Heavy debt threatens American economy

chewie_nz said:
you know you can run a vehicle on cooking oil?

What's the price of cooking oil per gallon? Could be a tradeoff and I won't have to overhaul my engine every twenty miles if I use Gasoline. :D
 
apparently there are engine conversion kits out there, and as you can use ANY OLD cooking oil, it's cheap as *cough* chips

(oh god...sorry awful pun)

Biodiesel
Biodiesel is a clean burning fuel which runs in any unmodified diesel engine. This fuel is an environmentally-friendly alternative to the higher emission petroleum diesel used in large transport vehicles and some cars and trucks. In addition, biodiesel can be made from renewable resources such as vegetable oil or animal fat and even from used cooking oil, an abundant waste product.
Biodiesel is currently being manufactured at an industrial scale by large companies but can also be made on a small scale with simple technology. We hope to be a clearinghouse for biodiesel information, especially the information, skills and technology necessary for making it on a small scale.

Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO)
Diesel engines can also be run on unmodified vegetable oil, if the oil is heated or mixed with other fuels. Using waste vegetable oil this can be an amazingly inexpensive and ecological alternative fuel.
At Dancing Rabbit we have converted one of our vehicles to run on SVO and hope to share our experiences and knowledge with you as well as provide links to other resources on using SVO.
http://www.dancingrabbit.org/biodiesel/

By John Wolfson
Seattle Times staff reporter


OLYMPIA -- It sounds like a fantasy tale or the wildest concoction of the wildest environmentalist, but the simple fact is this: With some cooking oil, a couple of chemicals and the right safety equipment, anybody can mix up a fuel that will power any diesel engine. If you drive a diesel car, you can do it, too, for about 60 cents a gallon.

Or you can just buy biodiesel, as the fuel is known, for a higher cost -- just like the drivers who line up at Dr. Dan's in Ballard. It's now available in all 50 states and at an increasing number of filling stations.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_mikeadd.html

and below are the instructions;

http://www.veggiepower.org.uk/page208a.htm
 
You can get the cast off used oil for free from many restaurants. Of course, there aren't enough restaurants for everybody, but it is a good thing to use this oil that would've gone to waste. Buying it fresh, however, costs the restaurants about $25 for a 5 gallon container of shortening so at $5 a gallon there wouldn't be much incentive to buy your own new oil. Demand has gotten to the point here where some restaurants are selling the cast off oil now instead of giving it away. Renewable resources like biodiesel and ethanol are something we need to be putting more focus on.
 
Charge 7 said:
Renewable resources like biodiesel and ethanol are something we need to be putting more focus on.

I agree.
One of the things the New Zealand Dairy industry has been looking at is ethanol production using the lactose in its waste which is then added to ordinary gasoline as a dilutor to reduce oil dependance it also has the advantage of making good use of the billions of litres of waste; milk processing plants produce.
 
MontyB said:
Charge 7 said:
Renewable resources like biodiesel and ethanol are something we need to be putting more focus on.

I agree.
One of the things the New Zealand Dairy industry has been looking at is ethanol production using the lactose in its waste which is then added to ordinary gasoline as a dilutor to reduce oil dependance it also has the advantage of making good use of the billions of litres of waste; milk processing plants produce.

That's pretty much how they make high octane anyhow, by mixing something with low octane to make it burn slower in the cylinders.
 
I know in South Africa they use sunflower oil for farm equipment. Works pretty good except the farmers say tractors their begin to smell like popcorn. :)

Biodiesel is a good short term option, but we need a system that will be completely independent of petroleum. My hope lies on hydrogen fuel cells. Its clean, will be very cheap, and a near limitless resource. The only thing holding it back (besides the oil companies) is the high cost of extracting the hydrogen. That and equipping and modernizing all the gas stations to carry hydrogen.

Both problems will be solved within the next decade or two (at the most).
 
mmarsh said:
I know in South Africa they use sunflower oil for farm equipment. Works pretty good except the farmers say tractors their begin to smell like popcorn. :)
I hear that here in the USA they smell like french fries.
 
Everyone says that ethenol is the answer. But someone pointed out to me that the miles per gallon of ethenol is significantly lower than that of gasoline. So a lower dollar to gallon, but what about dollar to mile?

Not only that, but picture everyone switching to higher (if not pure) ethanol fuel. Increases price of what? Corn. All of a sudden, the gas you put in your car is suddenly competing with the food you eat. Farmers will sell to the highest price. Yes a decrease in fuel cost per gallon, but an increase in food cost. Not just corn-based products, but anything that is derived from it. (Pork, Beef, etc.)

Yes, higher quality corn is what we eat, but our animals eat the low stuff. If all of that stuff is all of a sudden being sent to the fuel factory, what do they get? Probably use some of the higher quality corn to feed cattle, or reduce herd size. Corn, Beef, and Pork prices go up.

Simple economic principle; the more demand for a product, the higher its price.

I think that researchers are looking at the situation from within a paradigm; a combustable engine. Granted there are roadblocks to other energy sources, but it seems as though our main focus has been on a new combustible fuel to use in place of gasoline.
 
mmarsh said:
I know in South Africa they use sunflower oil for farm equipment. Works pretty good except the farmers say tractors their begin to smell like popcorn. :).

They also have a coal to gasoline system that NZ looked at emulating but it is horribly inefficient.

Spartacus said:
Everyone says that ethenol is the answer. But someone pointed out to me that the miles per gallon of ethenol is significantly lower than that of gasoline. So a lower dollar to gallon, but what about dollar to mile?

Not only that, but picture everyone switching to higher (if not pure) ethanol fuel. Increases price of what? Corn. All of a sudden, the gas you put in your car is suddenly competing with the food you eat. Farmers will sell to the highest price. Yes a decrease in fuel cost per gallon, but an increase in food cost. Not just corn-based products, but anything that is derived from it. (Pork, Beef, etc.)

Yes, higher quality corn is what we eat, but our animals eat the low stuff. If all of that stuff is all of a sudden being sent to the fuel factory, what do they get? Probably use some of the higher quality corn to feed cattle, or reduce herd size. Corn, Beef, and Pork prices go up.

Simple economic principle; the more demand for a product, the higher its price.

I think that researchers are looking at the situation from within a paradigm; a combustable engine. Granted there are roadblocks to other energy sources, but it seems as though our main focus has been on a new combustible fuel to use in place of gasoline.

I am not saying ethanol is the answer I personally think methanol is a better option for fuel as it is easier to produce and requires far less refining.
There are many options for producing low chain alcohols many of which take care of waste streams which in itself is a good thing but I doubt it will be cheap and in the end we will still have to look at a better solution, think of alcohol options as a stop gap measure until fuel cells become viable and not as the final answer.
 
MontyB said:
Spartacus said:
Everyone says... ... use in place of gasoline.

I am not saying ethanol is the answer I personally think methanol is a better option for fuel as it is easier to produce and requires far less refining.
There are many options for producing low chain alcohols many of which take care of waste streams which in itself is a good thing but I doubt it will be cheap and in the end we will still have to look at a better solution, think of alcohol options as a stop gap measure until fuel cells become viable and not as the final answer.

This is true, and I agree; any substitute combustable is merely a stop gap until something else makes itself available. I just feel that researchers are putting too much time into an already exhausted field of research.

I think we mean the same thing, just on different wavelengths.
 
Just on alternatives, there is bunch of plastics that can me made using potatoes and corn. In the last place I worked, they were working towards using biotechnology to create renewable inputs for the plastic products that we made. Very clever stuff. (The Germans already make a plastic window tinting from agri bio-oils.)

It won't solve the immediate problems, but in the long term they are a really exciting alternative. Agriculture produces not only the things we need to eat but also the the energy we need for plastics, cars, lipsticks, medical products, heating, etc, etc. Don't go off investing all your money in agri yet as it will be a while before they work out how to produce this on big enough scales to be commercially viable but while oil keeps going up, and a finite supply keeps going down, its only a matter of time.

On top of the "plastic potato", science continues to make advances in solar & wind conversion, grey water treatment, biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc, etc, etc. The nations that invest and develop these technologies today (and the US is a leader in these areas) will be exporting knowledge, patents, licenses and products in big numbers tomorrow - IMO. it will likely make where we buy out T-shirts from a little irrelevant.
 
I was conducting a search and I found this thread I started back in AUG 2005. I think it is safe to say I was smelling the stink of the current situation back in 2005. This is one of those moments where I wish I was wrong but that was not the case.
 
I don't think my financial knowhow has anything to do with me being an officer.

I am going to quote that article and how it relates to the current "crisis." It is amazing how right on that article was.

...A chorus of economists, government officials and elected leaders both conservative and liberal is warning that America's nonstop borrowing has put the nation on the road to a major fiscal disaster — one that could unleash plummeting home values, rocketing interest rates, lost jobs, stagnating wages and threats to government services ranging from health care to law enforcement...

...Many people take comfort in the rising value of their homes, and its spurred record home-building and buying, with new construction making places like Las Vegas the fastest-growing in the nation. But a home translates into wealth only when you sell it — and there's a vigorous debate over whether the housing boom is becoming a bubble that will burst...

...If not, the future poses some frightening what-ifs:

• What if the dollar plummets? Do stocks follow? How about pensions?



• What if interest rates soar? How would all the new homeowners, who stretched to buy with adjustable and interest-only loans, cover their mortgages?



• How would consumers with record credit-card debt make their payments? Would they stop buying? Stop taking vacations? What will happen if they go bankrupt? New rules going into effect later this year make it harder on such debtors.



• How would government, which depends on the taxes of a strong economy to operate, keep all its promises?...


For anyone who gives half a damn about this situation needs to read that article in its entirety.


Somebody in a leadership position needs to take charge and get some responsibility going. Both Democrats and Republicans are FOS when it comes to fiscal responsibility. I have lost complete confidence in our governments ability to be responsible. Think I am wrong? Why was there $120 million in pork in the first bailout? Again, this issue makes me so mad and there are so few leaders in congress who have the right idea.
 
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