Free Fuel? Best alternative fuel video to date

[outsidr]

As many of you know I run a 4x4 and custom truck company. I have been thinking about the responsibility we have a stewards of our environment and as examples for responsible off road explorers and I felt compelled to share a recent video I saw that is powerful.

We have been converting diesel trucks ranging from from 2008 to 1968 model years for over a year now to run on Vegetable oil and helping people learn more about making Biodiesel. I was just passed a video that explains the potential of vegetable oils as a regional solution to our transportation energy crisis that anyone concerned about our current politics, foreign policy, or environment should see.

My apologies if this seems inappropriate, political, or commercial. It is not my intention. I have just been thinking about the larger picture; we are all on an expedition around the sun together first. Then we are hopefully on expeditions inside of that one burning gas, diesel, veggie oil or biodiesl. Because our fuel decisions effect the overall sustainability of both, I figure this information would be appreciated for what it is. I hope that for those of you who see the importance of this message will turn other people on. Feel free to PM me with your ideas or questions or...

The video can be downloaded here... http://www.mofilms.org/download.html and it is hilarious, well edited, accurate, and free of much propaganda crap I am used to seeing. It is 40 min long but even if you watch the first 5 of it you will be captured. If anyone would like to start a thread or section for the development of alternative energy and its roll in expedition travel and self sufficiency I am interested. I have a bunch more stuff to share... :victory:

Please let me know what you all think about this...

 

[Fireman78]

A friend of mine is doing a conference in Albuquerque in April called the New World Biomass Conference. They will be showcasing bio fuels and have dozens and dozens of vendors. It will be a good one to attend. I applaud your efforts and hopefully we can all move in that direction.

 

[Metcalf]

I am all for an alternative fuel thread or ten. I studied alternative fuels and energy while working on my ME degree. I love the subject....

 

[4Rescue]

I am all for an alternative fuel thread or ten. I studied alternative fuels and energy while working on my ME degree. I love the subject....

Same here, that's what I based my Diss. For Fire Sciences on was Bio-haul and Alt. Energy.

I think with our passion for consuming fuel to get to where we want to go, a thread/section for Alt. Fuel discussion would be great.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Sloan]

I love the quote from the president that the American way of life is a blessed one and that he didn't feel that Americans needed to conserve. This film definitely made me start looking harder at doing more than I already am.

 

[Photog]

Hopefully we can create or obtain biodiesel from sources other than vegetable oil. It seems like it woould take more energy to plant, grow, harvest, process, transport to fuel stations, etc., than that produced in biodiesel.

It is great that we can use left over oils, that are not currently being used; but if the nation goes this route, I don't think there would be enough vegetable oil to last mor than 15 minutes per day.

Where do we get the other 23+ hours of energy we need?

 

[4Rescue]

Hopefully we can create or obtain biodiesel from sources other than vegetable oil. It seems like it woould take more energy to plant, grow, harvest, process, transport to fuel stations, etc., than that produced in biodiesel.

It is great that we can use left over oils, that are not currently being used; but if the nation goes this route, I don't think there would be enough vegetable oil to last mor than 15 minutes per day.

Where do we get the other 23+ hours of energy we need?

How about Alge... that is one of my favorites right now.

 

[madizell]

The following is an unpaid, non-political opinion:

Nothing is free. Especially in the world of chemistry and thermodynamics. While it is a principal of science that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, most commonly known thermal reactions are net energy losers and far from free. If perpetual motion were possible, our cars would be ticking away in our driveways even as we speak. Thermonuclear reactions may be the exception to the rule, but we are not yet ready to market Mr. Fusion to the masses.

Bio-diesel is an interesting concept, but at this point is most useful in finding a way to extract energy from waste veg oil products. McDonalds fryer fat gets a second life, but the result is still (french fry scented) air pollution and a net loss chemical equation.

Bio-diesel as produced in this country is neither energy efficient nor financially sound. National Geographics recently offered an article on the question that made the US look like chumps in the bio-diesel industry. If it is ever going to work, it will have to start paying for itself on at least the same scale that petroleum currently does.

Internal combustion was born out of curiosity, need, and the abundance of a cheap fuel product that was, at that time, being burned as waste in the production of oil -- gasoline. If we are to find an alternative to replace the science and life style we have created around this waste product, I suspect we will need to find another fuel product that is available everywhere or is currently being thrown away as waste, and use that instead. Used fryer fat is similar, I suppose, to historical gasoline, but not abundant enough to suffice on the large scale. However, since hydrogen seems to be currently in good supply, I would suggest that hydrogen might be the answer, and we should bend our energies to making a safe fuel out of it, much as we did 120 years ago with gasoline. Not to mention that the by-product of hydrogen combustion is water, not generally thought of as a pollutant. Hydrogen may not be cheap, but in the end cheap does not matter. It would be a nice fringe benefit of any alternative fuel, but the market will pay what ever price is attached to our next fuel.

 

[Sloan]

My wife's company just got 3 of the GM hydrogen fuel cell cars, I'll post up some pics when she brings it home.

 

[Photog]

How about Alge... that is one of my favorites right now.

I have been hearing little bits of info on the alge approach to producing bio-fuels. They made it sound like the most efficient way of producing a combustible liquid fuel, from plants.

Does anyone here, know the details of the alge bio-fuel process?

This whole process is an interesting idea. We breakdown the hydrocarbon chains into CO2, CO, NOx, etc, and the plants convert it back to hydrocarbon chains, so we can again, break them down.....

Hydrogen is the missing element, that the plants put back into the mix. Maybe hydrogen fuel is the best choice, in the end. Avoid all the carbon chemistry.

 

[Colorado Ron]

I would love to see Electric Vehicles move foward faster. I think they are a great option if we could just hack the battery problem!

 

[outsidr]

"Bio-diesel is an interesting concept, but at this point is most useful in finding a way to extract energy from waste veg oil products. McDonalds fryer fat gets a second life, but the result is still (french fry scented) air pollution and a net loss chemical equation.

Bio-diesel as produced in this country is neither energy efficient nor financially sound. National Geographics recently offered an article on the question that made the US look like chumps in the bio-diesel industry. If it is ever going to work, it will have to start paying for itself on at least the same scale that petroleum currently does."

Bio fuels is no doubt in a pioneer state of its art. The whole point was to produce regional energy economies from organic material that was renewable and fiscally viable. Of course the country went crazy and is now importing veggie oil from indonesia and plowing rainforest in Brazil to make fuel but that was not original idea or long view. It is estimated that if we converted our Air Force base in the sonoran desert to an algae farm we could provide enough oil stock to replace the bulk of our domestic diesel consumption with much to spare.

The question is not "is biodiesel or veggie oil the solution" the real question is: Is this better than diesel right now?

This is the first step in a direction that Henry ford started 100 years ago. Lets not get doomsday about the meager options available right now to make a personal difference...

There are companies out there right now that are filling in the rest of the gaps, check some of these out it is exciting to me....
http://www.milesev.com/index.asp#dealerlocate.swf
http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2005/11/69529
http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/electrocharger/electrocharger.php
http://www.preignitioncc.com/ps/index.htm

Some of this might be crap but I am currently testing it all and so far I am enthusiastic... I could use some help though...

 

[madizell]

This is the first step in a direction that Henry ford started 100 years ago.

Ford didn't start diesel, Otto Diesel did, and even then it was intended only as a means of allowing local production of a motor fuel so as not to be dependent on big oil for fuel. Nor did Ford start or invent anything to do with automobiles, with the exception of mass production (unless you want to consider his charcoal briquet business, which was a stroke of recycling genius). Ford's processes only made personal transportation practical by making it affordable, but he didn't even invent mass production, which had been used in the making of guns for 50 years before Ford started building cars. Diesel wasn't used in passenger cars and trucks in this country on a wide scale until recently, and I don't recall Ford being the one to get the ball rolling.

Which 'direction' did you have in mind? I guess I missed your point. My apologies.

 

[Haggis]

I would love to see Electric Vehicles move foward faster. I think they are a great option if we could just hack the battery problem!

Just remember that the energy to produce the electric to power our 250 million vehicles has to come from somewhere. If the populace rejects nuclear energy (and what else is feasible with todays technology), how much petroleum based fuel would we really save if we end up using it to power electric generating plants to power all our cars? I certainly don't know, but beyond being able to produce a battery that is economically feasible we will need to make the electricity to power it economical also or it's doomed to failure. Though it would be cool to cruise down a backwoods trail hearing nothing but the passing of your tires and the nature around you.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Lokey that is great.. I actually consider myself a decent friend with the gentleman (an Irish guy named Martin O'Brian who lives in the Bay Area) who made the film. Last year they were at the Sundance Film Festival and used my place to coordinate some of the local PR for it. I cannot say with how much respect I have for those guys, it is very easy to skew and be biased or factually incorrect about it and these guys are pretty authentic. Any I have about 20 copies of the film and some flyers on DVD and nothing to do with them. I would be happy to send them to you to give out or put in your shop if you'd like...

Cheers,
Andre