Biodiesel - Problems and Solutions

Biodiesel

Down a dirt road amongst the green fields of Pittsboro North Carolina down Lorax lane is Piedmont biofuels where biodiesel is being produced and sold in the best way possible:  locally. 
Piedmont Biofuels opened in 2005 and routinely makes 4 thousand gallons of biodiesel a day. 
Piedmont Biofuels started as a co-op a few miles away from the industrial plant.  The idea was small-scale production of biodiesel and over years they followed that code and spawned other small-scale biodiesel processors and small co-ops.  When they discovered a failed and abandoned alloy chemical plant on the edge of Pittsboro, they decided to make the leap to industrial.  
 Shortly after Piedmont Biofuels Industrial opened, the team decided to find like-minded people and organizations to surround them in the extra 3 buildings in the industrial park. 
A farm co-op called Eco Organics moved next door and sells organic fruits and vegetables and is powered by biodiesel.  Screech Owl Greenhouse runs a sixty-foot hydroponics greenhouse and Eco Organics buys everything they can grow.  Vermiculture is a worm bed that consumes all the fine paper waste from the businesses and is powered by Eco Organics food waste. HOMS has recently moved into the industrial park and uses biodiesel and a tomato extract to create insect repellent. 
The plant and co-op makes biodiesel processors for anyone interested in home brewing from their garage or back yard.  You can ask your local restaurant for their waste oil from fryers and for slightly less then a thousand dollars investment, brew your own biodiesel. 
The biodiesel pump consists of a barrel with a wheel to pump it, after becoming a member of the co-op you can come by anytime and fill up or make your own biodiesel using the facility.  There is no clerk and payment for the pre-made biodiesel is based upon the honor system.  For member convinience, a tanker goes around periodically and fills up biodiesel tanks in specific locations. 
“So we are asking you (the customer) to go out of your way, so it is inconvenient, you can’t get a Hershey bar, you can’t get a New York Times, nobody to squeegee your window, and you have to be a member of the Co-op, which will cost you $50 a year.” Said Lyle Estill who is the Vice President of Piedmont Biofuels.
Estill makes the biodiesel from chicken fat from a local farm.  Most of his 25 workers walk or bike to work and the building is powered with solar energy.  His fuel is sold to the members of the local co-op so the product and profits stay in the community and everybody wins especially the environment.
There is a problem with gelling.  Because biodiesel is vegetable oil based, it will gel at colder temperatures, this is why most biodiesel is sold as a blend of diesel and biodiesel.  The temperature at which biodiesel starts to gel depends upon the oil that was used to create it.  The gelling temperature is typically around 16°C to –10°C.  This would be a problem for anyone in the Appalachian region trying to drive on pure biodiesel in the winter. 
People in colder climates may invest in a heating coil that wraps around the fuel tank to warm the biodiesel.  Additives are currently being worked on to lower the gelling temperature but for the moment none seem promising. 


A High Brow for Biodiesel

Biodiesel is created from what could be used to feed people and livestock.  This presents an ethical dilemma because according to the Epoch Times, the world’s supply of grain has fallen to 40-year lows and around the world the price of corn has doubled since 2007. 
The increased demand in grain for biofuels has driven the price of grain up and the creation of a grain market to feed cars has taken away from the market to feed humans. 
Last year the price of  flat corn bread, the largest source of calories for many poverty-stricken Mexicans rose by over 400 percent and caused rioting.  Although inflation in Mexico had risen 4 percent in 2007 and hoarding also caused the price hike, many blame the increase on the use of corn for biofuels.  A similar situation happened in Italy as pasta rose 20 percent because of a bad harvest and possible competition with biofuels.
Biodiesel is a green energy but in many situations it is no better for the environment then petroleum-based products.  Currently, rainforests in tropical areas like Malaysia are being cut down to make room for palm oil plantations to make biodiesel. 
“We cant flatten Honduras and plant palm trees, squish the palm trees into oil, put it on a super tanker, ship it, put it on a truck, drive it into RDU airport, put it in the airport equipment and say ‘We are green’, bad biodiesel.” Says Estill.  
Clear cutting land to make farms to produce crops to convert into biofuels contributes 17 to 423 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels with the biofuels according to a study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy.  Researchers suggest that the Kyoto protocol be adjusted to reflect the problem of land use emissions.
Representatives from Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Student Trade Justice Campaign, Food First and Grassroots International have called for a moratorium on plant-based fuels until standards are set to ensure that they show significant environmental benefits over fossil fuels, and that they do not contribute to world hunger or human rights abuses.
Nikhil Aziz, Executive Director of Grassroots International, said: "This new 'green rush' is a reckless race towards disaster - one that endangers food security for millions, while doing little to help stem the negative impacts of climate change.”


Possibilities in Algae

According to Elizabeth Svoboda in an article in Popular Science magazine, it is estimated that 140 billion gallons of biodiesel would be needed to replace petroleum use in the U.S. every year. We would need three billion acres of fertile land to produce that amount with soybeans, and over one billion acres to produce it with canola.  There are only 434 million acres of cropland in the entire country and we still have to eat.  Researchers suggest that algae could produce 140 billion gallons of biodiesel in only 95 million acres. 
“(With algae), I can get more oil out of the size of this room then you can get out of an acre of soybeans.  You end up with a 100-fold increase, you get more BTU’s (British Thermal Units) and more oil per acre then any conventional crops right now,” said Estill.   
An alga requires sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to flourish.  It replicates itself like rabbits and it can grow in nearly any enclosed space as well as absorb nutrients quickly.
  The idea has been to grow the algae in a clear plastic tube that is occasionally squeezed or mixed with air bubbles.  A huge bonus is that the carbon dioxide can possibly come from emissions off of a power plant. 
Next is the question of what type of algae to use, how to make it, and how to extract the oil from it.  This would possibly lead to genetically modified algae, one that can produce the most oil and quickly. 
If this new genetically modified algae gets into our ecosystem it has the potential to dramatically alter the life that exists and disrupt the natural cycle.  
“When I was a kid it was phosphates from our laundry detergent.  Phosphates end up in the watershed, the nutrients get consumed by algae, algae blooms and kills the lake because the algae blocks the sunlight from the aquatic forms that need the light down below,” reflects Estill.
In1978 President Carter created the Aquatic Species Program (ASP), a research initiative credited with the idea of biodiesel from algae. Twenty years and $25 million later, they had failed to produce any significant amount of oil from algae, and in 1996 the Clinton administration killed the program.
In 2007 a journalist asked Solix, a company dedicated to the research of algaculture (farming algae), how much algae biodiesel they had.  The room became very quiet and a small tube with a few traces of brown liquid was brought out. 
Estill has offered 500 dollars to anyone who can provide him with one gallon of algae biodiesel.  He doesn’t expect that his request will be fulfilled for at least a decade.  


Sustainability in the Community

 Biodiesel can be helpful to farmers trying to hold onto their land ad it can be better then the subsidies we have paid to farmers to not farm their land in order to keep food prices regular. 
Biodiesel does offer a sustainable alternative but only if it is created and consumed in the same community through grassroots efforts.
The best answer to the energy problem is conservation, and with hard work, ingenuity and research we may see new emerging energies like cellulosic ethanol and algae biodiesel help us off of our addiction from petroleum and coal.