Using biodiesel requires modifications to the vegetable oil itself; using straight vegetable oil requires modifications to the diesel engine.
The engine starts on diesel fuel, but switches to run on vegetable oil after heat produced by the engine warms the vegetable oil to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Before shutting off the vehicle, diesel fuel is cycled through the fuel lines to purge the system of vegetable oil.
A single-tank system preheats the vegetable oil using electric heat and uses modified injectors and glow plugs that are optimally suited to ignite and combust vegetable oil.
Thanks in part to a grant from the National Center for Appropriate Technology, an organization that promotes technologies that conserve energy and resources, we have retrofitted a Kubota tractor with an Elsbett single-tank fuel system to run on straight vegetable oil produced in eastern Montana.
If we confirm that a single-tank system is a viable option for running a tractor on straight vegetable oil, we plan to grow an oilseed crop and produce our own fuel.
The PEAS farm also houses a biodiesel processor to convert used cooking oil to biodiesel for the Garden City Harvest tractor.
Basically, biodiesel is produced by a chemical reaction involving vegetable oil, methanol, and potassium hydroxide or another catalyst.
We took 20 gallons of used fryer oil, strained out the food particles, and pumped the oil through a series of braided hoses and copper valves into a recycled water heater.
As the oil cycled through the processor, we took a sample and tested it to determine the amount of potassium hydroxide we would need to add to the used oil.
From 20 gallons of used fryer oil, we produced 16 gallons of biodiesel.
Utilizing salvaged materials, the biodiesel processor at the PEAS farm was put together for about $150. Local restaurants give away used vegetable oil, and methanol can be purchased for $4 per gallon.
The legal issues concerning use of veggie oil as a fuel and home production of biodiesel are complicated and vary from state to state.
Laws concerning straight vegetable oil are changing, but it’s still technically not approved for use as fuel by the EPA. And your state may require you to register to collect waste vegetable oil.
The use of straight vegetable oil has demonstrated promise as a fuel alternative for our Kubota tractor.
i dont know what you are implying with this, but the whole idea still involves methanol and diesel that are hydrocarbons, and thus still require tankers and refineries to carry oil around and refine it. is it a worthwhile idea ? idk. is it better than lithium mining ? maybe (at least oil is way abundant than lithium). by how much would this reduce carbon emissions ? 90% ? still up for debate.
These greenhouse designs make so much sense to me - the first time I saw this I was amazed I’d never considered how poorly standard greenhouses fit our use case up here. I worked on a farm for years growing up and we heated about half of them at least through December. Single or double ply plastic sheets and corrugated white plastic siding nailed to stick frame walls on the ends. Garage doors only on either end. I can’t imagine how much that cost to heat.
It’s that one-size-fits-all-just-burn-more-gas approach.
I’m actually just finishing up a winter scene featuring two of these, set into a south-facing hillside.
I’m not sure that “just” digging a trench and burying waste in a garden bed that you have conveniently lying around unused waiting for next year’s vegetables is either easy, or practical for most people with limited garden sizes.
The author tries to make it sound like some sort of free and easy method of just scattering waste without any rules, but in reality there are a lot of provisos. You have to have an area of ground you don’t need to use to be able to spread everything out so you are not creating one stinking pile. You have to have opportunities to collect all of the material, and although it is glossed over in the article the inclusion of the paper plates, napkins, shredded documents etc. would be vital to this working - the “ratios” that are sneered at as if they are some sort of arbitrary rule you can gleefully ignore are the difference between composting and rot (too much green material) or mulch (a layer of dry brown material). Covering the material with mulch is not just about making it look better because you are fussy, it actually allows the right conditions of moisture & darkness to allow the organisms to break down the waste, if you don’t do that you will mostly get dried up old food sitting on top of the ground.
Hot composting, where the goal is maximum nutrients as quickly as possible, can be a complicated process and presenting that as the standard method does put a lot of people off. But presenting the alternative as “there are no rules” is misleading and likely to lead to failure for a lot of people too. Understanding a bit about how composting works, especially that there does need to be a balance of materials to feed the soil organisms that are doing the work for you, will lead to a much greater ability to create a system that works for each individual’s circumstances.
Hell yeah, this is pretty much how I compost. Some day it might be nice to try to hot compost “properly,” or get a good worm box going, but for now I’ve just got a big tub outside the kitchen door where scraps get dumped. I don’t pay mind to proper ratios, and only occasionally stir it with a shovel. Once the tub is full, it gets emptied into a garden bed and started again.
The implementation is not entirely clear from the article, but Hydro is generally bad for the environment. Changing waterways by diverting flow or damming causes significant environmental impact.
Everything we do has an impact on the environment. The questions are whether it is less damaging than the alternative, and how sensitively it is implemented. If you run a micro-hydro system on a creek and are using a small percentage of the flow in that creek it is arguably much less damaging than buying electricity from the grid with all of the impacts associated with that (cleared land for transmission, mining for copper wires, potentially coal etc, etc)
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