[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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