PowerSwitch

imakebiodiesel · Joined: 15 Jul 2012 Posts: 26 Location: Lismore Ireland

I have been making my own biodiesel for my car and my home heating for 7 years now. I make it from the waste vegetable oil from 3 local restaurants. I collect once every 2 weeks and I have run various car on it with no problems whatsoever.
When my car has to be tested the mechanics at the test centre always think their test outfit is faulty because my old Skoda registers a lower smoke particle reading than the latest common rail engined BMWs.
I am occasionally challenged by people who accuse me of contributing to world hunger by promoting biodiesel.
I try to explain that there is a difference between biofuels that are made from waste materials and biofuels made from crops or land that could otherwise be used to produce food.
The enormous mountains of waste produced by the developed world are a potential source of energy that is largely ignored. ( I dont count incineration as sensible use.) I have made bioethanol from waste supermarket bread and cheese whey. I am currently making diesel fuel from waste plastics. (although this is a fossil fuel it has a much lower carbon footprint than standard diesel.)
When condemning biofuels generally people are missing the difference between fuels derived from waste and fuels derived from food crops, they are not the same.
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If you want to know what freedom feels like, grow your own food, make your own fuel and dont borrow money.

biffvernon · Joined: 24 Nov 2005 Posts: 18539 Location: Lincolnshire

Welcome to the forum, imakebiodiesel. Of course, being an ever so clever bunch of people here, we'll know the difference between the good and the bad biofuels. Wink

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http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

emordnilap · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:35 pm Post subject:

Welcome imakebiodiesel.

Stay in touch with the forum; if you are trying to reduce your impact on the world, there is a lot to learn here.
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I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker

imakebiodiesel · Joined: 15 Jul 2012 Posts: 26 Location: Lismore Ireland

Thankd for the welcome .
Emordnilap, your signature interests me. A friend of mine is a scientist in the food industry and has some interesting theories about human diet. She believes most of our eating habits developed more than 5000 years ago. Hunter gatherers prize above all other foods, fat and sugar, as these are the scarcest ingredients in wild food. We are genetically programmed to gorge on these two when they occasionally become available. The problem is that in our modern world these are two available all the time. The answer is make them scarce again by taxing foods according to their fat and sugar content.
I do realize Ive gone a bit off topic.
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If you want to know what freedom feels like, grow your own food, make your own fuel and dont borrow money.

emordnilap · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:03 am Post subject:

Yes, that's one answer and a reasonable one.

Another is education. Another is limiting the power of corporations. Another is taking money out of politics.

Another is AOTA. Wink

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I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker