Biofuel

[kandrathe]

I remember I read something about some guys converting their diesel engine slightly so that they could put in frying oil directly (with filtering I guess). I didn't find the links yet but if I will I will post them.

I saw that on a Science channel show too. I remember the MPG was not that different from diesel anyway, although there was a definite odor of french fries.

Further, as a chemist, I just want to say, Meat don't do this. Don't go fiddling around with gallons of methanol and other combustibles and concentrated acids or bases. Accidents can happen quickly and with 10s of liters of fuel you can get a nice fire or explosion. I will therefor not help you with any chemistry.

Oh,gads! Where is your sense of adventure? Don't we go messing around with gasoline constantly? In my life I've been a rodeo cowboy, horse trainer, a taxidermist, a pyrotechnician, giant slalom racer, wake board and water skier, stock car racer, scuba dived with sharks of many species, camped for 3 weeks in sub zero (F) weather, hunted moose in grizzly country, cave spelunking, canoed class 5 rapids and tons and tons of other dangerous and fun things. The only high risk thing I've refused to do so far is sky dive for pleasure. My way of thinking is that if you must jump out of a perfectly good plane, it should be for a damn good reason. And, BTW, the only thing that has ever put me in the hospital so far is my horse (3 times). Now that I have two little mouths to feed that depend on me, I've become more risk averse. But, if you are young, and not a parent I'd say that people should be willing to risk a little and live life to its fullest.

That said, :) you are of course bound by profession to do as you are doing. To do anything else would violate your professional integrity, and if anything ever did go wrong you, as a professional, would be somewhat liable. I come by my interest in the field naturally, as my dads brother was a chemist, and my older sister is a chemist working for Dow. But, I'd say good luck to anyone trying to find an 'eppie' from the Netherlands who is a chemist and works somewhere in Europe. So, yes, MEAT better know what he is getting into before he starts melting his skin away or blinding himself with bases or acids. He needs to figure out how to dispose of the waste glycerin/lye/soap residue and the filtered fryer waste. He will probably be best off to do something else like sell the gas guzzling GT and get a Honda Civic hybrid. Frankly though, the idea of being bound to my chemistry lab to produce 20 gallons (20 US gallons = 75.7082357 liters) of bio-diesel a week does not appeal to me in the least. Sure, it would be cool the first 10 times I did it, but after that it would be a real drag.

(could we officially make the LL an metric system using website)

No. I spent most of my undergrad years having to convert back and forth between meters per second and feet per second. It's only fair that you Metric folks suffer with the antiquated leagues, rods, stones and fathoms of our twisted schizophrenic heritage. :) Besides, now you can just Google "55 gallons in liters" and it tells you "55 US gallons = 208.197648 liters" or "32 feet per second in meters per second" and it tells you "32 (feet per second) = 9.7536 meters per second". Now, as an exercise you can try "45 stone in kilograms".