corradoboy

With fuel prices getting silly, what info have people got on biodiesel ?

Best deal I've found so far works out at 75p a litre HERE.

PeteBrant

Did you hear on the news this morning? Apparantly Biofuels are worse for the environment than regular fuel.

corradoboy

I'm not a follower of The Great Global Climate Bull$h!t Myth, so let's just have some input on which fuels, from where, at what prices, and any techniques anyone has had success at in making their own or filtering stuff from the chippy.

David_Dickson

some sites Ive seen recently....
Welcome to Veggiepower - How to make biodiesel
vegetableoildiesel.co.uk - Powered by XMB
Bio-Power Index page

I have a tatty old diesel car so wont be bothering with biodeisel or conversion kits, I will just be running a mixture of veg oil and diesel. I have done this before on a Discovery TDi and it ran perfectly on up to 80% Makro`s veg oil.
From what I hear, filtering used oil is a bit of a hassle involving methanol and other chemicals to clean out impurities. After this and filtering of waste food particles, you are seemingly left with 50% useable oil and 50% sludge that needs disposed of. Ok if you can get decent quantities of waste oil for free I suppose.

blockmonke@fsmail.net

My old 2.2 diesel laguna ran fine on vegeable oil, and it only cost 55 p a litre back then. Even veggy oil is around 80p a litre now though

Brendan Hughes

Article in the paper today about a chocolate powered vehicle! They distill old walnut whips etc to end up with biofuel.

We'd always be running short of fuel in our house

Brendan Hughes

Here it is.
Chocs away ... the confectionery-fuelled expedition to Africa | Science | The Guardian

SVXNUT

Warning, you cannot use it in a modern vehicle with the new EU Gizmo called a Diesel Particulate valve. I know because I asked my dealer if it would invalidate the warrenty on my vans, and they said it would blow them up!!.

corradoboy

SVXNUT, it's a Diesel Particulate Filter, or DPF. VAG diesels over 1.9 after 2006 all have it AFAIK. I think it involves the exhaust gases being filtered to removed some of the soot, which is then burnt off by a 10 minute run at +4k revs once a month. Neither of my Skoda diesels have if so IDGAF

Simon 69

Proper biodiesel is seldom cheaper, in fact, its commonly more expensive. Id be sure of what you are actually getting because anything other than proper RME (rapeseed emthyl ester, vegetable oil with the glycerin removed) isnt biodiesel (its vegetable oil thats been twatted about with).

Simon

corradoboy

"B100 Biodiesel (FAME) delivered. Biodiesel to EN14214 standard."

From the site I quoted earlier.

"EN14214 is the standard for biodiesel now having recently been finalized by the European Standards organisation"

Simon 69

If you make it yourself then (I think) 1000 litres per annum are duty-free!

dpb

Even at lidl ?

rofl at the choclate power

SVXNUT

Sorry, got the Valve/filter confused. It a DPF and a EGR (Excess Gas Release) valve. On my vans they go into burn off mode for 10 mins about every 600 miles.
Real pain sitting at the lights with the engine ticking over at 1500rpm. It Stinks. Still annoys the convertables!!.

Love to know why the E.U. has decided to make impossible for vans/wagons to run on B Diesel though.

corradoboy

I expect Biodiesel to be hit with fresh taxation before long as it is nowhere near as green as people think. I'm gonna reap any benefits whilst I can

Fuzz

Methanol £80 for a 205 ltr drum
Sodium Hydroxide £15 for 25kg
veggy oil from your local chippy £free.

Conversion machine £1000.
After outlay you can make the stuff for 9pence a Ltr..
but then you gotta add the duty which takes it to about 60pence
Still not too shabby mind.

scoobyboy

biodiesel cleans out your tank and fuel lines depositing all the crap in the filter you do have to change it regularly or else it makes it's way into the pump and can render them u/s. i had an isuzu bighorn in where the owner finally admitted he had been using it after we found lots of small particles in the pump!

Simon 69

That'll be 88p per litre after youve added VAT. Still, its a saving of 12p per lite. You have to be sure that your common rail diesel engine will run on it though and that VAG will honour any warranty claims. For this youll have to be able to establish that every batch of fuel was tested for compliance.....

corradoboy

At the moment it would save me £250 or so a year, which hardly makes it worth it. A bit like the trek to my nearest Biodiesel filling station, at around a 40 mile round trip I'd use nearly a gallon at £4.50 to save about £3 on the fill up If there were a local outlet it would save me £150 a year, which due to the minimal effort would be worth doing.