The Origins Of Biofuels
Since energy independence is a current in topic, and since I am all about leaping onto the bandwagon, I decided to do some poking around into biofuels. I wanted to see if I could run my car on them, if they were really as environmentally friendly as suggested, and even if they would be available in my area.
So while I was poking around I discovered that biofuels had actually been around a lot longer than I suspected. It turns out that like many innovations, several of which we take for granted nowadays, the modern concept of biofuels originated with the axis powers just before WWII. Which makes sense, I guess, because in America the first time somebody said “I want you to grow gasoline!” he got laughed at. But when a murderous dictator tells you the same thing, you’re probably going to give it the old college try.
Since Italy contained very few strategic resources during the lead-up to the War, Mussolini was worried about being able to maintain sufficient fuel supplies to keep the infrastructure functioning. Especially since his larger and more aggressive allies might not be willing to share their stockpiles if they became scarce.
And so he instructed several of the leading minds in his country to come up with alternative fuel sources, preferably ones that could be maintained indefinitely through domestic production. And so scientists got to work on the problem. In the end, it was determined that the only even remotely practical solution was to try to produce different kinds of vegetable oil, and see if any could be made to work in a modified engine.
These experiments continued once the war broke out, and for the most part, they didn’t turn up much that was useful. The closest they ever got to a functional engine was a stripped down locomotive that went about 100 yards, off of a fake diesel variant, made out of a bunch of locally grown herbs. They could actually burn it hot enough to power a small steam turbine, but not particularly well. The extraction process was prohibitively expensive, and produced a liquid that was inferior in every way to just burning coal or wood. With the added bonus of being extremely volatile.
The “spice engine” though technically a success, was a colossal waste of resources that could be ill-afforded by a country worried about impending invasion and it’s very survival. Some people believe that insane directives like this, might have helped foster the resentment, which led to his being deposed.
And in the end he was left with the epitaph of many dictators. He was a bloodthirsty psychopath. But at least he made the trains run on thyme.
BTW you could thank Matt for suggesting this topic.
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February 26th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Grrr, you made me learn stuff! Bad Skippy! ^_^
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Dave in NC reply on February 27th, 2009 1:00 am:
And using puns! PUNS! AUGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
Well played, dammit.
Well played.
And yes, I’m spreading this one around like a nasty cold.
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February 27th, 2009 at 4:51 am
I think Skippy is secretly a patron of Callahan’s.
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February 27th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Yeah Biofuels have been around longer than that. Henry Ford thought that biofuels were the “fuel of the future”. He had wanted the Model T to run on the stuff. trust me .
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Stickfodder reply on February 27th, 2009 5:12 am:
damn it didn’t work it was supposed to say
go here.
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February 27th, 2009 at 6:50 am
I got to the bit about the locomotive and started thinking “hey, XKCD had a comic about this (http://xkcd.com/282/), but they were just making a joke. Was the joke based on something real?” At that point i still had not realized that i was being subjected to the same joke.
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Sicarius reply on February 27th, 2009 9:31 am:
Damn, I knew I heard it from -somewhere-
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February 27th, 2009 at 6:58 am
If you want some articles on biofuels, I can dig up some links for you. Just let me know.
One of me pet peeves is corn based ethanol. It takes as much energy to produce and get to market as gasoline, wears out engines faster, puts more pollutants in the air, and costs more than gasoline.
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CCO reply on February 27th, 2009 9:55 am:
Plus:
1) You’re burning food! (OK, you’re burning ethanol, which is made from corn which is food for people and livestock.)
2) Production of corn leads to nitrogen run off, which enlarges the dead zone in the Gulf Mexico.
Also, Il Deuce probably didn’t make the trains run on time; even before the USAF bombed and strafed them. I think http://www.snopes.com/ will have something in the history section.
Ciao,
CCO
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Minty reply on February 27th, 2009 11:59 am:
Didn’t they also do a study that found out that corn diesel was unrealistic because the US population would effectively have to starve to fuel itself?
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CCO reply on February 27th, 2009 12:03 pm:
OK, actually at the time it was the US Army Air Force or USAAF.
And fluorescent lights contain mercury. Ergo, the Speaker of the House wants to kill marine life (and sea food eaters). Well, it would appear that way.
The make your own diesel idea is interesting.
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johnny reply on February 27th, 2009 8:16 pm:
i remember hearing of a time when the government had to pay farmers to burn their corn crops because it would drive the price down and would lead to the market failing. . . my response grow more easily fermented crops. . . thats just me i could be completely wrong
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J. B reply on March 1st, 2009 8:34 am:
No, your right. Today we do even smarter things, like buy 50 millions lemons and leave them to rot to drive the price up. Pay farmers to not grow food to keep the price up. Funny thing is we have these to “help” the farmer. All it does is make the eventual exit of inefficient farmers take longer.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Puns!
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February 27th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I was thinking this was another pun, and dammit, I was right.
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Stickfodder reply on February 27th, 2009 11:31 am:
That’s why it’s best to ignore the pun and act like this was a serious article.
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Alex reply on February 27th, 2009 11:44 am:
NO U. I’m going to…to…to…. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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Minty reply on February 27th, 2009 12:00 pm:
Hey, I like puns. . . provided they’re used in moderation.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Note to self – hire hit men to beat the crap out of Skippy and Matt.
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February 27th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Actually, diesel, developed in the late 1800s, was intended to be a biofuel. The man who invented (named Diesel), did so because farmers could then grow their own fuel. The idea that oil wouldn’t be around forever is not new.
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Freiheit reply on February 27th, 2009 9:02 am:
The new part is making it a political, nearly-religious issue which is making it very difficult for the scientists, engineers, and the free market to do their jobs. :D
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February 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
GROAN!!
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February 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ah, Skippy, up until that last line you had me thinking that I was going to have to go all pedantic on you. Acknowledging that it was a pun, but considering that you might actually have some legitimate interest in the topic, and to clarify Spc. Hyles comment that was the only one even remotely close to correct:
Rudolf Diesel invented the compression ignition based engine in the late 1800s, and debuted it at the 1901 Worlds Fair, where it was running on peanut oil. The stock story goes that he created an engine that would run on vegetable oil in order to allow farmers to grow their own fuel and disenfranchise themselves from the already burgeoning energy hegemony, but there are substantial allegations that that’s just a bunch of hippy hyperbole.
The invention of the engine caused Diesel to go broke and drove him insane. He jumped, or was pushed by that energy hegemony, off a ship in the mid-Atlantic, and that was the end of Mr. Diesel. Except that the compression ignition engine forever after bore his name, Diesel, regardless of the fuel used to power it.
I know this because my quest to create a sensible and sustainable means of producing biodiesel (for which I have 17 patents pending) has made me broke and driven me insane. The only thing keeping me off a troop ship in the mid-Atlantic is that I can’t afford the ticket.
And for the record, until the code is broken on biodiesel production from algae (which is coming), the only sensible and sustainable way to produce biodiesel is from existing stocks of waste vegetable oil (mostly industrial or fryer oil). Trying to produce vehicle fuel, whether it be ethanol or biodiesel, from anything that grows roots is a bio-engetically backwards path and contributes to the fuel vs. food conflict mentioned by Tim Covington and CCO.
My aforementioned broken insanity comes from trying to develop a profitable business converting waste oil to biodiesel, and putting the resulting fuel in schoolbuses where children with still developing neurological systems are exposed, on a daily basis, to 46 times the carcinogen level deemed a significant risk by the Feds. Biodiesel instantly reduces that exposure to virtually zero. Therefore, the highest and best use for the very limited stocks of biodiesel is in schoolbuses.
So, Skippy, were you actually to achieve the very unlikely goal of finding a source of sustainably produced biodiesel in your area, using it would be stealing from the kids. Bad Skippy.
In very large part, it is my SF training that has given me the tenacity, endurance, and planning capabilities to establish a partisan led internal insurrection aimed at toppling the existing power structure. That’s what the US government gets for training me to go topple other peoples governments (ever hear of FID, Foreign Internal Development, anybody?), I pointed it right back at them.
My website, http://www.KF3BioDiesel.com, doesn’t have any of our new materials on the “Fuel For School” program yet, but it will soon. After I posted the DNA list with the invited website plug, that site got a gazillion hits, so thank you for that, Skippy.
See, I went all pedantic. I bet this post teaches you a lesson about writing anything remotely realistic and instructive.
Captcha:
9) pisant
yeah, pissant is what I think of the cabalistic leaders of the energy hegemony
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Minty reply on February 27th, 2009 12:02 pm:
Well, when we finally run out of gas and have to resort to horse transportation again, we’ll see who’ll be laughing then, won’t we? (Yes, I know it’ll still be the oil barons, but allow me my illusions).
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Kieran reply on February 28th, 2009 3:53 am:
well they will laugh until we hunt them down and burn them at the stake for being assholes and ruining the world by supressing sustainable fuel ideas :P
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Kemperfish reply on February 28th, 2009 2:18 pm:
I’ve got the stakes and I’ve got the sustainable eco-groovy fire source, made from the by-products of biodiesel production.
Send up a pen flare and let’s get to burnin’.
Captcha:
looks successfully.
Yep, looks like the oil barons successfully took the world for all it had.
Joe Ward reply on February 28th, 2009 9:33 am:
But bio-diesel congeals at a higher temperature than petro-diesel. Thus most schools which bus will avoid it. (Great plains, New England, Upper Mid-West & most of the Mid-Atlantic States.)
Unless you’re in the sunbelt states, bio-diesel won’t sell for school buses, nor publis transportation. Philadelphia’s SEPTA system rolled out 4 bio-diesel buses & had to garage them for the winter. Not an efficient use of high cost assets.
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Kemperfish reply on February 28th, 2009 2:21 pm:
This is an easily, easily solvable issue. It’s a red herring propagated by those who don’t know, won’t try, and don’t have the sack to diverge from the establishments status quo.
Go ask a New England bus driver what happens to petrol diesel mid winter.
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Stickfodder reply on February 28th, 2009 5:03 pm:
Yeah they have to add kerosene in the winter around where I am. I remember plenty of times that my school bus reeked of the stuff.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Well, I was going to go capitalistic on you and suggest a firm that makes LED lights, Cree. No, I don’t have any of their stock, yet, but I intend to.
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CCO reply on February 27th, 2009 7:56 pm:
Rats! My html is corroding away from disuse. That’s Cree
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February 27th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
OK, I did NOT see that coming.
Owchie.
captcha: Trouin singer’s
… I got nothin’.
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March 1st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
No. Just,..no. :-/
I think we should limit you to one pun a month.
Bad boy. No biscuit!
Captcha: pigny Hated – just as much as that pun!
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