Large-Scale Biodiesel Refinery To Be Built in Alberta

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

That would be one heck of an advancement, since currently it IS the food stuffs that are the catalyst to getting ethanol. Reminds me of the "guns or butter" saying from WWII. Now it's "food or fuel".

I am not sold at all on ethanol or biodiesel. Too many starving people in the world to use up all the nutrients in the soil to power SUV's. Another red herring here, IMO.

Well, that is completely incorrect based on this information in this documentary. You're also not using anything more than is already being used to grow the plant in question. All you are doing is recovering the waste products and using them to generate power. You're not taking food away from anyone, unless they are eating the stalks and leaves from the plants in question. Believe it or not, but science continues to improve the technologies that generate these fuels. The first iterations of the techology got a bad rep, but they have come a long way. They may be related, but the processes have evolved and become much more efficient. It's like comparing the Wright Brother's Flyer to a modern sngineered 767. Oh wait...

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

As a diesel truck owner, I'm suuuuuper leary of this stuff. It's been proven time and time again that bio diesel doesn't work well in cold temps, and the last thing I need is to be stuck on a highway somewhere with my injectors plugged. I'm assuming that they would have thought about these problems before putting a refinery in the frozen tundras surrounding Edmonton, but I'm going to sit on the fence on this one until I know it's not going to wreck my truck.

So spend the extra 600 bucks and get the dual fuel system that can run conventional diesel fuel or biodiesel. Run biodisel when you can and when you can't, you flip a switch to run off a tank that holds conventional diesel.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Reaper

So spend the extra 600 bucks and get the dual fuel system that can run conventional diesel fuel or biodiesel. Run biodisel when you can and when you can't, you flip a switch to run off a tank that holds conventional diesel.

I don't think you need to have dual systems. A guy I work with just bought himself a diesel Passat and drove across the southern US on almost nothing but bio-diesel. He said he had to put in two tanks of regular diesel becaise he was in the back woods of Kentucky and Tennessee. I thought that was pretty cool, commendable, and proof that the product works. Can't say I would have been one to try it. I'm not that much of an early adopter.

[Shawnski]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Well, that is completely incorrect based on this information in this documentary.

Fine... everything I have read is that it comes from corn oil... the corn itself. If husk and cob technology is making headway without impact to the kernel foodstuff itself, cool. Link it.

[EddyBeers]

Biodiesel is the biggest crock out there, in terms of alternative fuels. It merely is a well disguised government subsidy for farmers. It provides another market for their product, thus increasing the price.

As this link shows http://www.dieselnet.com/news/2007/07ca.php the government is giving approximately 170 million dollars a year across the country in biodiesel subsidies, for an industry that produces 400 million litres a year of biodiesel. The yearly production right now is about 0.66% of the domestic fuel needs of the country of Canada. The national goal in 9 years is to get to 3.65% of 2006 levels, if one assumes that Canada has an increase in consumption between 2007 and 2016 that number likely lowers to around 2.5% at best.

This refinery is producing 1,140,000 litres a year?? Alberta Oil demand is about 220,000 barrels of oil a day. A barrel of oil can produce 75 litres of gasoline a day http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

Which basically means that you can divide 1,140,000 by 75 and then by 365 to get the daily barrels of oil produced by this biodiesel plant. This amounts to 41.64 barrels of oil a day or approximatly 0.019% of daily fuel needs in the province of Alberta.

Both on a national scale and a provincial scale, biodiesel is far from the solution to the oil problem.

[Flames89]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Fine... everything I have read is that it comes from corn oil... the corn itself. If husk and cob technology is making headway without impact to the kernel foodstuff itself, cool. Link it.

Check out the company Lignol, the technology is called cellulosic ethonal, whereby biodeisel is extracted from alternative feedstocks from corn. Things like woodchips and agriculture residue. There are hundreds of private companies in Canada trying to bring this technology to market, and yes - most of them are subsidized to some effect.

On another side of biodeisel, there seems to be a developing market for "plant producers". These firms manufacture small, kitable plants, and sell them to industry. So a farm or forestry company would attach the small plant to their factories, feed them with their wastestock, and in return greatly reduce the amount of power they require.

One example in the news lately: http://fe8.news.re3.yahoo.com/s/afp/...iofuelswarming

Regardless, Biodeisel will not be an replacement. It merely will be an additional helper or load-reducer. 20% of every unit of gas in a car actually moves it forward, while the other 80% is lost as heat. 35% of the energy in coal is turned into electricity in plants. The CEO of Shell predicts that fossil fuels will still account for 70% of all energy by the year 2050, so his main point is this whole alternative energy movement should focus on efficiency of our systems. This is where there will be major opportunities going forward.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Fine... everything I have read is that it comes from corn oil... the corn itself. If husk and cob technology is making headway without impact to the kernel foodstuff itself, cool. Link it.

The show was on Scifi and was called Eco-tech, so I can't link it directly. Here is a link that discusses the basis behind the technology and the yields in ethanol.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1207161153.htm

Originally Posted by EddyBeers

Biodiesel is the biggest crock out there, in terms of alternative fuels. It merely is a well disguised government subsidy for farmers. It provides another market for their product, thus increasing the price.

Both on a national scale and a provincial scale, biodiesel is far from the solution to the oil problem.

There's the problem. People think that one product has to be the solution. It doesn't. No one has said that using oil and petroleum products is going to stop. The idea is to find new ways to reduce the amount of petroleum products we use in certain areas, like transportation and energy production. Through a combination of technologies we can reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and clean up the environment. Through the implementation of bio-diesel, multi-source ethanol, solar, wind, hydrogen, hybrid vehicle technologies, electric vehicle technologies, etc. we can reduce our need for fossil fuels and be more environmentally conscious.

Here is a link that explains extraction of wood ethanol. There are some waste by-products that can be collected and used in other technologies. Hydrogen is a by-product of the process, which can be captured and used in fuel cells. Methane is a by-product which can be captured and used to turn a turbine which can create electricity and heat for the plant itself. All of this comes from waste products that would normally find themselves in a land fill or left to rot naturally. The idea is to stop being wasteful, and utilize the waste products we produce, and turn them into energy. I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp. You should take a trip to some of the Hutterite and Mennonite colonies around the province and see what they are doing. They use biomass (waste products) to generate electricty and heat their communities, and sell excess power back onto the grid. If they can do it to iprove their lives, we can certainly do it to improve ours.

Originally Posted by Flames89

20% of every unit of gas in a car actually moves it forward, while the other 80% is lost as heat.

That was another interesting technology shift discussed in this Scifi presentation last night. They talked to a group that is revisiting the building of cars using carbon fibre and hybrid technology. They have developed a prototype that gets 120 mpg. They have also developed the technology that allows carboin fibre parts to be developed cheaply, efficiently, and quickly. They also claim their plug-in hybrid is so efficient that you can sell electricity generated by the vehicle back onto the grid. I'm skeptical on this claim, but the other aspects make sense. They say they are talking with a major manufacturer and you should see this technology on the market in 3-5 years in mass numbers.

[EddyBeers]

Well, as this article points out at the bottom of the page http://environmentalism.suite101.com...ost_of_ethanol
It is arguable at best whether ethanol is even environmentally friendly. Many experts believe that the input costs are higher than the output. So anyone who says definitively that ethanol is environmentally friendly ought to reexamine that idea and be able to prove that it actually is.

[SeeGeeWhy]

"Oil factories" will have a huge place in our society one day.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by EddyBeers

Biodiesel is the biggest crock out there, in terms of alternative fuels. It merely is a well disguised government subsidy for farmers. It provides another market for their product, thus increasing the price.

As this link shows http://www.dieselnet.com/news/2007/07ca.php the government is giving approximately 170 million dollars a year across the country in biodiesel subsidies, for an industry that produces 400 million litres a year of biodiesel. The yearly production right now is about 0.66% of the domestic fuel needs of the country of Canada. The national goal in 9 years is to get to 3.65% of 2006 levels, if one assumes that Canada has an increase in consumption between 2007 and 2016 that number likely lowers to around 2.5% at best.

This refinery is producing 1,140,000 litres a year?? Alberta Oil demand is about 220,000 barrels of oil a day. A barrel of oil can produce 75 litres of gasoline a day http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

Which basically means that you can divide 1,140,000 by 75 and then by 365 to get the daily barrels of oil produced by this biodiesel plant. This amounts to 41.64 barrels of oil a day or approximatly 0.019% of daily fuel needs in the province of Alberta.

Both on a national scale and a provincial scale, biodiesel is far from the solution to the oil problem.

Okay, that's a nice rant, but your math and a few of your assumptions are way off.

Firstly 114 million !=1,140000
Think about it, do you actually think anyone is dumb enought to build a plant that will produce 3000l of diesel per day?

114million = 310 000 l/d of diesel (a volume that is actualy worth producing)

Secondly, converting it to oil based on how much gasoline comes from a barrel of oil is a little problematic considering Gasoline and Diesel are not the same thing.

Do I believe that using food sources as an energy source is a good idea?
Of course not, but I also believe that before someone goes off about how stupid of a solution it is they should at least make sure their numbers and facts are straight.

[octothorp]

For right or wrong, there's clearly a demand right now for biofuels. The US is a net consumer of biodiesel sources, importing them from as far away as Indonesia. Not only does Canada have an existing infrastructure and proximity to make it a better source of biodiesel than Indonesia, Canadian production would have less of an environmental imprint and would actually work better in a north-american and european market, with canola-based biodiesel working at cooler temperatures than Indonesian palm-based oil.
In Europe, it's end consumers who are driving demand for biodiesel, with diesel engines far more popular than anywhere else in the world. Germany consumes about 2 billion litres of biodiesel annually; that's a significant market, and it's only going to increase. With North American car manufacturers being relatively resistant to diesel, it's unlikely that our market will ever reach the same dimensions as Germany, but reaching a point where it's a self-sustaining industry really isn't that much of a stretch.

Edit: Just a further note on demand. The EU has a binding mandate that biofuels will constitute 10% of all fuels sold by 2020. If they stick to those targets, that's an absolutely massive demand, and greatly exceeds current european production... Probably exceeds current global production, too. As well, the EU is considering recommendations to ban palm-oil as a biodiesel source, because of the clear-cutting impacts of palm crops in third-world countries. That would make rapeseed the most important bio diesel source globally. If the EU stick to those targets, it becomes very realistic to have a Canadian canola-based biodiesel industry that is self-sufficient off of exports to europe. There's currently a looming trade war between the US and Europe over biodiesel, and the outcome of that will have huge implications for whether this industry is viable in Canada or not.

[Cowboy89]

It's a subsidy for farmers. The oldest political trick in the book is to get farmers votes because due to the depopulation of rural areas in favor of urban centres, rural voters always have a disproportionate amount of voting power.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

It's a subsidy for farmers. The oldest political trick in the book is to get farmers votes because due to the depopulation of rural areas in favor of urban centres, rural voters always have a disproportionate amount of voting power.

Yeah, because it's not like the federal government provides subsidies to traditional fuel manufacturers (such as the federal government providing about 1.5 billion annually in subsidies to the oil sands); I'm curious to know how you feel about Imperial Oil wanting a 3 billion dollar subsidy for their Mackenzie gas pipeline.
And why, exactly, would conservative governments be trying to buy votes of alberta farmers, when it's been decades since any rural alberta riding has elected a non-conservative/reform/alliance candidate? Seems like if they're simply interested in buying votes, investing in just about any other demographic in the country would be a better investment.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

That would be one heck of an advancement, since currently it IS the food stuffs that are the catalyst to getting ethanol. Reminds me of the "guns or butter" saying from WWII. Now it's "food or fuel".

I am not sold at all on ethanol or biodiesel. Too many starving people in the world to use up all the nutrients in the soil to power SUV's. Another red herring here, IMO.

We have starving people not because of the lack of food...but because we can't get the food to them.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

This is a facinating topic...IMO Biofuel can be developed poorly (ethanol from edible feedstock developed via an energy intensive process from corn) or wisely (from non-edible feedstock like grasses or wood (technology forthcoming) or from high-sugar biomass or better yet Hemp)

Corn-based ethanol has waaaayyy to many problems if it uses edible feedstock and will totally ##### up the value-menu at Taco Bell

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Azure

We have starving people not because of the lack of food...but because we can't get the food to them.

Yeah, that's very true. And it baffles me how people can complain about the effect of biodiesel crops on global food supplies, when biodiesel crops occupy only a fraction of the land used by even more useless tobacco crops. If it ever does come to a point where global food production can no longer keep up with production, tobacco and other drug crops should be the first to go, rather than biofuel crops. If a country like China converted all of their tobacco production to grain production, it would go a long way to covering their own grain deficit.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Yeah, that's very true. And it baffles me how people can complain about the effect of biodiesel crops on global food supplies, when biodiesel crops occupy only a fraction of the land used by even more useless tobacco crops. If it ever does come to a point where global food production can no longer keep up with production, tobacco and other drug crops should be the first to go, rather than biofuel crops. If a country like China converted all of their tobacco production to grain production, it would go a long way to covering their own grain deficit.

Is it? I always thought the problem was a complete lack of political/economic will to get the food there... not because of delivery issues.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Is it? I always thought the problem was a complete lack of political/economic will to get the food there... not because of delivery issues.

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Is it? I always thought the problem was a complete lack of political/economic will to get the food there... not because of delivery issues.

Well, I guess it's a matter of symantics. The food exists. Much of it is even earmarked for famine relief. But the cost and logistics of getting it into various regions in a reasonable time are such that the UN body responsible for it is unable to do so effectively, in part because it's too expensive and in part because various governments of third world countries are unwilling to give the UN the access necessary to make a difference.

So you could say that there are delivery issues caused by lack of political/economic will, or you could say that there's a lack of political economic will as a result of the complexities regarding delivery.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Is it? I always thought the problem was a complete lack of political/economic will to get the food there... not because of delivery issues.

Thats basically what I meant.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Well, I guess it's a matter of symantics. The food exists. Much of it is even earmarked for famine relief. But the cost and logistics of getting it into various regions in a reasonable time are such that the UN body responsible for it is unable to do so effectively, in part because it's too expensive and in part because various governments of third world countries are unwilling to give the UN the access necessary to make a difference.

So you could say that there are delivery issues caused by lack of political/economic will, or you could say that there's a lack of political economic will as a result of the complexities regarding delivery.

And with the cost of the underlying commodity rising, even less will make it for transport.

Your right technically the planet may not be short food, but it is definately short economically feasable food. And this is a huge step back ... again because we buy big a$$ houses and now want to subsidize the cost of it.