Camping Stove

[Ian Smith]

On Thu, 06 May, Just zis Guy, you know? <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, 6 May 2004 17:30:42 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> message <[email protected]>:
>
> >It'd be good to burn vegetable oil for its ubiquity as
> >well as its environmental credentials.
>
> Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel
> than it contained?

What, you mean conservation of energy really is true?
Entropy is actually increasing?

Gosh, and tehre I was thinking the physicists were just
having a laugh.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:[email protected],
Just zis Guy, you know? <[email protected]> typed:
> On Thu, 6 May 2004 17:30:42 +0100, "Ambrose Nankivell"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> message <[email protected]>:
>
>> It'd be good to burn vegetable oil for its ubiquity as
>> well as its environmental credentials.
>
> Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel
> than it contained?
>
Quite possibly.

But they were bullshitting propagandists who said so.

The propagandists on my side say there's an 84% energy yield
on it from their studies. Which is not dissimilar to the 84%
energy yield from petrodiesel. Just that the biodiesel does
it inna carbon-neutral stylee, and the petrodiesel doesn't.
See www.biodiesel.org for details: I may be a few per cent
out with my figures but they're in the right ballpark.

A

 

[Graeme]

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel
> than it contained?

Possibly, but if you're into the home brewed version using
recycled frying oil then at least you can recoup some of
those energy losses by using it to make some nice chips or
a deep fried Mars bar (oops, Scottish upbringing coming
out there).

I have given serious consideration to making my own fuel
from recycled frying oil but the Aussie govt. has just
announced plans to tax it like other fuel (making the whole
exercise rather pointless financially) and the idea of
making it in the garage might not appeal to the owner of our
rented house :-(

Graeme

 

[Graeme]

"Mark South" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> But you're right, C&E do not appear to require a warrant,
> or even reasonable suspicion.

When I ran my own business (IT contracting) and knew many
other people in the same position, the one concern we had
was stuffing up a VAT return. Inland Revenue just send
you nasty letters for a while before they do anything,
C&E can knock your front door down just because they feel
like it (or at least that's the level of respect they
seemed to command).

Graeme

 

[Just Zis Guy]

Ambrose Nankivell wrote:

>> Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel
>> than it contained?

> Quite possibly. But they were bullshitting propagandists
> who said so.

Quite plausible.

> The propagandists on my side say there's an 84% energy
> yield on it from their studies.

Are you sure it's not 85% of energy yield, with 88% of
serious energy released?

--
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

Victory is ours! Down with Eric the Half A Brain!

 

[Graeme]

[email protected] (Nick Kew) wrote in news:ft8rm1-2e8.ln1
@webthing.com:

> n its natural state, the land devoted to growing biodiesel
> will be covered in vegetation, and absorbing CO2. When
> growing for man to burn, the same is true. Except that
> burning it then re-releases the CO2. So you've just
> neutralised land that *should* be making a positive
> contribution - which is not so very different overall to
> burning fossils but leaving todays plants to grow instead.

It may be complete bollocks, but is the cutting down of the
vegetation not compensated for by the increased CO2
absorbtion of younger, faster growing plants as opposed to
older, slower growing ones? I seem to remember some company
(Andrex?) using that in some advertising blurb about being a
green company and replanting trees some years back (which
makes me think it is more likely than not to be nonsense).

Graeme

 

[Ian G Batten]

In article <[email protected]>,
Richard Bates <[email protected]> wrote:
> was illegal, but distilling by freezing off the water
> was not (or

Loophole closed some years ago. And freeze distilation makes
it very tricky to remove the methanol, so it's iffy health-
wize as well.

ian

 

[Richard Bates]

On Fri, 07 May 2004 11:15:01 +0100, "Colin Blackburn"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The problem for us in the UK is that home distilling is
>illegal and anyone posting here saying they did it
>would probably have a swift visit from Customs and
>Excise who seem to have more right to enter your house
>than the police.

I've never looked into this but my trusty A level chemistry
teacher (Hello Mr. Jones) told us that distilling by boiling
off the ethanol was illegal, but distilling by freezing off
the water was not (or maybe it was freezing off the
ethanol). Whichever way round it is, he reckoned that
distilling by lowering the temperature was legal.

I've never needed to check the legality out for myself.

Love and C2H5OH from Rich x

--
Young Musician of the Year 2004 was a fiddle

 

[Whingin' Pom]

On Sat, 8 May 2004 19:45:55 +0000 (UTC), Ian G Batten
<[email protected]> () wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>Richard Bates <[email protected]> wrote:
>> was illegal, but distilling by freezing off the water was
>> not (or
>
>Loophole closed some years ago. And freeze distilation
>makes it very tricky to remove the methanol, so it's iffy
>health-wize as well.

Methanol isn't that much of an issue in freeze distillation.
Distillation doesn't create methanol but it does concentrate
it. If a bottle of wine contains 2mg methanol and you
condense the bottle down to 1 glass, you will still only be
drinking the same amount of methanol, so the headache will
be the same. The only time to worry about it is when you're
using a pot still or reflux column as the first runnings are
comparatively very high in methanol.

Have a look at http://homedistiller.org/methanol.htm

--
Matt K Dunedin, NZ

 

[Mike K Smith]

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote:

> Not only do I know the laws of thermodynamics, I can
> actually sing them!
You could try it if you like but you'd far better notta!

Another F&S fan.

 

[Jon Senior]

Mike K Smith [email protected] opined the following...
> Another F&S fan.

Filbert & Sullivan?

Jon

 

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:[email protected],
Nick Kew <[email protected]> typed:
> In article <[email protected]>, "Ambrose
> Nankivell"
> <[email protected]> writes:
>
>>> Didn't I read that it took more energy to make biodiesel
>>> than it contained?
>>>
>> Quite possibly.
>>
>> But they were bullshitting propagandists who said so.
>>
>> The propagandists on my side say there's an 84% energy
>> yield on it from their studies. Which is not dissimilar
>> to the 84% energy yield from petrodiesel. Just that the
>> biodiesel does it inna carbon-neutral stylee,
>
> Bzzt, big red herring there.
>
> In its natural state, the land devoted to growing
> biodiesel will be covered in vegetation, and absorbing
> CO2. When growing for man to burn, the same is true.
> Except that burning it then re-releases the
> CO2.So you've just neutralised land that *should* be
> making a positive contribution - which is not so very
> different overall to burning fossils but leaving
> todays plants to grow instead.

I don't quite understand how land can make a positive
contribution to being a carbon sink except for turning the
soil into a carbon sink, and presumably that runs the risk
of liberating quite a lot of methane from the rotting
vegetation as well, which may be a gain in terms of CO2
levels, but hardly in terms of greenhouse gases.

Presumably soil also has an output role to play in the
carbon cycle as not all the world's carbon has dissappeared
into soil and coal (although of course a fair proportion did
upon the invention of the tree, but since then, AIUI CO2
levels haven't changed much)

> Creative accounting is all about conveniently hiding
> things like that.

But it's fairly safe to assume that cultivated land will
also be producing products that are turned into carbon
dioxide somehow, except for trees that eventually end up
as landfill.

A