything I'm saying could be of no use in this situation. Also one other thing I recall while making compost using hay and straw was not to cover the compost pile with plastic. The pile needs to breath and if it's suffocated it'll stop making compost. But again I don't know if that holds true with wood compost heaps? I dunno, I'll bet you know more than I do. I haven't made post in a bit over a year.

Back to the OT. LOL

Oh yeah, 24, do you have a farming check account? I've been trying to figure in my head how to talk the person in charge of our farm account into purchasing all the equipment and ongoing expense for making biodiesel. I always get stonewalled when I bring up ideas and such, but I was wondering if it's tax deductable or if there are other reasons why it would be good to use the farm account to outlay the money for making biodiesel.

[1NRG24Seven]

Those are some good tips for picking up accounts.

I've also been curious how you were planning on being able to reduce your costs down to 15 cents per gallon of biodiesel? Is this simply by capturing the methanol?

Have you ever used ethanol to make biodiesel? I read somewhere that it's possible, but it's a little more difficult? That could really drive the price per gallon down. One could just use grass clippings from the field or pretty much anything and make some ethanol.

Yes getting my cost down around 15 cents a gallon is for raw chemical cost only, not including expenses and fuel to pick up the oil.

Ethanol can be used and yes is more difficult as any water contamination results in a batch that comes out like thick pudding. But I believe I will be able to do this without a hitch because of the process I go through to make sure the oil is clear and free from water contamination. Also since the summers here are very low humidity here in the Eastern Oregon High desert. This is for my future experimentation, but for now since I have purchased several barrels of methanol over the past several years and saved all my glycerin (now 3,000 gallons worth) I can recover about 30% of what I have used so far. I have recovered several barrels already and still have 1,500 gallons of glycerin to yet distill. It was taking me 10-12 hours to recover about 15-20 gallons of methanol at a cost of about 5 gallons of propane at $2.75 a gallon. I will post pics of the stills I made soon when we get there that you can make cheap. My problem was I had years of glycerin saved and even distilling 75 gallon a day was getting old. That is why I am building a 300 gallon still now to speed up that process. I will post pics of that still also. I will sell my three small stills to anyone interested for smaller bio-diesel makers. I have had several people come over here to see how I was doing the distilling process. It is really easy once you get set up. Also the 300 gallon unit will be better for Ethanol production as it should yield about 30 gallons a batch. The methanol will yield about 55-60 gallons a batch in 10-12 hours which will save about $275.00 in raw chemical cost and 200 mile trip one way to get a few barrels. In Oregon and most likely other States you must have a CDL License and be Haz-mat Certified to haul more than 2 55 gallon barrels at a time, or face up to 10 years in jail. Therefor recovering the methanol is more appealing to do.

[1NRG24Seven]

Oh yeah, 24, do you have a farming check account? I've been trying to figure in my head how to talk the person in charge of our farm account into purchasing all the equipment and ongoing expense for making biodiesel. I always get stonewalled when I bring up ideas and such, but I was wondering if it's tax deductable or if there are other reasons why it would be good to use the farm account to outlay the money for making biodiesel.

Do you mean a farming checking account at a bank?

There is tax credits for every gallon of bio-diesel/Ethanol you burn and other incentives for farms and or individuals. And any cost to make the stuff would be a farm expense yes as its for the purpose in doing farming, fuel for trucks, tractors, pumps and so forth.

In Oregon law if you can show you run your farm on totally green renewable energy you can become completely tax exempt on any property tax whatsoever on your place. This may not be the case in other communist States. ...

This is why I like bio-diesels so much because its considered green technology, unlike a GEET and other non recognized technologies as its in the "Fringe Weird and "that just can't be real" catagory. I am not saying the GEET or other such devices do not work as I believe they indeed do, just try and convince a State when tax collectors want their hip national bank lined with all your hard earned cash. But doing like you said you could incorporate these technologies into what your doing, just never point it out, what they don't know will never hurt them.

24

[1NRG24Seven]

While we are on the distilling topic I will add some more here.

I mentioned that I was using propane with the 3 smaller drum stills I built at a cost of $2.75 a gallon and 5 gallons to produce 15-20 gallons of recovered methanol, that equates to $13.75 for 15-20 gallons of methanol or lets just round it off and say its $1.00 a gallon to recover it. That means you can using propane pay $55.00 for 55 gallons. That seems to be a very good deal considering a drum is now around $250.00 and you have to drive to pick it up.

My new still on the other hand will burn waste motor oil NOT VEGGIE OIL although I could. Save the veggie oil to make fuel as its more valuable there and use waste motor which can not make bio-diesel to distill your methanol. Now what is my cost for distilling or recovering methanol?....ZERO, NADDA, ZILTCH....and I really like that bottom line figure..and will be able to recover it not only out of my glycerin but also the bio-diesel also as 30% is in the glycerin the rest is in the bio-diesel if it has not evaporated. There is going to be some loss in evaporation but even this can be minimized with a little thinking so that you might lets say recover 90% or above of your methanol. There is already large producers doing it and saving a bundle. So lets now take the 90% figure and see what that means in cost reductions. On a $275.00 55 gallon barrel of methanol if we recovered 90% we would then have 49.5 gallons left that can make another 250 gallons of bio-diesel. Now recover it again at 90% and you get roughly 45 gallons back that can make 225 gallons of additional bio-diesel...and this continues until its all gone. So here is how much bio-diesel using this example we could make with only 1 55 gallon drum of bio-diesel....

275 gallons on 55 gallon
250 " " 50 "
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25
___

total is 1,650 gallons of bio-diesel from 1 drum of methanol losing 10% each batch =.16 cents a gallon add to that cost roughly and additional .10 cents a gallon for potassium hydroxide for a total in this example .26 cents per gallon.

higher recovery is possible if all systems are sealed from any evaporation to about 98% recovery I believe. In the above example I also stopped at 25 gallons...it actually continues with an additional 50 gallons so my figures are off as its now closer to 1700 gallons per drum.
but I rounded off the .166 to .16...and at 1700 gallons its .161 per gallon, close enough.

At 98% this cost is less than 2 cents per gallon and potassium is at .09 cents for a total of .11 cents per gallon. Anyone getting excited yet about these figures and what you can do?...How about knowing on top of this you can get as much as (and maybe more now) as much as .65 cent tax credit for every gallon burned?

Are you still sitting there blinking at the screen???? GET BUSY AND GO FOR IT!!!!

[1NRG24Seven]

I just did the math in the above example using propane to recover the methanol and total cost per gallon of bio-diesel at 90% recover is rounded off to roughly .50 cents per gallon....that is still a very appealing proposition considering the cost at the pump....24

P.S. That includes potassium costs

[1NRG24Seven]

If you do not recover any alcohol your bottom line is closer to $1.50 a gallon and again that is not including costs associated with picking up the waste oil. Remember that all the above example are only for chemical costs.

Good Day!!!....24

[theremart]

RE: thread..

Those are some good tips for picking up accounts.



theremart - here's a really good site Making compost: Journey to Forever organic garden and I found the page that I learned from a few years back on how to make quality compost. The heat of the pile will be nearly double what you've been experiencing. So long as the temperature of 80 you say you have is farenheit.

I have replied in the other thread..

ll the energy you need from compost? (Multi-page thread 1 2 3)

( Great input thanks! )

[theremart]

RE: Doing the vegi oil..

Thanks for all your tips on getting started with the vegi oil. you have this down pat!. I was counting the cost of this enterprise, and I decided that I would not go into the processing , but rather simply burn the vegi oil straight as is in an engine. ( with the pre heaters etc )

Yes, I do find that if you can show commitment that you can get accounts more easily.

One of the articles I read what he does is every year to his clients he pressure washes the outside the dumpster and everything around the area to show his appreciation of the account. That just seems like a good business practice to me.

[1NRG24Seven]

Thanks for all your tips on getting started with the vegi oil. you have this down pat!. I was counting the cost of this enterprise, and I decided that I would not go into the processing , but rather simply burn the vegi oil straight as is in an engine. ( with the pre heaters etc )

Yes, I do find that if you can show commitment that you can get accounts more easily.

One of the articles I read what he does is every year to his clients he pressure washes the outside the dumpster and everything around the area to show his appreciation of the account. That just seems like a good business practice to me.

Thanx thermart for the encouragement as I was thinking of dropping the thread and deleting it for lack of responses, or holding the thread hostage until those who want to know more and better things yet to come could send me "The Reverend Pastor Deacon Prophet Guru 1NRG24Seven " a love offering Via Paypal to my email account Just because they love me THAAAAAAAAAAAAAT MUUUUUUUCH. ...but seeing how I don't have a paypal account (But will this week, send to: ********@******.com) and that doing so might be misconstrued as selling something on the thread, I figured I better not do that..

But the previous option could still be an option....

[citfta]

No! No! No!

Hi theremart,

DO NOT burn straight veggie oil in anything you value. No matter how hot you get the oil when it burns in the engine the fats turn into carbon. You will ruin the engine in as little as 10,000 miles that way. My son tried that at first and ruined a perfectly good VW Jetta engine in less than a year. He started telling everyone to not use straight oil and he started making biodiesel. He knew a guy who had a nice Mercedes. This guy insisted he was using clean oil so he wouldn't have a problem. He ruined his engine and had to have it replaced at a cost of several thousand dollars. The carbon build up will severely score the sides of the pistons and cylinder walls. It doesn't cost that much more to go ahead and do it right and use the oil you collect to make biodiesel. My son has been using it for about six years now in his Dodge truck, his wife's 07' Jetta and his Kubota tractor. I have been using biodiesel for 5 years in my Dodge truck, my Kubota tractor and my Mercedes. Follow the advise of 24seven and learn how to make biodiesel. It's well worth the trouble. Besides that your vehicle smells better going down the road.

Carroll

[1NRG24Seven]

Thank You citfta I also learned the hard way about straight used veggie oil also known as SVO, but I used it on a worn out 1981 toyota p/u diesel. I ran her for about 25,000 miles before she quit. The engine had very low compression when I got it and traded a piece of junk Mercury cougar for it, and told the guy who did the trade the same, he did not care as the truck had to be rolled down a hill to start it or use ether on it. I changed all the gloplugs and did everything but it still needed help to start before I did the conversion to heated tanks to burn SWVO. I can not say for sure the SWVO did my engine in as the timing chain needed to be replaced and did the job myself and may have got it off by one tooth. I just gave up on her for the time being untill I can get it rebuilt. I really like the smaller diesels for fuel economy and the truck could handle a load. But once I started making bio-diesel I could not believe how much easier it was then trying to endlessly filter the SVO and at a cost no less then 25 cents a gallon to do so and was very slow and labour intensive. At first it cost me double or more to make the bio-diesel but what a differance as you need no conversion kits that cost big dollars and you have the piece of mind your fuel is at a PH. close to water. The acidic nature of used cooking oil took out many hoses and rubber parts that added to the expence and also the expense of fuel filters that clog at about 350-400 miles istead of 5-10,000 miles like normal (depending on diesel filter) So for me bio-desiel is the only way to go. Out here if you break down on the road even with a cloged filter and you can not fix the problem on the road it might be hours before you ever see anyone. Walking 20 miles is not an option I want to face here, and cell phones are usualy out of range. So yes I agree, if you want the least amount of hassel and expense bio-diesel is the way to go, if you have deep pockets to experiement with WVO and don't mind replacing an engine like my Dodge cummins at 12,000 dollars a pop then go for it, that simply is not an option for me. I do this to increase engine life not decrease it.....24

[citfta]

Another advantage to biodiesel

Hi again theremart,

Another advantage to making biodiesel instead of using veggie oil is that you don't have to make any changes to your vehicle or tractor or what ever. Once the fuel is made you can just put it into your standby generator, your diesel car or truck or your tractor. The only thing you will have to change on the vehicle etc. is the fuel filter after a tank or so. This is because the bio will clean your fuel system and eventually clog the filter. If you are like most of us that drive diesels you probably carry a spare with you anyway.

Good luck on your venture into alternative fuels, Carroll

[theremart]

RE: hi.

Hi theremart,

DO NOT burn straight veggie oil in anything you value. No matter how hot you get the oil when it burns in the engine the fats turn into carbon. You will ruin the engine in as little as 10,000 miles that way. My son tried that at first and ruined a perfectly good VW Jetta engine in less than a year. He started telling everyone to not use straight oil and he started making biodiesel. He knew a guy who had a nice Mercedes. This guy insisted he was using clean oil so he wouldn't have a problem. He ruined his engine and had to have it replaced at a cost of several thousand dollars. The carbon build up will severely score the sides of the pistons and cylinder walls. It doesn't cost that much more to go ahead and do it right and use the oil you collect to make biodiesel. My son has been using it for about six years now in his Dodge truck, his wife's 07' Jetta and his Kubota tractor. I have been using biodiesel for 5 years in my Dodge truck, my Kubota tractor and my Mercedes. Follow the advise of 24seven and learn how to make biodiesel. It's well worth the trouble. Besides that your vehicle smells better going down the road.

Carroll

Hi carroll,

I have not done this, but I know I guy who has been doing this for years.

VeggieBenz - GreenTrust


I guess whatever method you do, you must do your homework. I belong to offgrid groups on yahoo, and alt- fuels and have learned there is much method to how you do this.

Thanks for your cautions!