Clean Green Tuk Tuk?

I'm still over in Thailand looking at the positive effect that the demand for biodiesel is having on previously poor farmers out here. With the price for raw palm oil rising steadily there's a little more money to go around down here - and that's no bad thing.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the use of LPG however I was in for an even bigger shock which only hit home this week. Check out the picture below:

See that big organge canister below that Tuk Tuk? Guess what.......yup thats LPG. Every single Tuk Tuk I have seen in Thailand uses LPG as its fuel! Vehicles once notorious for noise and pollution all run on cleaner greener fuel.

The Thai government has been smart enough to keep duty on LPG ultra low to encourage its use, as a result even in a hot and busy city of 10 million people like Bangkok you don't end up drowning in smog.

Compare that to the UK where duty(tax) on LPG is being increased 0.35p ABOVE the rate of increases in petrol and diesel duty! Add to that the average $3000 dollar conversion cost and you need to be doing starship milage to reap and kind of decent ROI.

How long can we continue to call these countries "third world" when it is clearly they and not us who are driving genuinely green agendas?

UK Government Rips off Motorists Again

If you ever needed a good reason to start making your own biodiesel in your back yard just take a look at what the UK government are doing to their motorists - and take heed America because you're next!

The UK government have just announced that they are going to add another 2p a litre of TAX. The chancellor says its an important part of their "green" credentials!! Edmund King threw his personal credibility on the fire by saying that "fuel price instability is largely influenced by the market."

I was outraged to read a news feed that stated: "Motorists can expect more pain after oil prices in New York reached a record high of more than 109 US dollars a barrel on Tuesday."

What utter nonesense! Hogwash! Rubbish! Utter LIES!!

I'm sat in Thailand today where the price at the pump for 98 grade fuel is 35 Baht a litre, that's 56 British pence or about $1. I checked with the local government rep here and NO the Thais don't source their oil from a magic fairy in the mountains, they buy it from the same places we all do, in dollars like everyone else.

The inconvenient TRUTH, is that 85% of the cost of fuel in the UK is TAX. It's an easy source of revenue for the government who know we can't do without it. Hiding behind the word "green" is just a pathetic insult to our intelligence.

- sorry I need to amend this with the following note: Note: in the UK, Value Added Tax (VAT), currently at 17.5%, is also charged on the price of the fuel and on the duty. At a pump price of 100p/litre (typical for unleaded as at November 2007), this would put the combined tax at 65.24p/litre, or approximately USD$4.84 per gallon. (Thus without tax, the retail price would be 34.76p per litre, making a combined tax rate of 188%.

You have been told. Buy a diesel car. Quietly make your own fuel in the shed. Stop taking the shaft from politicians (who by the way get a generous fuel allowance paid for by you the tax payer).

First GREEN Passenger Jet Takes to the Air

The world's largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380, has become the first commercial plane to fly on "green" liquid fuel made from natural gas, rather than crude oil.
The super-plane, taller than five double decker buses and the width of a football pitch, took off from the UK to France using a synthetic fuel, developed using Gas to Liquid (GTL) technology.

The plane, which seats 555 passengers, left Airbus' UK headquarters in Filton, Bristol at 11.30am on Friday morning for a three-hour test flight to Toulouse.
Sjoerd Post, vice president of Shell Aviation, which developed the fuel, said that he hoped the plane would eventually run on even greener bio-fuels made from sustainable plant matter.
More News

But according to projections released by Airbus today that would be by 2020 at the earliest.
Mr Post said: "After more than 30 years of development and a decade of operations, we are now building, together with Qatar Petroleum, the world scale Pearl GTL plant in Qatar.
"In our drive for cleaner fuels, GTL technology can help reduce local emissions and encourage sustainable mobility."

Airbus president and CEO Tom Enders said: "Our alternative fuels roadmap requires innovation, diversity of ideas and options that needs to be explored."This takes bold cross-industry and cross-border collaboration. That's what we are showing today with our groundbreaking first test flight with alternative fuels. It is part and parcel of Airbus' commitment to providing leadership as an eco-efficient enterprise."

Sebastien Remy, head of Airbus's alternative fuels programme said: "The age of easy energy is over." He said GTL was better than traditional kerosene jet fuel because it did not deplete the world's oil supply, produced less emissions of local pollutants like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, and was virtually free of sulphur.

Biodiesel Beats Ethanol Every Time

It seems like forever that I have been banging the table and saying that ethanol is not the answer to the fossil fuel or climate chnage crisis. I'm not alone in this and often others don't say it inplicitly but instead clearly point a finger in the same direction. I thought I would share with you an article written by one of my associates By Nick Louth who writes for MSN and who in this article entitled "Why biofuels won't help climate change" points us in the direction of biodiesel once more.

What Nick doesn't implicitly state but we know is that not only does biodiesel have all the same climate benefits as ethanol when burnt, it can be grown on marginal land, from crops that grow quickly with little energy. Crucially though the average person can make biodiesel at home either from fresh or used oil making it a far superior and sustainable choice. Enjoy.

For all the excitement over the issue, biofuels are not going to be much help in reducing carbon emissions, or in slowing the consumption of oil reserves.
In fact, the entire biofuel industry is already in deep trouble because of that old adversary: economics.

Brazilian buses, the perfect scenario
The excitement of biofuels is in theory understandable. A bus in Brazil, running on ethanol derived from locally-grown sugar cane, produces 90% less carbon dioxide than a petrol-powered bus. The reason for that is the carbon absorbed from the atmosphere by the growing cane offsets almost all the carbon returned to the atmosphere by burning the ethanol to power the bus.

Better still, the bus would produce much less particle and sulphur dioxide pollution, even if running on a mix of petrol and ethanol. By using local crops a whole series of important developmental boxes can be ticked: rural incomes boosted, technology transferred to less developed countries, a useful new export for poor agrarian countries and so on. Landlocked African countries, using the Brazilian experience, could cut their reliance on pricey foreign fuel by growing sugar cane for ethanol.

Holy grail scenario
This is the holy grail of biofuel. Growing fuels to substitute for increasingly scarce oil supplies, and cutting reliance on energy from unstable regions like the Middle East.
We know it works, because until fuel prices crashed in the 1990s and made it uneconomic, Brazil was a huge producer of ethanol for domestic use.

So much for theory. The carbon gain isn’t automatic. It hinges on growing crops to make the fuel that would not otherwise be grown. If the crops are merely diverted from other uses then there is no new crop growth, and no offset to the carbon produced by the fuel burning.

Don’t use the rainforest
However, if new acreage of crops is grown this is most likely to be provided by the destruction of existing forest. “If even 5% of biofuels are sourced from wiping out existing ancient forests, you’ve lost all your carbon gain,” said Doug Parr, chief UK scientist at Greenpeace.
It is far from certain that there is fallow, non-forested but productive land available on the scale required to make the carbon equation of biofuels stand up.

Yet there is no doubting the official enthusiasm for biofuel. The European Union earlier this month set a target that by 2020, 10% of all petrol and diesel used in vehicles should come from biofuels. From farmers to financiers, £1 billion a year has been raised to plough into biofuel production.

Biofuels: one clean drop in an oily bucketful
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that demand for crops for biofuels will soar from 41.5 million tones of oil equivalent in 2010 to 92.4 million by 2030. With government subsidies it may climb faster to 146.7 millio tonnes by 2030, the IEA predicts.

Yet that is still a drop in a bucket compared to the 3,809 million tonnes of oil consumed annually worldwide. Oil consumption is set to grow every year by 3.2-3.6%, according to the IEA. A single year’s growth would thus eat up the entire 2030 cumulative biofuel target. Plainly, we are hardly going to see much difference in fuel demand or in reliance on the Middle East because of these alternative fuels.

Besides, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reckons it would take 70% of Europe’s farmland devoted to biofuel crops to provide just 10% of road transport fuel. “Biofuels are not any kind of answer to global warming,” Parr concludes.

Corn to ethanol: Just a waste of energy?
Biofuel cultivation make most sense in the tropics where intense sunshine promotes rapid crop growth and carbon uptake, where labour is cheapest and where expensive (and oil-derived) fertilizers are not required. In temperate latitudes, though, the energy balance is reversed in crops like maize (corn), wheat and rapeseed.

Temperate ethanol production actually wastes energy. David Pimentel, Professor of Ecology and Agriculture at Cornell University in New York showed that it took 6,597 kilocalories of non-renewable energy to produce a litre of ethanol from US-grown corn. This ethanol contains only 5,130 kilocalories of energy per litre, essentially getting 22% less out than you put in.
Yet it is in just those traditional farming areas of Europe and North America where the enthusiasm, the spending and the government subsidies have been greatest. It is also there where protectionism has been most evident. The US currently levies a 54 cents a gallon tariff on imports of Brazilian ethanol, the one biofuel which actually is efficient.

Not about saving the world, more about farm subsidies
It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the greatest beneficiary of biofuel will not be the world’s energy users, but the rich world’s grain farmers. With £306 billion annually spent subsidising global agriculture, it is no surprise that farmers are standing in line to receive yet more handouts to support the markets for what they grow. In 2006, US farmers received over $5 billion (£2.6 billion) in subsidies to grow biofuel.

In Europe the crops grown for electricity generation biofuels, such as elephant grass and short-rotation willow coppice, are on fresh land. This is a carbon gain, but at some subsidy cost. The land most often used is “set-aside”: European farmers are paid once not to farm under EU rules, and then paid a second time to farm, so long as they grow only non-food crops. It’s a classic EU subsidy tangle that we taxpayers are funding.

Now economics weighs in
However, the soaring cost of the crops needed to produce biofuels is already threatening to make them uneconomic and ensure that they could not survive without subsidies. Prices of maize, wheat, palm oil, rapeseed (known as canola in the US) and soy oil futures are all soaring, making the price of biofuels much more expensive than the fuels they are intended to displace in our fuel tanks.

Maize prices (corn in the US) have reached a 10-year high of $4.31 a bushel in recent days, double the level of a year ago, while crude oil prices, having reached $76 a barrel in August are now back at levels of a year ago, $60. The rising cost of grain has been driven by an awful harvest of wheat this year in Australia, normally one of the world’s largest producers, plus increasing demand for biofuels. India, the world’s second largest wheat producer, has banned exports and released 365,000 tonnes from its strategic reserve to curb price rises.

Now beer drinkers need to worry
And it isn’t just bread eaters who need to be concerned. Beer drinkers too are likely to face price increases. The price of barley, an important constituent in beer production, has soared 86% in the last year because farmers are switching away from the crop to grow biofuel crops like rapeseed instead. Lager-maker Heineken has already warned that this is causing problems. Once again, note what is happening: the acreage devoted to biofuels is coming from switching crops, not growing anything new. There is no carbon gain.

Technology and mix problems
Biofuels face major technical and market problems too. Spanish engineering group Abengoa has threatened to suspend output at its largest bioethanol plant, which uses wheat to make a biofuel for petrol. But in Spain most drivers use diesel and ethanol can only be blended with petrol. The 200,000 tonne-per-year Dunkirk biofuel refinery planned by Neste of Finland and Total of France is jeopardised by technical problems because of the higher-than-expected temperatures required to turn vegetable oils into hydrocarbons.

Taxation: nein!
In Germany, demand for biodiesel has fallen 30% this year after the Federal government put a nine euro cent tax on each litre, with plans to escalate this to the 45 cent level on existing diesel by 2012. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme said in a recent article: “The market acceptance of biofuels will accelerate if the costs of climate change and pollution are captured in the price of energy, an omission that unfairly makes conventional fuels look more financially attractive than they really are.” He’s right that conventional fuels don’t capture their climate change and pollution cost, but wrong to believe that biofuels always do.

Biofuels do not provide a pure carbon offset unless the crops would not otherwise be grown, their production is often highly energy intensive, and without a big rise in the price of oil they will continue to cost more to produce than the fuel they are supposed to replace.

A role to play, but lost in politics
Biofuels could have a role to play if they are grown only in the tropics, but the western world’s farmers do not want to lose out on the subsidies. And to keep biofuels competitive will cost a lot more in taxpayer subsidies. Are we really prepared to do this when they aren’t going to help us win the war on climate change?

In the end, if we are to tackle climate change we need to take a more fundamental look at the amount we drive and fly, how we heat our homes and the food and consumer goods we buy.
It’s never going to be fixed by merely changing the fuel we put in the tank.

Diesel Autos Finally Come of Age in the USA – Now you Must switch to Biodiesel.

On the 24th of January President Bush used his State of the Union speech to ask Americans to “expand the use of clean diesel vehicles” as part of his new energy plan to cut US domestic gasoline consumption by 20 percent over the next 10 years. Immediately auto manufacturers responded by unveiling a whole new generation of ultra-clean, brand new diesel passenger vehicles that not only meet the strictest emission standards ever set in the USA but also achieve 20-40 percent better fuel efficiency than comparable gasoline based models.

What does this mean for you? Simple, you will now have a growing range of autos to choose from that will have quiet , clean diesel powerplants – every single one of which will run on home produced biodiesel! If thought of running some old oily chugger has been putting you off then you no longer have an excuse.
Manufacturers, including Dodge, General Motors, Ford, BMW Group, Mercedes, Jeep, Audi, Volkswagen, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi are planning to introduce “50 state” diesels in the next two years, including everything from compact cars to luxury sedans, SUVs and pick-up trucks.

DaimlerChrysler AG Chairman Dieter Zetsche announced that its new Dodge Ram and other vehicles will meet strict new U.S. diesel emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles that take effect in 2010 nearly three years ahead of time. The medium-duty Dodge Ram pick-ups, featuring a 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel powertrain, will be on sale soon in all 50 states. Chrysler also plans to introduce a diesel version of its Jeep Grand Cherokee early this year.

Also Volkswagen AG unveiled plans for its new diesel 2008 Jetta, which will help meet the new stringent EPA “Tier II Bin 5” emission requirements. The clean diesel Jetta meets these standards without the use of urea-based selected catalytic reduction technology (SCR). It is expected to achieve 40 MPG in the city and 60 MPG on the highway. In November, DaimlerChrysler announced it was joining forces with Volkswagen and its Audi unit to market clean-diesel Bluetec technology.

These vehicles set the stage for a coming wave of new, 50-state compliant diesel consumer vehicles slated to hit showroom floors and dealer lots nationwide for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 model years, including the Chevrolet Express Cargo Van, the Chevrolet Silverado HD Pickup, the Ford E-Series Cargo Van, the Ford F-Series Super Duty, the GMC Savana Cargo Van, the GMC Sierra Pickup, Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec, the Mercedes-Benz GL 320 CDI (Mid-size SUV), the Mercedes-Benz ML 320 CDI (Large SUV), the Mercedes-Benz R320 CDI (Touring Roadster Crossover), and the Volkswagen Touareg TDI.

Other prospective new clean diesels being seriously considered for introduction in the U.S. market include the Volkswagen Tiguan small SUV, the Honda Accord diesel, the Audi Q7 SUV, the Nissan Sentra, and the BMW 535d sedan and X5 Sports Activity Vehicle.

A car is certified by the EPA as “50-state compliant” when it meets “Tier II Bin 5” standards for emissions. Manufacturers are fiercely competing to bring the new technologically advanced passenger vehicle diesels into the U.S. market to help promote clean air, reduce carbon emissions and cut gasoline use. Emission regulations in California, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Maine and Rhode Island prohibited the sale of passenger car diesels in 2006, but new clean diesels will meet those regulations.

J.D. Power & Associates predicts that the diesel market in the United States could increase nearly 300 percent by 2015. And R.L. Polk & Associates shows that registration of diesel passenger vehicles jumped 80 percent from 2000-2005. In the light-duty market, diesel registrations showed 95 percent growth from 2000-2005, with 31 percent growth coming in 2005 alone.

Because of its low-end torque, unrivalled performance and towing power, diesel has long been a mainstay of the medium-duty pickup market. Further R.L. Polk data show that sales of diesel-powered medium-duty trucks increased 72 percent from 2000-2005.

Modern diesels are nothing like your fathers diesel cars; they are smooth driving, fast, have great acceleration and deliver 20% - 40% better fuel economy. Better than that you can make your own biodiesel fuel at home and use it in these vehicals without any modifications. There has never been a better time for you to make the move to biodiesel in the USA.

Evil Ethanol, Biodiesel & Betamax Videos

Everywhere I read, I read that ethanol is the next fuel to save us from a fossil fuel dependant, over heated, polluted future.

This emphasis seems to be the case particularly in the USA. That’s understandable when you consider that the USA is the one great industrial nation that until recently never really embraced diesel engines like Europe. So you can understand their infatuation with ethanol – but that does not make it the right or the only choice.

In September Renault demonstrated its new hydrogen fuel cell powered 207 cabriolet, 28 bhp electric motor, 81 mph and an operating range of 218 miles, producing nothing but water as its sole emission. This month it was BMW with their new hydrogen power 7 series. They already have 3 fuel stations up and running in Germany with more planed. In October another manufacturer announced their hybrid system which converts braking energy not into electricity, but into compressed gas which is then used to help acceleration.

So clearly there are other options - however all of this is rather misses the point. None of these technologies help the power generation industry, nor do they meet the needs of the merchant navy, road hauliers or railway companies, all of whom, at least outside the USA, run on diesel.

Ethanol is a fuel which is complicated to make and thus easy to regulate, it continues to be cost effective only because of the massive government subsidies that it receives, it singularly fails to encourage the use of more fuel efficient diesel engines which simply delays the inevitable.

Which brings us neatly to the next point. The majority of ethanol in the USA is produced from corn – a food crop, a crop which requires good soil if it is to be grown in quantity. Do we face a future where we choose between fuel and food?

As all owners of a betmax video machine can testify, it is not always the best product that wins through. In the 80’s Sony’s betmax technology finally lost out to VHS, not because VHS was better but because it was better supported. With luminaries such as Bill Gates investing upwards of $84 million in ethanol production and distribution it is almost bound to be a success, if not an exclusive one.

In the US led fossil fuel replacement debate ethanol is clearly gaining ground steadily. However the world at large needs a diesel replacement, and the USA will sooner or later have to grasp the concept of fuel economy.

The only contender in this space is biodiesel, a clean fuel that can been made from crops like Jatropha, grown on the most marginal ground not suitable for food crops, and easily manufactured in plants small enough to fit into most peoples back yards.

What is certain is that whichever way this debate goes there is sure to be a rise in demand for a good, dependable supply of hardy, high yield crops whether for food or fuel production. Undoubtedly good news for Monsanto with their GM seeds.

Make Biodiesel At Home or Go Broke

Make Biodiesel At Home

As the world’s reserve of fossil fuels becomes fast depleted, the need for reliable alternative fuel sources becomes more and more acute. One alternative fuel that is fast gaining recognition is biodiesel fuel. Like everything new and alternative, this fuel source is surrounded by many myths and falsehoods designed to scare people away. Our Ultimate Biodiesel Guide is committed to providing people with the facts. We not only want to encourage alternative fuel use, we also want people to make biodiesel at home.

The cost of fuel is becoming ridiculous. Although it would be easy to simply blame greedy oil company CEOs, the truth is that the rising cost is just as much a consequence of depleted resources and high demand. Additionally governments see fuel tax as an easy way to raise revenue - they know we can't do without it. I spoke to a friend of mine in the UK today - did you know that 80% of the cost of a gallon of gas in the UK is tax? Trust me, this will soon be "normal" everywhere.

Every year the cost of heating homes and driving to work is getting more and more out of hand, creating real financial hardships on the less wealthy of our society. Learning to make biodiesel at home can cut fuel and power costs by up to 90% per year. This means that fuel costs rise no longer, meaning bigger spending, it means bigger savings.

Learning to make your own biodiesel not only saves on the cost of fuel, it also saves on the maintenance of your machinery. Test after test has proven that those machines adapted to run on this fuel run more effectively, have fewer mechanical breakdowns, and last longer than those still running on fossil fuels. When maintenance fees are added to fuel savings, it is amazing how much less you will spend every year on driving a car, heating a home, and powering machinery using homemade biodiesel.

It is sad, but our society is virtually held hostage by rising fuel costs. When to go on vacation, how often to drive a vehicle, and even the temperature of the house are dictated by oil company executives. CEOs in suits should not control your life -- your life should be in your own hands. Homemade biodiesel is the key to freedom and it is the key to taking control over how you live your life and power your technology.

At www.ultimate-biodiese-guide.com we want everyone to know the benefits of making their own fuel. This is why we not only provide you with a comprehensive manual, but also continually update our site as new information becomes available. Please visit our resources section for a selection of informative articles, and check back often to learn more.

This article is courtesy of www.ultimate-biodiesel-guide.com

Making Biodiesel? Turn your "Waste" into Cash!

Introduction.

If you have already started making biodiesel you will know that the main by-product is glycerine. What you may not know is that you can turn this “waste” into a product you can use – or even sell to pay for your raw materials.

The product in question is soap. Most soap is glycerine based, cheap and easy to buy anywhere at a relatively low price. However “home-made” and “natural” or “homeopathic” soaps are much sought after product – and these are exactly the kinds of product that you can make at home with your left over glycerine.

Don’t believe me? Feel free to Google Home Made Soap, or search on Ebay – home made soap sells for up to $8 a bar!

There are two types of soap you can make – liquid and solid. I’ll cover liquid soap here, there’s a recipe for making solid bars in the new edition of this guide.

Making Liquid Soap from Glycerin
Liquid soap is particularly good for cleaning greasy hands or equipment and you can put it into any pump dispenser.

Step 1 – Remove any residual alcohol.

Your glycerine will contain almost 100% of the catalyst you used for you biodiesel reaction. As such, the glycerine and KOH (or lye) will have already formed soap by the time you drain it from your biodiesel reaction chamber.

There will be some unreacted alcohol left in your glycerine, which you will need to remove otherwise you will end up (at best) with a very harsh soap. To do this you need to heat your glycerine past the boiling point of the type of alcohol you used, which will cause the alcohol to evaporate off, leaving just the glycerine soap, for you to enhance into a great end product.
N.B. Make sure that you get the temperatures right; methanol will need to reach 148 degrees F (65 degrees C). Ethanol will need to reach 175 degrees F (79 degrees C). Allow the glycerine to stay heated for at least 10 minutes and then allow the glycerine to cool.

Step 2 – Enhancing your Soap

You can add essential oils and fragrances to your soap to enhance its aroma. Popular fragrances include:

Tea-tree oil
Vanilla
Oats (for exfoliation in solid soaps only)
Lavender
Peppermint
Rose

I particularly like the last three as you can grow them for free in your garden!
You will need to add about 150-200 millilitres of manufactured fragrance oil or 50 millilitres of essential oil per litre of glycerine; alternatively, you can add up to 300 grams of dried herbs/flowers. You can also enhance the color of your soap by simply adding food coloring.

Step 3 – Cooking it All Up

Take your alcohol free glycerine and heat it in a suitable container until it liquefies. Then simply pour in the fragrance oil and or the dried flowers/herbs. Stir lightly as you add the ingredients to ensure that they are evenly distributed.

Last but by no means least pour your liquid soap into a suitable container, a sturdy plastic tub or old pump soap dispenser and leave it to cool. Leave the lid off for about a week and the end result should be a fantastic, aromatic liquid soap.

Safety Tips

- Always make your biodiesel and soap in a well ventilated area.
- Always use an open container to encourage the circulation of air.
- Don’t breathe the fumes.
- Always use oven gloves and if possible goggles or glasses when handling hot liquids.

And Finally…..
If you are going to make biodiesel then why not turn this waste by-product into a useful, cash generating product? Also remember that like anything practice makes perfect, so don’t be afraid to experiment! Once you’ve made your soap you might want to consider purchasing some simple, cheap containers and labels and packaging the soap up for sale on Ebay, your own website or at your local car boot sale. Enjoy