[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by EddyBeers

You are correct, my math was way off and I apologize. I guess that is why you do not try to post intelligently on a subject matter after a night of drinking at 2AM in the morning

See if you can find any fault in this logic. Biodiesel is suppose to replace dependency on gasoline, provide an alternative that we can use in its place. It is generally accepted that Alberta uses about 220,000 barrels of oil a day, Canada using a little over 2.2 million barrels of oil a day. On average, a barrel of oil produces 75 litres of gasoline.

Based on those assumptions, Albertans use about 16 Million 500 Hundred Thousand litres of gasoline a day (16,500,000) (or 220,000 X 75)

This plant, which does produce 114,000,000 million litres of biodiesel a year produces a shade over 312,000 litres of gasoline a day. (114 million divided by 365)

Assuming that gasoline engines are approximately 85% as efficient as diesel engines in terms of fuel economy, the equation should be 16,500,000 X 0.85 = 14,025,000

Which basically means that given the same fuel efficiency this plant is effectively producing 2.2% of Albertans daily gasoline needs.

You would pretty much need 45 of these plants to completely replace gasoline dependency. When you add in the fact that a barrel of oil produces about 26 litres of diesel on top of the gasoline, and that this diesel is also in the amount of fuel that Albertans daily use, the numbers become somewhat even less compelling for biodiesel

Assuming 26 litres of diesel on average out of each barrel of oil, one gets 5.72 million litres of diesel a for use by Albertans. Given that diesel and biodiesel are similar in fuel efficiency (with traditional diesel still being more efficient) lets just add 5.72 to 14.025 which gives us 19.744 Million litres of combined gasoline and diesel use in the province of Alberta daily. 310,000/19.744 Million. This lowers the percentage that this massive plant will produce down to a bit below 1.6% of daily Alberta transportation fuel use. What this all basically means is that you would need 64 of these plants to replace traditional diesel and gasoline dependency.

Finally, Canada's ethanol goal is 650 Million litres a year by 2010 http://www.greenfuels.org/ethanol/canada.htm I am sure most would agree that that is a pretty friendly website. So, basically Canada is going to produce about 1.7 million litres a day if it meets its goal for production. Meanwhile, Canadians are currently consuming 197 Million litres a day of gasoline and diesel. Which basically means if we meet our ethanol targets at best it will be about 0.9% of the national gasoline and diesel needs.

After citing all those numbers, I still contend that the biodiesel is a huge waste of money and is a disguised government subsidy for farmers. And good on Harper for giving the subsidy out. A real leader in this country would look at nuclear power and fuel cells if you really wanted an alternative source for fuel

Okay, I'll ignore the falts in assuming that Albertans use these 220,000 barrels of oil per day in the exact proportions that they come out of the ground (also ignoring that these proportions vary greatly based on where it comes from), and even if your numbers were correct does that mean that we should ignore alternative fuel sources?

Just becasue one plant is only going to reduce out dependance on oil by 2.2% does this mean it should be abandoned? And do we know for sure that this is infact a subsidy for farmers? I would definaly not argue that in the US where they are using corn, and it has been well documetned for YEARS that it costs more to grow corn than the price farmers get, but the US governement subsidises the hell out of it, is this true for Canola? Not that I've ever heard.

Finally, this 220000 bbl/d of oil that alberta uses, is this truely barrels of oil or is this barrels of oil equavalent, meaning does this value include natural gas which is used for electricy production, home heating, etc, not to mention that the petrochemical industry uses a fairly large quantity of oil that would not be included in your gasoline calcuations.

Is this single plant going to singlehandedly rid us of our dependance on oil?
Of course not.
Do I think that biodiesel is the best option?
Not while we are using food sources as a feedstock.
Do I think you're right in passing this thing off as useless based on some incredibly flawed assumptions and the fact that the impact will be relatively small?
Definatly not. Just becasue something isn't going to make an astronomical impact doesn't mean it should be abandoned.