With the cost of diesel going up by the day and the price of used big diesels dropping daily. It has me thinking about purchasing one of these units in hope that fuel prices will eventually turn around.
However I was also thinking that I could possibly take advantage of running BioDiesel in them. I really think that in the next 2-5 years BD is going to be the way to go if prices continue the way they have been.
How are you seeing BD prices trending? Any manufacturers to steer clear of that have problems running BD? Any that have performed well on it?
Brian & Evie LeRoy
Bryanna and now MaryAnne (born Oct 2007)
1989 26' TravelMaster Signature GS Class C
2 Dogs (Akita and German Shephard)
2 Big Birds (Cockatoo's)
& our Wallaby (in spirit only now) LeRoy Home Page
There have been people making their own bio-diesel from used cooking oils for years. They convert the fuel from cooking oil to bio-diesel in small 40 gallon batches, then pump it into their cars, trucks and even run a few diesel fired furnaces and boilers with them.
Check out this website. Veggievan.org They even write a couple of books on the subject.
I first heard about them by reading Home Power.com Magazine - a solar and wind magazine. That was over 15 years ago, and they had run their VW based RV across the US a couple of times on used cooking oil.
If you are talking about commercial bio-diesel then that is fine too. It is mainly based on soy oil converted to act like diesel, then is mixed with 80% to 95% diesel fuel. It works just like the regular fuels, and is sold at a very competitive price (within a few cents of regular fuel).
I guess they figure if you are willing to pay $5.00 for diesel, they can sell theirs for $0.10 more or less than regular diesel.
The home made bio-diesel used to be a great thing. You used to be able to find plenty of used cooking oil in every town in the US. Most resturants go through about 10 gallons each time they change the fryer oil, and usually do this twice a week, sometimes using as much as 50 gallons a week.
But now many other used cooking oil coverters are lining up resturants to buy their fuel, and there are many "Not Free Oil" signs now. Stealing used oil is also way up - if it is not marked many feel they can take the oil for free. But now even locked containers are being broken into.
The cost to convert used oil into diesel is only about 60 cents per gallon, so that is why so many are doing it nowdays.
Fred.
Money can't buy happiness but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche or Country Coach!
We've found up here in the Great white snow belt Bio Diesel hasn't caught on due to even the "larger" manufacturers/refiners having inconsistent quality in even mixes as low as B5 and all it takes is one cold day and just a touch of glycerin not being taken out to harden up a fuel system and it's not cheap cleaning it out. One school system that switched to B20 ended up closing their schools for a week to clean out the fuel systems on all their busses with fuel from a large major seller of bioD. Needless to say they are back to straight diesel for now.
Now down south it's more of an option, less chance of seeing temps that would gel up any Bio Diesel impurities.
There are standards for bio diesel but little regulation/checking for now.
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