[Stoves] Vegetable oil or biodiesel?

[Anand Karve]

Dear Stovers,
in India, we import more than 50% of our edible vegetable oil. The
non-edible plant oils are used industrially for fatty acid extraction,
soap making, in paints, and nowadays also for biodiesel production. As
a result, even the non-edible oils are quite costly. There is a trend
nowadays of removing the non-edible ingredients from non-edible oils
to make them edible. Thus, cottonseed oil and rice bran oil, which
were considered to be non-edible, have now become edible. Biodiesel
made from plant oil costs almost twice as much as petroleum based
diesel. It is much cheaper to run internal combustion engines on
biogas. Every city has a vegetable market, which generates huge
quantities of vegetable waste. The wholesale vegetable market of
Mumbai generates daily about 50 truckloads of waste. It has a
potential of producing daily about 50 tons of biogas, which in turn
would generate about 50 megawatts of electricity daily. Manufacturers
have started manufacturing engines, made specifically to accept biogas
as fuel. I am currently heading a project, aimed at developing a rural
biogas system using green leaves as feedstock. It is funded by the
Government of India.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Darren <mail at vegburner.co.uk> wrote:
> Liquid vegetable oils make excellent vehicle fuels.  Solid fats burn well in
> diesel engines although fully heated fuel systems are required to get fats
> to flow to the engine.
>
> Always feels a bit of a waste using them in heaters or generators.  No doubt
> in some situations it makes sense.
>
> Best
>
> Darren
>
>
>
>