BioDiesel

I'm sure Marmot

Easy boys! Im the one who suggested it but looking back on what I wrote I think I got the message wrong. I wasnt suggesting running the yacht only on oil you produced on board, that just reminds me of the air powered car and nobody wants to start talking about that again But algae feeds off of water, CO2, sunlight, and even sewage all of which can be found on a yacht. There has been a huge push towards greener yachts and I could see algae being used to scrub sewage and exhaust then brewed in the sun for a while either through clear pvc or a solar tube into the tank before you can refine some oil out of it. And I remember hearing that cavitation via ultrasonic waves can extract the oil which can be diluted into a mixing tank. It obviously wouldnt keep your tanks full but it would be better than discharging some other waste products IMO.

Im no scientist and I am sure its easier said than done but I still beleive its possible.

Back to the regular thread topic Biodiesel is just like any other fuel, if you get a bad batch its going to hurt your engines.

Dan

I am almost a scientist (undergrad with research experience in cellular and molecular biology) and its going to take up a lot of space and weight. it is unlikely to be worth your while under any normal circumstances.

Hi,

Thanks- I got through all the warnings and promises of doom

Kinda interesting that this drive to use an alternate fuel seems to be targeted at road vehicles by an arm of the Govt that must burn a lot more in it's Sea going vessels than it's road vehicles.

Hi guys,
I have been running 2 to 5% biodiesel blend for over 5 years.
The engines smoke less and at least in my mind they will benefit from better lubricity of the blend.
Just dumping B100 into any diesel engine is a bad idea, Unless the engine is made for it. The higher viscosity of biodiesel can dammage fuel pumps and injectors.

I think Cummins has published some info but the common thread in the literature seems to be that at 5% there is no affect to seals ,hoses or fuel tank deposits. BUT the lubricity of the blend is double that of straight diesel.

IMHO all used cooking oil should be recycled into biodiesel and blended into the fuel supply. It is possible to meet specs for safe engine use. The use of farmland to grow crops exclusivley for biodiesel--maybe not such a good idea.

This seems to happen too often. Some enviro wingnuts take a good thing too far and have a bad result. This gives a good product a bad name.

Carl

Hi All, new to forum, and new to any forum for that matter. New to wood boats too.

Maybe we can all help each other.

Bio Deez... A very contentious subject indeed. But dont you all start posting bent rods and made up voodoo about fuels. Im certain this subject has been on every gearhead forum from here to China. And back. Now then, I do not yet own a boat, but I do have a fairly strong background in Bio fuels and engines in general. Lets ease into this, shall we? I will try to help the forum in anyway I can, but can do without all the flame and smoke. Sure there will be some debate, but lets keep it simple.

Many Many Many folk have had success with Bio diesel and/or ((veggie oils or SVO(straight Vegetable Oil)). SVO could mean straight non vegan oil too. Dont confuse the two. They are not the same. Both can and do work if applied correctly.

Many have had failures too. Depends on the fuel, fuel system, engine, region of use, duty cycle, age, and all other sorts of BS we will leave out.

There are subtleties in play too, in terms of fuel quality,handling,specification,etc. Lets consider these to be (informally, Im not writing a book) secondary items, though not insignificant.
These could also be - Feedstock used in making fuel, region, temp, storage time, refinement quality, Viscosity, blend ratio, engine type, on and on. And on.

Lets also leave out the food vs fuel debate, just for simplicity. Or perhaps someone wants to start up another thread.

Pros -
~ lower emissions - lower particulate, no sulfur (acid rain component) Potential slightly higher Nox, though that depends. (easy tigers)
~ Better lubricity. Especially with low sulfur fuels and newer higher pressure injection systems. Way better. Usually one percent bio deez will help with injector pump and system wear.
~ No fossil fuel/energy dependance stuff... keep calm people... save it for a new thread, heh heh...
~ A few other subtle items...
~ Somewhat Biodegradeable. This is really good on the water, though im sure it aint great. Humor me, USCG, EPA...
Cons -
~ Smells like french fries... and there are no McDonalds boat-thru's. Ok, I never thought so. Still stinks like burning hydrocarbons. But I digress.
~ Corrosive. It is the Methanol component that absorbs moisture and is, in itself, corrosive to many things found in your boats fuel system. This is where most of our issues will stem from, in various forms. This is also the main reason, in my opinion, and of course all of this is my opinion, why some have success and some have failure. The marine environment, as we all know is very unique, just like all of our boats are, umm... unique. This will be mainly where we will focus.
~ Slightly lower economy. A percent or two or three. Again depends. Go easy engineers... As we get into engine combustion dynamics/calibration/high performance stuff, lets just keep clam for a bit.
~ Cost/credits. Lets look at marine fuel prices for bio and petro. I have no clue. Someone help with a chart? I would love that. Cool. Heavy politics here.
~ Potential low temp issues - again depends on the specific fuel feedstock involved, and hmmm.. a few more things.
~ Hydroscopic. Like boats suck up money. Not as bad though.
~ Causes bent rods. That pic in the earlier post was cool! I cant believe they didnt break. Good forgings, those marine diesels... Wait, maybe the problem was something other than bio diesel. Possible. Lets look into it.
~ Swells your rubbers. Yes, it will. Bio Diesel is not a great personal lubricant, though probably better 'n dino diesel. We will also dwell in this realm A LOT. Rubber, and rubber like formulations of man. So many kinds of rubbers.

So here is a start. Trust me when I tell you; this is complicated stuff. When you think you know it all or have seen it all, you have not. Be humble here. I will do my best as well. Some of you may be Bio Chemists or Bio Engineers, or just have Bionic brains. I am none of the former.

It has been a long process of sorting out between OEM's, You, Fuel refinery folk, Business, Government, the Bush's and their friends, EPA, Fisherman stalled at sea, Happy hipsters running bio in their VW TDI's with no glitches, 300D owners thinking they are saving the world by continuing to drive the stinky things (just kidding) until the injection pump blows, Washington State Ferries (yeah ask them if they had problems!), People drinking too much peanut oil, The Tax Man, Farmers,
Backyard engineers, Front lawn engineers, and who did I leave out(?).

Shall we commence with the Q and A?

Josh

Me again.

Real Quick. Since this is such a broad subject, perhaps we should keep this in some kind of order. Im sure some folks just might want to use the stuff and/or make informed decisions.

oh my!

Ok Josh I read thru all your message. What are you smoking?

This just doesn't need to be this complicated. None of us who has a boat wants anything that complicated. If you are running a boat on diesel call the manufacturer and talk to them about bio diesel, and what they suggest you do to turn the motors over to bio diesel. Normally it is simply as simple as a few hardened seals. The amount of parts that need to be changed out will depend on the age of your motor(s). The newer the motor the less things will have to be done. Whether we like it or not the boating industry needs to start looking at an alternative energy source, and the easiest is bio diesel.

what was i calculating the other day - here in germany we say "l/100km" whats in the us "mpg", that explorer on the front page sucks 1020 l/100km what is 0.23mpg, now lets talk about biofuel again, who in the world could produce that amount of biodiesel?!
the big boys should find an other way of powering their ships - or just build more sailboats

Hi,

It's not very complicated, see if you can understand this.

1 US Gal is the equivalent of 3.786 Litres.

If you see a car that claims 40 mpg you can workout the lt/100km like this.

40 Miles is approx 64.4 Km ( 1 mile being 1.61 km)

64.4 divided by 3.786 = 17.01 this is the number of km per litre

100 divided by 17.01 = 5.87 this being the number of litres per 100 km

Shown as 5.87l/100km in Magazines over here.

The miles used in the above are statute miles not nautical miles with no temperature/density correction applied.

err - to say it that way, try the faster and cheaper way

http://www.google.com/search?hl=us&q=30+liter+per+nautical+mile+in+liter+per+100+km

with that you can even calculate the mpg of a car, when you've the l/100km

taking the values of the preview:

this makes

horrific

There is a limited amount of biodiesel available.
What is the point of burning higher blends or pure B100?
If all the biodiesel produced is blended into the fuel stream, the mix will probably be less than 2%. Right now maybe less than 1%.
No engine mods, no new seals, no new hoses required. No problem.

Carl

I am a bit lost here- What Explorer on what front page?

that PJ thing

Why is that horrible Brunick? Boats are bigger than cars typically. As I recall RMS QM2 gets something like 10" to the gallon.

always follow the whole discussion , i mean the fact that these vessels just operate for you pleasure, those big boats, most of them 're used one week a year, but shipped around the world in that time.
small boats: those are much efficient, i.e. lars (amg) 's 40 foot yacht.
QM2 is a big commercial boat, okay, also for pleasure but with more "sense of being" (correct written?)

i've come to the fact that my fav. yacht is Maltese Falcon, on their blog they claim to only started the engines to get out of palma de mallorca and run into st. barth harbour - now that's "green fun"

not that i'm extremly green, but i guess that yacht is a lot cheaper in yearly cost

I read the whole thread, I just didn't see your justification for saying it was bad, sorry.