Oil And Bio Fuels

I've heard people talk glowingly about biodiesel and and that there is an immediate source of inexpensive waste cooking oil to use for this. Biodiesel can work in place of regular diesel. It's only disadvantage is that the oil can gel in cold weather however this can be avoided by blending with regular diesel, kerosene, or small amounts of gasoline. Adding a small amount of petroleum fuel would also act as a preservative since organic oils will decompose. It is also true that biodiesel can be made from waste cooking oil. The problem is that there are only 2.9 Billion gallons of waste cooking oil produced annually while the demand for diesel fuel in the US is 75 Billion gallons. Therefore, with all of the waste cooking oil in the US turned into biodiesel this would only be 4% of US demand. This would only reduce the global demand for oil by 1/6^th of 1%. It would be a start but would not nearly enough.

The second step would be to use actual crops for oil and alcohol production. This would be primarily corn and soybeans. From each bushel of soybeans you get 10.77 lbs of oil and the remaining material is good as high protein animal feed. From each bushel of corn you get only 1.55 lbs of oil but the rest can be turned into 2.7 gallons of ethyl alcohol. The sediment from the fermentation process can also be used as high protein animal feed. The US produces 10 Billion bushels of corn and 2.7 Billion bushels of soybeans annually. Converting the entire US crop would yield 27 Billion gallons of alcohol and 6.2 Billion gallons of biodiesel. This would be about 8% of the US demand for diesel. The US consumes 147 Billion gallons of gasoline annually, however, since one gallon of alcohol is only equivalent to 0.7 gallons of gasoline, this would only be 13.5% of the demand for gasoline. Combined, this would be 2.7% of the total Worldwide demand for oil. Unfortunately, the current demand for corn and soybeans is too high to convert the entire crop. Corn prices have already risen as corn for animal feed competes with corn for alcohol. This could be adjusted somewhat by also producing alcohol from both sugar beets which will grow in colder climates along with sorghum which will tolerate dry conditions better than corn. Even so, half of the 2.7% would be a more reasonable estimate. So, this by itself would not be enough.

Methane can also be produced from hog, cattle, and chicken manure. The easiest sources of cattle manure are feed lots and dairy operations. The best source for hogs is high density hog farms. Chicken manure is easiest to obtain in egg producing facilities but might also be obtained from chickens raised for broilers. If all of this manure were turned into methane this would reduce the US demand for oil approximately 2%. This would reduce global demand by about 0.5%. Although this is less than the amounts obtainable from alcohol and biodiesel like them it does have the advantage that methane does not add to greenhouse gases. These three would be the primary replacement fuels for petroleum to avoid adding greenhouse gases to the air. Combined this would be about 2% of global oil consumption. Other sources would have to be things like solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal. Additional hydro is unlikely since we've already dammed most of the rivers in the US. It is also not likely that we would start piping heat from Yellowstone so overt geothermal is also unlikely. However, this could play more of a role in Hawaii where fuel prices are high and volcanic activity is more readily available. Solar is possible particularly in desert areas. Wind and perhaps a bit more tidal energy are also possible. These too are good because they also do not increase greenhouse gases. However, since these yield electricity we would either need more electric or hybrid cars or greater use of electric rail transportation to take advantage of this. Greenhouse gases can also be reduced by replanting rain forest with nitrogen fixing trees. This provides enough nutrients in the soil to allow replanting valuable native trees should as hardwood, rubber and nut producing species. This would in effect repair the original ecosystem and would also remove the current reasons for destroying the rain forest. This would stop the current trend of slash and burn with adds greenhouse gases to the air and would allow new tree growth to actually remove greenhouse gases.