How About A Biodiesel Bus For Touring???

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weatherbill007

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There are several touring bands (Neil Young, Hot Buttered Rum string band) and others that are burning veggie oil instead of gas, in their diesel tour buses. So what's the big deal???? Am I a tree huggin' enviromental freak??? or is there something else to this????
Yes there is folks! There's a secret to saving a ton of money running on veggie oil, and literally cutting your touring gas bill by 90% or more, but I'm not telling what it is,, hahahah.........
 
Dude when you start to come down, take some vitamin C. It'll startyou tripping again.
 
I traveled the country on a tour bus once and can't recall any of the truck stops offering veggie oil on anything but overcooked french fries and cheap hookers. Also, if they're 'burning veggie oil', would they still be considered 'diesel tour buses'?
 
ez_willis said:
I traveled the country on a tour bus once and can't recall any of the truck stops offering veggie oil on anything but overcooked french fries and cheap hookers. Also, if they're 'burning veggie oil', would they still be considered 'diesel tour buses'?
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Actually yes, they are diesel. I saw a segment on the O'Reilly Factor a few months ago in which he talked to Darryl Hannah about this. The diesel engine was originally developed to run on vegetable oil, so that people in rural areas could make their own fuel. Today's diesel engines need only a slight modification in order to burn vegetable oil instead of diesel fuel. There is a company called Grass-o-lean that markets vegetable oil fuel. Only problem is that currently vegetable oil fuel is more expensive that gas or diesel and it is not yet widely available.
 
i have a friend who crossed the country in an UNMODIFIED VW bus and all her fuel came from spent fast food deep fryer fat. i think she called ahead...

but anyway, i would consider this a HUGE pain in the ass while touring.
 
You can run jet engines on this kind of stuff as well (you can run a gas turbine on just about anything - it's cleaning it afterwards that's the problem). Wonder how many deep fat fryers you'd have to empty to get a 747 across the pond. We have lots of deep fat fryers here in England.....
 
This article is on the msn homepage today-
http://autos.msn.com/volvo/article.aspx?contentid=4022450

Some interesting highlights-

The pro's-
1. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stringently tested it, and it can be used in any diesel engine with little or no modification to the engine or fuel system.
2. More than 200 biodiesel retail pumps have sprouted in the United States just in the last two years.
3. Biodiesel is touted as an environmentally friendlier alternative to petroleum diesel because it produces fewer emissions of greenhouse gases, soot, air toxics, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons compared to petroleum diesel.

The con's-
1. It can cost more than petroleum diesel. Consider this report from the Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Price Report: During the week of Dec. 8, 2003, both gasoline and petroleum diesel averaged $1.48 per gallon nationwide, while B20 (20 percent biodiesel) averaged $1.75.
2. Biodiesel has higher nitrogen oxide emissions, which are a contributor to smog and global warming.

The USEPA has this to say about nitrogen oxide emissions-

NOx

-is one of the main ingredients involved in the formation of ground-level ozone, which can trigger serious respiratory problems.
-reacts to form nitrate particles, acid aerosols, as well as NO2, which also cause respiratory problems.
-contributes to formation of acid rain.
-contributes to nutrient overload that deteriorates water quality.
-contributes to atmospheric particles, that cause visibility impairment most noticeable in national parks.
-reacts to form toxic chemicals.
-contributes to global warming.

Just when we start making progress, science throws a monkey wrench into
the wheels of the "discarded bicycle parts" the students are pedaling away on at Oberlin. Furthermore, it's hard to predict long term effects of invention on such a mass scale. Millions of engines burning biodiesel for hundreds of years could result in something worse than what we have now.

Don't you get. WE'RE DOOMED- DOOOOOOOOOOMMMMEEEDD!!!!!!!!!! I feel much better to get that off my chest though.
 
I think the key point with the biodiesel to reduce the dependence on foreign oil. The ecological benefits are just a bonus of sorts.
 
heroics321 said:
I think the key point with the biodiesel to reduce the dependence on foreign oil. The ecological benefits are just a bonus of sorts.
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I think it ain't no fucking way in hell gonna happen. I know I couldn't care less, either.
 
I just recently had a band come trhough in a van pulling a trailer and they were using bio fuel. So far on this tour they had not spent any money on fuel. They get it for free at various fast food places etc... on their way. They had an 8 foot section of their trailer sectioned off that had tanks and filters so they could store it up and make things easy when they needed it or were getting it. If you think about it, they may be saving $100 or more a day by using biofuel, and only have to spend about 25 minutes a day addressing the issue. Pretty good trade off in my opinion.
 
You can run any diesel engine with biodiesel however it's no cleaner than regular diesel. Furthermore, running biodiesel in a modern diesel will probably make a mess of its DPF (Diesel particulate filter, which is there to scrub the NOx out of the exhaust) and mess up the common rail fuel injectors.

Modern diesel can be very clean and the recent introduction of low sulfur diesel (what the rest of the world uses) will allow modern diesels to pass emissions in all 50 states, which was not the case before. The other thing about diesels is they burn less fuel than current hybrids. My brothers VW TDI averaged close to 50 mpg
 
I know the guy who talked Neil into the biodeisel thing and supplies his ranch vehicles with modifications and fuel. Never met Neil, though, and all of us who live nearby tend to try and give him the privacy he wants so I never tried.

So. I talked with the veggie oil guy about it quite a bit. Among all the other things mentioned already here is another odd things most folks don't think about.

Crops grown for for fuel don't have the same regulations that crops for human consumption do- so when the big fuel companies start growing huge amounts of plants for oil (and they are starting to already) the WATER quality will go to hell.

So if biodeisel becomes more popular we'll have to be careful or it will be at the expense of our fresh water quality. Water is already and issue in the western and central US- do we really want to be pouring it into our cars instead of using it for food?

Its a wonderful small scale solution. Its not a very good large scale solution. Making biodesiel is also tricky and a bit dangerous. Biodesiel will run in any desiel engine though- no conversion needed. Pure veggie oil is the best solution but usualy requires a conversion. AND the newer desiel engines can't be converted. (sigh)

It can be a game keeping yourself stocked with veggie oil. Around here there are organic veggie oil co-ops that pool buying power to get bulk quanities. On the other hand- how much is a bottle of canola oil? If you have a converted engine you can pour that sucker right into the tank.

Runs smoother and quieter, too. Harder to start when its cold so cold weather vehicles will have small starter tanks with real desiel fuel to warm up the engine.

Blah. I never did buy in and switch to veggie oil. I bought a motorcycle instead. :D

-Chris
 
I think the wave of the Future in Fuel is going to be "Hydrogen Fuel cells" as Hydrogen in the Most abundant gas in the Universe.....

The City I live in (Victoria BC, Canada) is going to be the First city in the world with a 100% hydrogen powered Public transit system...This is all supposed to happen by the end of 2008 and they have allready built the Hydrogen Fueling station.....

One of the greatest things about hydrogen fuel cells is that the only emitions are Pure water and some heat.....

There are of cource going to be some Political and Finantial ramifications as we also have the worlds second largest oil reserves so there is going to be the Oil Lobyists fighting with the enviromental lobyists ,But that isn"t anything new.....


Cheers
 
Assholes! Kitchen grease from an industrial grease trap is the nastiest, smelliest concoction of "natural" ingredients satan could have ever have mixed. I don't care how you spin it, being in a rolling tin can that is blending this 'super-fuel' will gag a maggot.

Secondly, exactly how many fast food restaurants do you suppose it would take to fuel every diesel engine in America?

And last, I've been on tour. There is no time to stop at the KFC to gas the bus up. :mad:
 
Minion said:
One of the greatest things about hydrogen fuel cells is that the only emitions are Pure water and some heat.....
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Wow! That's amazing!

Now go read up on what it takes to extract hydrogen from "the universe". When you're done, come back and share the reality of it with the rest of these dummies. :mad:
 
xstatic said:
If you think about it, they may be saving $100 or more a day by using biofuel, and only have to spend about 25 minutes a day addressing the issue. Pretty good trade off in my opinion.
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How many man-hours are we wasting with the entire tour held up for 25 minutes to gas up?

Do you get the same MPG with biodiesel?
 
Well there are Many ways of produceing Hydrogen in a maintainable way.....

You can Process sewage and Garbage into Methane and remove the hydrogen from the Methane, There is more than enough sewage to go arround...At this time it is a Little cost prohibitive but as technologe gets better and after the infrastructure have been built it could be a Viable source....

You can also extract Hydrogen from Natural Gas or Coal or from Biomass Byproducts Like the waste products of agriculture.....

One of the most promising ways is to extract the hydrogen from water that can be done useing the Heat Byproducts from nuclear power plants which mostly goes to waste anyways......

I"m not saying this is an imediate solution but as the technology gets better and cheaper and oil gets more expensive eventually it will become a Viable option......


Cheers
 
Farview said:
How many man-hours are we wasting with the entire tour held up for 25 minutes to gas up?
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Not to mention all the farting emissions INSIDE the tourbus...:) :rolleyes:
 
Minion said:
You can Process sewage and Garbage into Methane and remove the hydrogen from the Methane,
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Brilliant! What's it take to remove hydrogen from methane, exactly?
 
If bio-diesel is made form shit, why does it cost 50 cents a gallon more than regular diesel?
 
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