[Stoves] Stoves Digest, Vol 16, Issue 22

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear David O

 

Taking a macro view, look at the cost of generating electricity by diesel
generator. It is perhaps 10 times the cost of having it pulled from a grid.
I don't have up to date comparisons for that region so you could look at the
real cost of solar PV and diesel and any other alternative.

 

Treat the oil-to-fuel as a way of altering that result. Don't be enchanted
by the fact the oil is produced locally. Some things are much better done on
a large or centralised scale. Consider matches which all rural people use.
No one makes their own.

 

Turning any long chain hydro-carbon molecule into something short enough to
flow easily is accomplished by putting in some caustic soda and heating it
for a few hours. The heat accelerates the breakdown of the long chains into
shorter ones, randomly. The lightest fractions (shortest chains) are tossed
out.


Deutz (tractor people) did a great deal of research on how to run a tractor
on vegetable oil. It has two problems: it leaves behind quite a bit of soot
because the combustion chamber is not really a good environment for that
product, and total cost.

 

Being isolated changes the relative advantage(s) of diesel, but only because
they are higher, not because they are cheaper.

 

It is simple better to make good vegetable oil and trade it for a larger
volume of diesel! Consider beeswax. You can make candles from it, but it is
work so much to the cosmetic industry that you can rather sell it and buy 4
times as much paraffin wax with the money.

 

The sobering reality of fuel oil cost is that there is more energy used
creating liquid biofuel than its alternatives, and energy is money, one way
or another, unless you get it free from the forest.

 

There is however a guy on an island in the Pacific who started quite
successfully turning coconut oil into a fuel his jeep would burn. It seems
he has no money and 'made a plan' and it is being copied on other islands
now.

 

http://ruraldevelopment.info/coconuts.aspx has some cost info. Coconut oil
can be used as a diesel extender. The same is true for sunflower. A mix of
15% diesel and 85% sunflower oil will work in most unmodified diesel
engines. Sometimes the injector spring pressure has to be increased so it
vaporises properly. That increases the load on the injector pumps. That is
pretty much the only difference. Cost-wise it does not look too good unless
there are a lot of free coconuts (which sometimes happens).

 

Regards

Crispin

 

 

 

 

Dear Crispin, 
David Osborne here, I was eagerly reading about biofuel from crops and the
corporate scandals that will undoubtedly happen are mind boggling indeed but
my observation is simple. If an African or Indian community grew or
collected used oil and converted it, couldn't they use it for rural power
generators for lighting etc in village levels? Because things like lion
attacks in say Tanzania are more common than you think! Lighting would
provide more security in the home. These people may not run tractors but
could run generators! Generating both light, power and also employment and
indeed hope. 
What simplistic method is required to make used oil into basic fuel oil for
an ordinary atmospheric diesel generator? 
Yours David Osborne

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