[Homestead] gas prices

Don Bowen don.bowen at earthlink.net
Wed Jun 6 12:03:35 EDT 2007


At 6/6/2007, you wrote:

>Soybeans        48 gal/acre
>Sunflowers      102 gal/acre
>Peanuts 113 gal/acre
>Rapeseed        127 gal/acre
>Avocado 282 gal/acre
>Florida Aspen   689 gal/acre
>
>Subtract from the above the energy cost of production (tilling, planting,
>fertilizing, harvesting, and processing).  To make bio Diesel you need to
>add the costs of production of about 10% methanol.  Methanol in the best
>facilities returns about 15-20% over the energy invested.  BioDiesel from
>Soybeans costs about $2-3 a gallon in facilities of 3M gallons or less.  In
>larger facilities the cost can be driven down to well under $1.

I did a little more research into the oil process because I did not really 
know how it worked.  As it turns out it is an energy intensive 
process.  This is not to say that a home experimenter could not come up 
with an economical home process.

Oil used to be pressed out of the beans but the pressing precess generated 
heat that partially broke down some of the oils.  In the late 30s a process 
using Hexane, a refined crude oil product, was developed.  The washed, 
cleaned, and dried beans are rolled into flakes then treated with 
Hexane.  Steam is then used to evaporate the hexane from the flakes and 
separated oil.  The oil is separated from the flakes and sent for further 
refining.  The flakes can be used for animal feed.

It is all a very energy intensive process.  The DOA says that if all 
soybean crop land is used for BioDiesel, we would supply about 6% of our 
transportation needs.  The same agency says that ethanol can supply a 
maximum of 20% of our motor fuel needs.  Both are true only if external 
energy sources such as coal are used for process steam.


Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com
My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

I am omnivagant.  


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