Biodiesel Blogs

There have been a couple of good articles (and many bad ones) recently about the IDSA/Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal settlement regarding Lyme treatment guidelines. Below are two good ones, and some of the comments from the publications: Medical groups differ on courses of treatment By Robert Miller Staff Writer http://www.newstimes.com/ci_9231161 05/12/2008 In the battle ...

Diesel fuel is $4.75/gal right now in several stations in Ukiah.

Meanwhile, our biodiesel is $4.19/gal. That's over .50 cheaper. We've never been in this situation before. We determine our price based on a whole lot of needs and criteria. We've been refining our methods on that, and we now have an equation that spits out what our price should be, keeping in mind current infrastructure improvement projects, and things like the immediate need for employee health care, which we've never had, but will soon.

I have to admit- the spat-out price is actually a little higher than our current price, so we will be raising our price a little bit soon, but it's not going to get anywhere near diesel's current price.

What's so weird about this situation is that, historically, we've always been around .50 higher per gallon than diesel. Until now, I kind of took that for granted. It regulated who walked in our door, and who called us up. In retrospect, it was kind of a nice thing.

Now, we have unprecedented demand, and while there is a temptation to find that sweet spot in pricing that gets us the maximum net income- a price that is probably a little higher than that of petroleum diesel- I don't really want to test those waters right now. We'll gradually get to know this situation, and respond as well as we can.

For now, we've stopped accepting new delivery customers, we've significantly cut back on wholesale sales, and we're thinking of other steps we can take. We're going threadbare on marketing, because we really don't want to waste money on demand when that is not a problem at all.

Unbelievably, we're still getting complaints regarding our price, from people who are upset that our price has gone up just as petroleum has gone up. Personally, I find it insulting that people would make that argument in a time in which we are clearly making an effort to be affordable (showcased by the $1.00 swing downward in our price as compared to petroleum diesel), but somehow, it appears that more people are bothered by our price than ever before.

Hmmm.

Well, I just wanted to wax on about that for a moment. Thanks for reading.

For the time being, we are not accepting new delivery customers. We will be maintaining a waiting list.

We're working very hard at increasing supply while staying true to our sustainability vision.

Biodiesel Essentials class in Marietta, OH May 17-18, 10-5 each day at Washington State Community College Auto/Diesel Truck Systems department, room 121. $120, no one turned away for lack of funds This two-day class will teach you everything you need to know to get started making high-quality biodiesel fuel out of waste ...

For the past few months I've been slowly working on the van. I have two biodiesel classes coming up in the Midwest, one in Ohio next weekend, and one in Chicago after Memorial Day. Earlier this winter, I replaced the computer and parts ...

(click pic to be magically transported)



There's a collection of good info there, that will only get better. For instance, under feedstocks, there's actually a pretty good write-up on the Chinese Tallow Tree.

Yesterday David shipped a biodiesel plant over to Carolina Biodiesel in Durham.

That in itself is not that unusual.  We ship plants all the time.  When David is not shipping tankage, he is sending off designs, and when he is not sending of designs, he is walking through prospective facilities with an eye toward building a biodiesel plant.

Last year our design build business represented a living for one.  This year it will be more like a living for five.  There is unbelievable demand for sustainable biodiesel plants right now.

Nowadays it is hard to get David on the phone.  And that is in part because he is getting better at delivering biodiesel plants.

Carolina Biodiesel has long been a partner of ours.  We have been enmeshed with it from the beginning.  We were there when it was defined by Bo Lozoff, and we survived the transition to its new ownership by Marc Dreyfors.  Now that it has its own commercial fuel production capacity, it will not be long before it no longer needs us to supply fuel.

Which is good news.

Carolina Biofuels is one of eight current projects which our design-build group has under way.  The beauty of their project is that David and his group quoted it, designed it, and delivered it right on schedule.

Right now the project has early signs of surplus fuel.  The Piedmont Biofuels Coop, which has been providing street legal fuel for awhile now, is starting to produce a surplus, which is headed straight toward the B100 Community Trail.

The Ramseur Plant is on the cusp of a surplus as well.

Surplus fuel is not something Industrial has known for a long while.  One of the beautiful things about David’s work is that his “satellite plants” tend to be powered exclusively by waste vegetable oil.

WVO derived fuel gets props in these parts.  People like it for its sustainability points, and for it superior cold weather performance. Our membership is starting to show signs of feedstock snobbery.  Even the vegans prefer to run around on WVO fuel.

Which is why David’s work is so important.  If Piedmont Biofuels were run through a filter of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” I am sure the outcome would read:

Piedmont Biofuels Coop fuel production:  “Too small.”

Piedmont Biofuels Industrial fuel production:  “Too big.”

Piedmont Biofuels Design-Build Plants:  “Just right.”

The new membership agreement introduces the idea that we are a bold experiment.  As such there is a very high likelihood that the regional WVO plants that we are currently working on will deliver the fuel the region requires….

oh my god, I'm actually crying about this I'm so happy. If this investigation, or something like it, had happened in the 90's I would've gotten proper treatment the first time and wouldn't still be sick. Perhaps I'll post an explanation once I recover my senses. (incidentally while the ...

Jan Sluizer at Voice of America just did a nice article and audio piece on Yokayo and Biofuel Oasis.

Today was my last meeting as a sitting board member for the Piedmont Biofuels Coop.  After two tours of duty, and five years, I’m heading out to pasture.

Arlo and I walked home from the Coop today.  He did some work on the farm.  I lollygagged about.  The place was overflowing.  15 people on site for a processor equipment workshop.  People for tour.  New potential interns showing up for interviews. And the farm, which is back in full swing.

Arlo and I walked home, and went down to Summer Shop to rig up a trailer hitch for Jason so that he could pull the new trailer.  I thought of it as an expansion of capabilities.

And as we walked back to give it to him, we met an annoying tree which had fallen across the creek-probably another casualty of the recent heavy rains.

Rachel was in her garden as we passed-planting some Sweet Jemison peppers, which is the hot new variety Doug is trialing over at Piedmont Biofarm.  I asked her if she would mind terribly if I fetched my chainsaw and dispatched with the tree which was now crossing the creek.

“You mean the one that is too high to step over, yet so low it is hard to get beneath?” she grinned.  “You should ask the Lorax.”

Scott is the Lorax on project.  He typically disallows any such thing.  He stepped out onto the deck and said, “We should make it into a bridge.”

That’s not the first time the subject has arisen.  Forrest and I thought about building a bridge there years ago.  It’s been a perennial subject, of which I am typically skeptical.

Bridges wash away.  Water always wins.  There are very few occasions in which the creek is impassable.  I tend to be anti-bridge.

But it was a spectacular May afternoon, and Scott was right, the tree was perfect bridge height.

Rachel sensed an opportunity.  She said, “let’s do it right now.”  A few scrap pieces of lumber emerged from beneath the deck, and a design conversation began.

Before we were even sure we wanted to build a bridge, Rachel was plying us with old landscape timbers and left over decking material she had in the shed.  Scott and I took a wheelbarrow full of tools down to the creek and started improving the concept.

Then came saws, and screws and hammers and nails, and the next thing I knew I was standing in the creek with a chainsaw, cutting notches in a fallen tree.  I borrowed Doug’s ear protection from the greenhouse.  Rachel scrounged up some bar oil from the Wood Management Center and some gasoline from the tiller.  Arlo carried boards and tools up and down the hill.  We must have looked like ants from on high.

At one point Harruka remarked, “Building a bridge to anywhere is a good thing to do.”

I walked to Summer Shop for a paddle bit and some metal stakes.  I set up my chop saw from Chessworks and sliced a stainless rod in half to stake our creation in place.

We screwed and hammered and sawed and by late afternoon we had a bridge.  As we were finishing Caleb emerged from the woods with a stalk of cattails for dinner.  He may have been the bridge’s first user, and commented on how nice it would be next time he was carrying home a rice pot through the woods.

And when we were done we sat around and talked about stuff.  About how we need more housing on project.  About co-housing options, and about how to spawn another farm.

We admired our bridge.  It’s the type of thing that will enable Rachel to cross the creek in her satin slippers.  Before she might have preferred hiking boots.

And it felt great.  No protracted discussions.  No trips to town-made from stuff which was lying around.  No expense.  No board approval.  Just a bridge.

It rather reminded me of the way the Coop began in the first place…

(click picture to go to the website)

This movie keeps coming up in conversations with people, kind of the way that the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, did a while back.

I strongly recommend you see it. If your internet connection is fast, you can watch the whole thing as streaming video at the website linked to behind the picture (above). If your internet connection is slow, you can download it at that site and watch it later.

You may know a lot of the "stuff" in this movie already, but it's a good educational tool all the same, and I for one found it quite inspiring.

I love foraging for mushrooms. And obviously, I love biodiesel. Among mushroom-hunters, the Morel is a variety that everyone loves, but few forage, because they are very hard to find. The general rule is that, unless you happen to stumble upon them somewhere, you should be looking in the Sierras in the rainy season following a wildfire. As far as cultivation goes, they've been impossible.

Until now? It seems that biodieselers are starting to see a pattern of Morels growing in the places where they do their homebrewing. KOH and NaOH, the two catalysts that people use to make biodiesel, are chemically very similar to white wood ash. There could be something here...

Click on the pic to see the thread about this over at infopop...



(tip of the cap to wv matt at Infopop)

UPDATE: In the words of my friend Ben, "Best. Waste product. Ever."

Via a post on the SF Biofuels Yahoo Group, comes news of a new Bay Area biodiesel filling station in San Mateo, Autopia Biofuels. Info:

• Location: 1025 S. Railroad Ave, San Mateo, CA (north of 92, near Delaware & 9th Ave)
• Price: $4.74/gallon (as of 2008/05/05)
• Type: B99, ASTM-certified
• Source: local, recycled oil

Some coverage from the San Mateo County Times:"The simple, airy warehouse on South Railroad Avenue welcomes visitors with bright yellow floor and ample parking just off the Caltrain tracks, next to a row of car-related businesses. Autopia will eventually offer concessions for sale, mostly organic goodies from local vendors."

Seems like every time I turn on the radio or look at news sites, I'm getting bombarded with the idea that biofuels are responsible for historic high food prices and corresponding world food shortages.

Somehow, all these journalists always conveniently forget that the #1 driver in all of this (pun intended) is petroleum, and high fossil fuel energy prices. THAT is what is driving up the value of biofuels. THAT is what is driving up the cost of fertilizer, the value of ag land, and the price of food.

Don't you forget it!

I try not to get political here, but this is something I know a decent amount about, and felt I had to comment on. Heard on NPR this morning:

Hillary Clinton: "I would immediately lower gas prices by temporarily suspending the gas tax for consumers and businesses. We will pay for it by imposing a windfall profits tax on the big oil companies."

NPR Commentary: "Barack Obama opposes the gas tax holiday saying it would be ineffective and that it would ultimately raise demand and gas prices."
Obama is right on this. There's no two ways about it.

I have some experience with this type of issue in my own industry. When the whiz kids at the NBB decided that they could lower the price of biodiesel by creating a tax incentive, they were falling for the same flawed logic. Time proved them wrong, as biodiesel prices never went anywhere but up, and the windfall that came with the incentives created a "dot-palm bubble" (thank Lyle for that excellent phrase) in which our industry became focused on dividing and plundering. We are still trying to recover from the fallout from that.

Supply and demand are what dictate prices (i.e. what the market will pay), and incentives are not going to change that ultimate price. Therefore, companies just end up charging the same thing and pocketing the portion that would have (one could argue should have) gone to Uncle Sam. In the case of the gas tax, we're talking about the money that maintains highways, among other services that people would generally agree are essential. Would you rather that money go to Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc.?

Leaving aside the nice dream of windfall profits taxes (no- today's politicians will never let something like that happen in a meaningful way), Clinton should understand this. Supply and demand is pretty simple, and Clinton has enough business experience to know how it works. Which is why I believe this is a sad example of desperate pandering.

Unfortunately, people will probably get all excited about someone who wants to "immediately lower gas prices". It's a crock of shit, but people will buy it.

The worst part about this, which I've commented on before, is that it encourages consumption, in a time when we really need to be, have to be, must be encouraging conservation.

If high fuel prices are to be the #1 issue in America, as the media is blaring loudly at the moment, then how long before we drill ANWR, the California coast, and everywhere else, for the piddly amounts of atmosphere destroyer that can be found there?

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I gave a production plant tour to two gentlemen from Nigeria, one of whom works for Chevron. It was part of Rotary International's Group Study Exchange program, which sends 25-35 year-old business people around the world to gain insights on foreign business.

Both men kept asking me why people would use biodiesel? I tried to explain all the reasons. Whenever I got to anything that we would call an "environmental" reason, they were at a loss. One of them suggested that people in the West have gotten lazy and want to just enjoy the world around them, without working. Why not just drill the California coast, and ANWR, they asked.

I'm fond of telling people how biodiesel cuts across party lines, because it makes sense on economic, security, and environmental grounds. I generally expect Republicans to be on board, just as much as Democrats. It was weird to be talking to folks who didn't conform with my expectations. It was also humbling.

I did give them a lot of info, and to be fair, they enjoyed the tour, and asked a lot of good questions. Perhaps they were more impressed with the concept of biodiesel than I realize.

I can't help imagining that if I gave the same tour to Hillary Clinton, she would, as she's done before, extol the virtues of biodiesel right along with me, and then go back on the campaign trail spouting the garbage I've referred to. These things are all connected, but people like her profit on never making those connections.

I can forgive the Nigerians, because it was clear that I was up against a different worldview, and I respect that. An ongoing conversation with them would educate me and them both.

But I can't forgive Senator Clinton.

---

UPDATE: Much, much more conversation on this over at this Daily Kos thread. Looks like the pundits agree with me. There's also this great Obama quote:

"This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election."

The old oak tree on the south side of our farmhouse is now gone.  The children were out playing in the rain.  We were at the kitchen table.  Heard a thud.  And it was over.

On its way out it destroyed both of our wood sheds-which were lovingly constructed out of re-used barn board by Stacey several years ago-and a deer fence which protects the garden-and the aged volunteer plum tree which shades the Dog Mahal (which sits without a scratch).

But that’s merely a list of stuff.  And stuff is not nearly as important as the gigantic hole that has been blown into the sky, and for that matter, into our lives.

This house was built in 1917 by a subsistence farm family which survived, but never prospered.  The oak was on the south side where its summer foliage shaded the house from the sun.  Losing its leaves in winter, it allowed the sun to warm the house.  Simple, passive solar house design.

Nowadays we would hurry off to NC State to study the subject.  Back then it was probably just simple country wisdom.  The rest of the house is surrounded by aged cedar trees, which were probably put in place (or allowed to stand) as wind breaks.

When I first moved to this house in 1990, one of my first acts was to hang a swing from a bough of the oak.  Jess might remember playing on that swing.  After the swing moved to Summer Shop, the oak held one end of the clothesline, which fell out of use long ago.

All of which pales in comparison to the tree itself.  It was majestic.  It felt ancient.  It was a specimen oak on a property which has been logged for timber, cut over for firewood, and generally depleted by many generations of humans who have needed its resources for one reason or another.

On an abandoned farm with busted soils, with not an earthworm to be found, a ramshackle house and little in the way of bird life, there was the oak.  It’s blossoms were our harbinger of spring, its shade afforded endless parties on the back deck, and its leaves formed the basis of both play, and compost, and mulch about the place.

Now when I enter the backyard garden, I am stunned by the light.  Plants craving partial shade are now full sun.  Light pours into the kitchen from our bathroom in a new, strange way.  When I see it I think someone has left the light on-which makes no sense at all-and then I remember that the oak has fallen.

Looking up its vast trunk, we were stunned to learn that it was hollow.  Perhaps we will encounter a solid portion near the crown where we can count the rings.

But for now, we simply sit stunned, like you do after someone you love has died.  For now we are getting accustomed to its absence.  Dreading the summer sun.  And trying to fathom the vast firewood harvest which lies ahead…

Over at Daily Kos...

Analysts say that without Iran and Iraq — where nearly 30 years of wars and sanctions have crippled oil production — reaching that level will be impossible.

This is why we are not going to leave Iraq.  The country that controls the future of Iraq and Iran, controls the world for the next 40 or so years.

The issue is not that Iraq and Iran might not be pumping oil in 2030.  One way or another, they will.  The issue is: which military power gets to hold the world at gunpoint in this final fossil-fuel thrill-ride to the edge?  Unless, that is, anyone thinks that the major military powers are going to let Iraq and Iran themselves hold that petrochemical pistol?

According to the New York Times article, world supply of oil is not increasing as it should, in accordance to standard laws of supply and demand, as prices rise to 118 dollars a barrel.  The reason is that supply is simply not available.  OPEC is building infrastructure to keep up, but it's not enough.  OPEC controls 40% of the world output.  The other 60% is not keeping pace, due to both dwindling fields and lack of pumping infrastructure.

An analyst describes non-OPEC supply as "dead in the water."

Anyway, there's more. Compelling stuff.

Men in Black <3 Biofuels

This from Ben, of Pod Chocolates, in L.A.:

So I'm filling up this morning at Conserv Fuel ($70.40 to top off the tank at 4.599/gallon for B99—eep!) when this glistening brand new black Chevy Tahoe pulls up to a neighboring pump. These two well-coiffed blond lads hop out, black slacks, creased white business shirts, military-grade haircuts never sagging in the 90 degree heat. They were both wearing bulletproof vests under their shirts, both packing well oiled semi-automatic pistols, and even extra clips of ammo on their belts! No visible ID of any kind. I looked closer at the Tahoe. It had no plates, no numbers, no markings of any kind. It DID have a shotgun mounted up front and a cage in back for locking up, well... who knows? That's the point I guess. There was absolutely no way to determine what agency they worked for, what they were doing or why they were so ammo'd up.

But the moral of the story is your (shadow) government cares. The Tahoe was a flex-fuel, and they were filling it up with E85. But you can't prove it, I didn't send this email, and they were never there.

A friend of mine in Rotary, past-district-governor Charlie Kelly, e-mailed me this picture from his recent trip to Argentina: