07-08-2005 03:42									#1
	Bio fuel takes off in Australia: run your car on fish and chips oil Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Needs to be a diesel car though!

quote: Fuel from fish oil easy as baking a cake By Catharine Munro August 7, 2005 The Sun-Herald Page Tools Email to a friend Printer format Vegetable oil ... Luke Williams. Photo: Simon Alekna An underground movement of motorists is making fuel in their backyards and saving up to $1 a litre to run their diesel engines. As oil prices continue to soar to historic highs, they are following an easy recipe available on the internet for making biodiesel fuel and putting it straight into their engines without modification. Concocted from used vegetable oil that fish and chip shops give away, the fuel is hailed as being almost smog-free, extremely cheap and almost limitless in supply because it comes from a crop rather than an oil well. Few are willing to admit publicly that they make the brew because the Federal Government imposed a new tax and costly tests. Small businessman Luke Williams admits he is breaking the law when he mixes a batch of biodiesel without registering with the Tax Office. He pays about 20 cents a litre for the ingredients instead of at least $1.20 for diesel from the bowser. Instead of sooty fumes, his car emits a slight odour reminiscent of the fish and chip shop from which it came. The recipe is precise but easy, Mr Williams said. "If you can bake a cake, you can do it." Advertisement AdvertisementAlthough the chemicals can be bought in a supermarket shelf, they are highly toxic and should be mixed in a shed. "It's not a good idea for people in flats to be doing it." Mr Williams said fellow biodiesel-makers were too concerned about Australian Tax Office checks to speak publicly but enthusiasts believe about 1000 people across the country make their own fuel. Under the federal laws, even backyard producers must pay $1400 for a test to ensure that every batch meets Australian standards. They must also pay a fuel excise of 38 cents a litre. Adrian Lake, head of business development at one of Australia's first commercial producers Australian Biodiesel, said: "What's driving it now is the sheer price of oil. It has been hard to justify the investment but now the price of oil has gone up, there's quite a lot of investment."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...l?oneclick=true

There was a story recently about some greenies who were driving around Australia using cooking sump oil from fish shops.

Apparently its true that your car smells like fish and chips if you use it.

	07-08-2005 14:10									#2
	Got spare money?

Bio-diesel is nice. You can make it from used oil too - saves twice.

	07-08-2005 16:14									#3
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thats what they're using - waste oil, which they get for free

I imagine Chinese cooking produces a lot

	07-08-2005 16:18									#4
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Well done

Bio diesel can be put out there NOW, I think it's big business and politics that are holding it back.

We have enough farming capacity to produce enough of the damn stuff. With our genetic engineering talents, plants can be designed to produce more oil than normal plants.

Mister Diesel himself designed the stupid thing to run on ANY oil, and he preferred peanut oil, not this crappy petroluem crap we use.

damn crappy petroluem

	07-08-2005 16:18									#5
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****ing petroleum

	07-08-2005 16:27									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Ted Striker Mister Diesel himself designed the stupid thing to run on ANY oil, and he preferred peanut oil, not this crappy petroluem crap we use.

I didn't know that.

	07-08-2005 16:35									#8
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I'm surprised. I thought that would be old news to an all class pro like yourself.

The whole story of Diesel is interesting. Many suspect that he was murdered by German agents in 1913, because he was going to sell his techology to the British. He wanted to make his technology available to anyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel

Had he not been thrown off the ship he was travelling on at the time, maybe history would have been vastly different, with the engine running on vegetable oils.

Then after the British sold out the Arabs after they used them to beat up on the Turks, they would still hate us but not have enough money to fly planes into buildings.

	07-08-2005 16:46									#9
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who exactly did they sell out the arabs to, I beg your pardon? The people that fought with them were all installed as chiefs of state - obviously as their puppets, but that's quite natural considering the fact that the brits had all the guns and money.

	07-08-2005 16:49									#10
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so why didn't Hitler fuel his tanks with potatos?

	07-08-2005 16:55									#11
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Probably too busy being bombed.

	07-08-2005 17:11									#12
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Potatoes aren't the best source of oil, IIRC.

	07-08-2005 17:14									#13
	Put an end to popups!

that was a joke - but apparently not in Israel

	07-08-2005 17:16									#14
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We do try to filter out the bad ones.

But really, it's because of my chemical education, I guess.
Racist.

	08-08-2005 02:39									#15
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

This is fascinating.

I was watching one of those '30 Days' episodes on FX where they went to a village that was totally 'off the grid'. They had a Volkswagen running on cooking and veggie oil.

The program even showed how they got the oil, what they did to the oil, and a little modification to their car.

On the program, they showed a car by Honda I think that emitted nothing but water. I think it was running on hydrogen fuel cells or something (I'm no engineer). The host even drank some of the water, but he said it needed work.

Man, they should make home conversion kits or something for your cars. Reduces pollution, recycles waste, is cheaper than gas/petrol.

I save, you save, everyone saves.

	08-08-2005 02:49									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Frankychan I save, you save, everyone saves.

Except Exxon, Mobil, etc... Thus the problem....

	08-08-2005 02:55									#17
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its does show that altarnative fuels are viable

	08-08-2005 02:55									#18
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plus
1) the lacking widespread infrastructure to safely deliver hydrogen to the car.
2) no sollution has been found as of yet to increase the amount of energy a car can take with it. you need a big volume of hydrogen to get a decent autonomy.

	08-08-2005 03:37									#19
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plus, you need to manufacture that hydrogen.

	08-08-2005 03:59									#20
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Easy for a country like Iceland.

When I was there they were starting to test fuel cell buses and were saying that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination to having the entire country's vehicles running on fuel cells in the very near future...

I know of biodiesel being produced in Wales on a commercial basis and of course Brazil used to have a huge fuel industry running on ethanol from sugar cane - which I believe is enjoying a renaissance.

Bottom line in that with the correct political will ( X infinity - ) we could wean ourselves off fossil fuels at a fairly rapid rate - the technology is there and at often cheaper prices than the fossil alternative...

It beggars belief that nations such as Australia (and the UK) who when encountering a perfectly good publicly led environmental solution to burning fossil fuels stamp down hard as if it is some sort of insidiously harmful virus...


Sure tax it to protect revenues, by why not do it in such a way that it still encourages the spread and development of the technology, thus encouraging recycling and the reduction of greenhouse gases?

	08-08-2005 04:15									#21
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by MOBIUS Easy for a country like Iceland. When I was there they were starting to test fuel cell buses and were saying that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination to having the entire country's vehicles running on fuel cells in the very near future...

Population of Iceland: 293,291

	08-08-2005 04:34									#22
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Population of the world: 6,XXX,XXX,XXX

which makes iceland 0.05% of the world.

	08-08-2005 05:24									#23
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I'm no expert on elements, but isn't hydrogen dangerous?

What would happen if a bus with fuel cells gets into an accident? I'm thinking the Hindenburg here...


Well, as for the big oil companies I think it would be smart of them to develop additives to the oil so that you wouldn't need to buy as much, but yet would still yield the same output. Slowly mix the additives to the oil until these companies are making 90% additives and 10% actual oil. Less to buy, and you still have a product that we "need". THEN eventually move to biofuel.

It's not what I would want, but it's probably more realistic.

	08-08-2005 10:59									#24
	Suffering from ads?

there was a big scandal here where fuel discounters were lacing the petrol with ethanol. played havoc on petrol engines.

Last edited by Alexander's Horse on 08-08-2005 at 12:31

	08-08-2005 12:31									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Az who exactly did they sell out the arabs to, I beg your pardon? The people that fought with them were all installed as chiefs of state - obviously as their puppets, but that's quite natural considering the fact that the brits had all the guns and money.

They didn't sell them out to "somebody," they just sold them out for themselves.

British promised them freedom, self-determination, not puppetry.

Ask the Arabs what they think about it.

	08-08-2005 12:31									#26
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quote: Originally posted by MOBIUS Sure tax it to protect revenues, by why not do it in such a way that it still encourages the spread and development of the technology, thus encouraging recycling and the reduction of greenhouse gases?

With GST set at 10%, how are they going to tax this new product at nearly 40% to gain the same levels of revenue?

	08-08-2005 12:34									#27
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you can't, which is why it has been cliamed for decades that the oil industry and government were suppressing alternative fuels

	08-08-2005 13:25									#28
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I don't know how our gas taxes are. I thought they were a fixed amount per gallon type of thing, not a percentage, but I don't know for sure.

That makes sense though, if they are making more money off of gas taxes as the price goes up, I could see why they would not want a cheaper alternative.

	08-08-2005 13:29									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Az plus, you need to manufacture that hydrogen.

the efficiency with which H2 can be electrolysed out of water is currently about 80 %.
fuel cell cars would run at about the same level of efficiency.

still beats the hell out of the combustion engine's 14 % no ?

and besides: H2 production would concentrate all CO2(+rest of pollutive emissions) at one point: the production facility. this would allow for a much better cleaning process of the combustion gasses.

	08-08-2005 14:31									#30
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yes, of course, of course. Now factor in the efficiency of fossil power plants.Fossil power plant Energy efficiency is something like 10,000 BTU/KWh ( both are energy units, so it's a unitless coefficient)