Praise the Lard and celebrate the “Good Juice” today! It’s International Biodiesel Day – celebrate VEGPOWER! Transesterification of a vegetable oil was conducted as early as 1853, by scientists E. Duffy and J. Patrick, many years before the first diesel engine became functional. Rudolf Diesel’s prime model, a single 10 ft (3 m) iron cylinder […]

The use of biodiesel in Germany has increased by two-thirds compared to last year, according to press reports of the latest issue of the Wochenbericht des DIW Berlin. Germans overall drive a bit less, but the Germans who have to drive a lot, are switching to the more fuel-efficient diesel vehicles, which now represent 21 […]

Last weekend was a big weekend for my biodiesel production project. Friday I pulled a 220 Volt/30 Amp circuit to the reactor in the basement. A friend who is an electrician emailed me instructions for what breaker and wiring to get, after I explained the project. So I cut the power, plugged in the new […]

Ah – hark the master of the moral high ground: the chief ethical executive from Royal Dutch Shell has spoken: Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels “morally inappropriate” as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said on Thursday. […]

No, biodiesel is not much of a spectator sport and provides only little entertainment value to most people. But when Lyle talks about biodiesel he is really funny and quite entertaining. Lyle’s humorous and insightful stories from the epicenter of the North Carolina biofuels movement made yesterday’s book reading at the Regulator Bookstore in Durham […]

Busy, hot day today at the Eno Festival – but lots of fun! The festival was well attended and we had a constant stream of people with questions about biodiesel: “Can I use it in my car?” – “Where can I get it?” – “How is it made?” – What do you do with the […]

As of last weekend TDI does not only stand for outstanding fuel economy but also for “superior racing platform.” The Audi R10 TDI of Joest Racing made history with the first-ever win of a diesel-powered race car at the 24-hours of LeMans – one of the toughest and most prestigious races in motor sports. The […]

Last night I received this email from Marc Dreyfors, who is a co-founder of Bull City Biodiesel, and who runs Carolina Biofuels and Forests of The World: Today, a 23 year old Marine from Lousiana came by looking for B100 on his way back to Camp Lejune, NC. He had a very nice VW Jetta […]

The Kiwis have figured out how to turn shit into money: A New Zealand company has successfully turned sewage into modern-day gold. Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds. It is believed to be the world’s first commercial production of bio-diesel from “wild” […]

Yesterday, I got a huge, 82 gallon used waterheater from a guy in Raleigh. This gray monster is going to be the cornerstone of my biodiesel homebrew operation, as I am planning to turn it into a appleseed reactor. I also have begun filling a 250 gallon storage tank with used fryer oil. I scored […]

Oh yeah, baby! Veg Power rules! Grease be with you!

Don’t know exactly what’s come over us, but recently Laura and I have been listening to some of our records. You know, vinyl records, the black, 12-inch wide disks with grooves all over them. You put a needle on them and they produce a scratchy hiss with some music. You put one of those things […]

Sure, you can argue about the styling – I have seen much worse, especially in the less-than- $15.000-category. And I’ve seen much, much worse in the a-new-mortgage-for-every-fillup category. This little vehicle is pretty revolutionary in many ways: to enter it you flip open the entire front (see below the fold); the structure of the passenger […]

Very cool: five high-school near-dropouts build a fun, cool-looking, 50MPG, biodiesel sports car: The star at last week’s Philadelphia Auto Show wasn’t a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines performance and practicality under one hood. But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week’s […]

This could be it: Insta-biodiesel! A biodiesel microreactor that eliminates the separation time and potentially the need for a dissolved catalyst. Veg-oil and Methanol go in, and biodiesel comes out the other side. No mixing, no heating, no separation and no KOH (or NaOH): “This could be as important an invention as the mouse for […]

After the panel discussion about biodiesel on Friday, I returned to CCCC in Pittsboro on Saturday morning for girl Mark’s biodiesel 101 class. The class was packed and Mark commented on how great the interest in biodiesel is in NC compared to other parts of the country. In the class we had a good cross-section […]

This weekend was fun. Friday after work, I drove down to Pittsboro in Chatham County for a 2-hour discussion forum on biodiesel. And Saturday and Sunday the program was all-biodiesel, all-day, at girl Mark’s workshop at Chatham County Community College. Both events were organized by the tireless folks at Piedmont Biofuels Coop. Friday’s discussion brought […]

It’s getting chilly out in Durham and the chill gelled the juice in the juicebox, despite the 10 percent kerosene blend. Today at noon it was just below freezing, and the biodiesel/kerosene blend (B90) was solid in the mason jar net to the pump. The pump only managed to squeeze a few drops out of […]

Not your daddy’s diesel clunker: Audi is going to compete at the 24 hours of LeMans with the R10 race car, powered by a 5.5 liter 650 HP V12 diesel engine. According to Audi this engine put out 1100 Newton meters of torque (811 Lb Ft). Audi claims this is the most powerful diesel engine […]

Interesting new technology developed in Japan: a sugar-based catalyst to replace the commonly used lye in the transesterification reaction that turns veg-oil into biodiesel: Michikazu Hara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have used common, inexpensive sugars to form a recyclable solid acid that does the job on the […]