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EPA Raises Biodiesel Manadate for Refiners

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by wjtracy, Sep 14, 2012.

  1. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...from Bloomberg news service, more bio_mandates.
    More clean green fraud mentioned also. I recently noticed my favorite gas station (cheapest) in New Jersey has a biodiesel pump. Next time I am going to ask the guy filling my gaso tank if they sell much of it.

     
  2. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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  3. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Remember unlike the corn ethanol mandate this is small. It should amount to less than 3% of US diesel in 2013. The mandate should be a rounding error in the cost of diesel either way. The bio-diesel mandate neither helps reduce dependence on foreign oil, nor costs much money.

    My big question is why the government is wasting time on this.
     
  4. usnavystgc

    usnavystgc Die Hard DIYer and Ebike enthusiast.

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    The mandate does however hurt the middle class (me) at the grocery store. :(
     
  5. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    How is that? Its very little food, mainly soybean oil and canola oil. The soy protean is used elsewhere. Biodiesel mandate is small compared to the ethanol mandate.

    The RFS for ethanol does raise the price of food.
     
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  6. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    I am not a big fan of mandates, but biodiesel is in general a lot more fun than corn ethanol.
    You don't have to distill 85% water out of biodiesel, so energy demands should be better.
    Biodiesel can be made from wide variety of veggie oils/waste fats (although USA subsidizes soybeans as our chosen "winner" feedstock). Also a variety of interesting process options can be used, such as co-refining or bio-refining can convert it to conventional jet and diesel (again the gov't plays a role in regulating the process options it wishes to chose as the "winners", but rules can be changed).
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Waste fats seem to have a WAY lower potential than algae oil - and food oils like canola used for transportation has an element of waste. But algae? Some of those farms are HUGE . . . . and seem like they could bring about a higher percentage of the fuel we use.

    [​IMG]
    .
     
  8. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ^^nice aerial photo Hill, your work?
     
  9. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    No the picture is just 1 of many on the web ... just cut and pasted for example purposes. Most of those algae farms are growing their crops in very long plastic tubes maybe 8 inches wide. But the open air algae farms? you want to smell a stink ... fortunately it's the sunny desert that works best for these farms. Less people. The main downside of algae is that its off gas is CO 2. That means you get CO 2 from your crop and when you burn the fuel.

    SGH-I717R ? 2
     
  10. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    That could be said of nearly every living thing on the planet. With the algae, that CO2 should be gas it sequestered from the atmosphere.

    Has anyone tried farming algae in conjunction with sewage treatment?
     
  11. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    within the green/plant world though, the off-gas is typically oxygen.
    SGH-I717R ? 2
     
  12. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    They take in CO2 to convert into sugars while the sun is shining, and release O2. They are also respire like the other living things. Taking in oxygen to burn the sugars for energy, and releasing CO2. The complex plants have structures to store excess sugars for lean times. So their net release may be more oxygen, but something down the line is going to steal their carbon and burn those sugars.

    It's possible the algae has a net CO2 release. The strains were selected for oil production, and it takes energy to convert the sugars of photosynthesis into fats. It is still CO2 they took from the air. Not carbon that was once locked up for millions of years.
     
  13. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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  14. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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  15. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The CO2 increase they are talking about isn't from the algae. It's from the supporting products and activities, mainly fertilizer. That's why I was wondering if this algae farming is being tried in conjunction with sewage treatment or fish farming. That water is already loaded with nutrients. (Should have finished the article. The research paper suggests that)
     
  16. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ....not to my knowledge. Sewage Treatment is based on the Activated Sludge process,
    which is a bacterial sludge recycle process. To work the bacteria floc needs to settle to the bottom of the separator for recycling back. Now if we could convert waste biosludge to diesel, we'd have something. Actually the waste biosludge can be minimized by anaerobic digestion to form methane, so that is one useful energy thing, maybe better than the algae potential. However, we know what Philly does with it, right TrollB?
     
  17. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Actually, I don't. I'm a transplant north of the city.
     
  18. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...I think they compost it near the airport close to I95/Comodore Barry Bridge sometimes it is pretty smelly but I am out-of-date on it.
     
  19. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Austin has a federal grant to make it into methane then use it to produce electricity to run the sewage treatment plant. They are trying to find a cost effective way to do this, right now it needs government money or mandates. I pay a lot more for sewage than water or natural gas on my utility bill even with the federal subsidies, but I would happily pay more. Most people wouldn't though.

    We make algea based diesel here also. It is much more than soy or palm based biodiesel with today's tech. It does need CO2 to make the oil. I'm sure they will do better in the future. Most use biodiesel made from restaurant waste oil. It gets turned into useful bio-diesel by a willie nelson venture. This is likely the least expensive source, and doesn't need fedearl funding, but its quantities are quite limited.
     
  20. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    As far as biosludge, someone has to tell me why anaerobic digestion is not the standard.
    As fas as public works, I certainly support tax dollars going to proper treatment facilities for public waste. Sort of like building roads.

    Good one on Willie Nelson. You can probably get away with waste oil biodiesel in TX due to warmer climate. The problem with things like that is waxiness in cold weather. Soy bean and Canola are relatively good from perspective of cold flow. Palm oil biodiesel fairly bad for cold flow, so good candidate for bio-refining to convert to regular diesel...quite a few palm oil conversion plants (2 or 3 or so) going up in EU and Singapore I think.