Laughing Stock Farm, Freeport, Maine
|
Laughing Stock Farm, Freeport, Maine |
|
|
What
You've Heard About Small Scale Biodiesel Production In Maine IS Too Good To Be True Biodiesel
and its benefits have generated considerable interest in Maine, especially in the environmental and agricultural
communities. Unfortunately
some otherwise well intentioned people have badly misrepresented biodiesel and
especially how it can be made by institutions and others on a small scale.
The most widely publicized biodiesel project in Maine does not
produce biodiesel as it is defined and understood by the USDA, DOE, EPA, or NREL and
does not meet the legal definition of biodiesel in Maine.
This has come about from poor research leading to a poor understanding of
what biodiesel is. Two important
rules should be kept in mind with respect to home made biodiesel in Maine. The
first is caveat emptor, or buyer beware; and the second is if something sounds
too good to be true it probably is. You
may be one of many people who have heard about "A
conference on Sustainable Energy by
people that are doing it." This
tease was used to entice you to spend $50 dollars to spend a day learning about
how they make what they call biodiesel. Unfortunately,
if you follow their advice you will not make biodiesel, you will ultimately damage your diesel engine, and
you may
break some laws along the way. The
information here is provided in an attempt to level the playing field by
providing the accurate and responsible information that has been missing from
the public discussion about biodiesel in Maine
until recently.
References to legitimate sources of technical information are provided
for those interested in learning more. Biodiesel is
chemically converted from vegetable and animal fats to burn similarly to
petroleum diesel fuel, but with lower regulated emissions and better health
effects in most respects. There are
many different public domain recipes for making legitimate biodiesel using well
understood chemical processes. These
include esterification of complete triglycerides using alkaline catalysis;
hydrolysis of triglycerides to free the fatty acids and then acid catalysis to
convert the free fatty acids to esters, and acid catalysis of high free fatty
acid feed stock followed by alkaline catalysis to esterify the remaining fatty
acid glycerides. An overview of
these processes will be provided here. There
are other high pressure and high temperature processes and patented processes
that are less accessible to typical makers of home made biodiesel.
Information about these processes is available from other sources and
will not be discussed here. Maine recently adopted a definition for biodiesel that will help to protect consumers as well as those who may choose to try their own home made or small scale biodiesel production. This new definition is, in many ways, like the standards that Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) developed over many years to define what "organic" means in Maine. This new Maine definition will be discussed with some background information to help put it into perspective. All of the processes discussed can produce biodiesel meeting this definition provided the maker is willing to use the right process for the feedstock available, perform some basic analysis, and make process adjustments as necessary. |
|
Send mail to lisa@laughingstockfarm.com with questions or comments about our farmSend to ralph@rturner.com with questions or comments about our energy project.Copyright 2008, Laughing Stock Farm
|