There is a growing car culture population in China. A person living in China currently uses only a small amount of oil compared to a person living in the U.S. if the Chinese start living like we do in the U.S. we will see the highest fuel and energy prices ever experienced.Check out this link.
ref=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7IjKkencxo”>
Oct
29
Cars in China
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Oct
29
Oct
05
Oct
29
The election is less than 1 week away, it troubles me that we really do not have a good candidate from either party that is fit for the job. Obama has a lot of promises at best, most of which I do not feel will work as he believes they will, but it seems that the public as a whole is duped by this slick talking fella.
Even in our local political races all that can be mentioned is Bush’s failed economic policies, I think that people tend to forget that both the House and the Senate are controlled by the Democrats, so if those policies were so bad and caused all of this current economic mess we are in, then the Democrats should also be blamed because they voted for these bad policies too.
I am not going to rant about the candidates but I have decided to vote out any incumbents. I feel that anyone currently in office that supported all of the policies and especially the bailout of the banks as well as giving the big 3 automakers 25 billion that has led us to our current economic condition, needs to be removed from that position. I am going to change my affiliation from Democrat to Independent neither of the parties seems to match my views and feelings anymore.
Just a note, both of the candidates have a lousy energy policy. The general public believes that if we drill for oil in the Atlantic seaboard and find some they will be able to shine up their Hummer and cruise again for $1.00 a gallon. If you feel that way just keep dreaming, any oil we find will be sold to the highest bidder, probably the Chinese or India will benefit from those finds far more than we will here at home.
Take a look at what has happened to our local biodiesel plant, the biodiesel produced here is supposed to help us displace some of our dependence on foreign oil, instead it is helping folks in the Netherlands reduce their petroleum consumption. Oil has always been subsidized by the government almost since day 1, it is time we take that away and give it to alternatives like biofuels, wind, solar, and algae.
Biofuel producers look overseas for viability
Sunday, October 26
(updated Tuesday, October 28, 2:19 pm)
Cedric Cotten tests fuel in Piedmont Biofuels’ analytics lab Thursday.
Credit: Jerry Wolford / News & Record
Related Links
- Biofuel production (photo gallery)
Pardon Lyle Estill for being a bit skeptical when he hears about America’s fervent desire for energy independence, whether the speaker is one of those talking heads on TV or some politico running for office.
The Chatham County maker of biodiesel fuel wonders why, if America is so serious about curing its addiction to foreign oil, he has to sell his Tar Heel-made product overseas rather than in his own backyard.
“I simply got to the point that I could no longer make biodiesel and sell it to the domestic market,” Estill said recently. “I could either hand the (biodiesel plant’s) keys over to the bank or hand them to the international market.”
Estill is one of the founders of Piedmont Biofuels Cooperative, a national pioneer in manufacturing and distributing diesel fuel made of sources that have varied over the years from soybeans to discarded cooking oils and chicken fat.
In September 2006, Piedmont Biofuel opened North Carolina’s first large-scale biodiesel plant to brew a million gallons a year.But nowadays, even as America imports untold volumes of foreign oil every day, Estill’s plant sends out truckload after truckload of its homemade alternative fuel for shipment to the Netherlands aboard a super tanker.
Estill sees it as the unavoidable outgrowth of a national policy subsidizing petroleum fuel at every turn, in ways so subtle most people don’t even consider them subsidies.
For example, how much would motorists pay per gallon if the cost of fighting petroleum-related air pollution were folded into the price at the gas pump — instead of what taxpayers cough up on 1040s every April?
“Our society has decided that it’s better for me to ship my product to Europe, where it sells for $12 a gallon, than for me to just run it down the road to be used here,” Estill says.
In North Carolina, the price of pure biodiesel at the pump ranges up to $5.50 a gallon. The more popular blends of petroleum diesel with smaller amounts of the biofuel range from $3.69 to $3.79 a gallon.
The Pittsboro cooperative might be unique in North Carolina’s fledgling alternative-fuels industry for selling its product on foreign shores.
But the financial squeeze that made the overseas market so attractive to Piedmont Biofuels is no stranger to the state’s small community of biodiesel makers, said Anne Tazewell of the N.C. Solar Center, which promotes the industry’s development.
“The prices they pay for their (raw material) feedstocks are just way outstripping the prices they can get for their fuel,” Tazewell said.
Biodiesel can be used readily in vehicles made to run on petroleum diesel. It mixes well with traditional diesel and is sold more widely as B20, a mix of 20 percent biodiesel.
The Triad does not have any commercial biodiesel outlets, but that could change soon as the local supply becomes more readily available by year’s end.
A large-scale distributor of biodiesel, World Energy Alternatives, plans to open a huge storage tank for the alternative fuel at Greensboro’s tank farm, in partnership with Petroleum Fuel Terminal.
And a Piedmont Biofuels competitor — Patriot Biodiesel — is readying a fuel-making plant that should open soon in the same part of town.
Patriot plans to sell its biodiesel only on the domestic market, said company president Gabe Neeriemer.
“I don’t see the logic in it,” Neeriemer said of foreign sales.
A big plus for biodiesel is that it’s a domestic product that fights pollution by burning cleaner at the same time it cuts American dependence on foreign oil, Neeriemer said.
If you take those benefits away, why should the federal government subsidize biodiesel as it does or give grants to some producers, Neeriemer wonders?
Estill points out that Piedmont Biofuels still sells biodiesel to individual members of its cooperative across the Triangle and to a variety of wholesale customers.
But it makes most of its fuel for export nowadays, one 2,000-gallon batch in the morning and one each afternoon. The effort starts with chicken fat, the waste product of several nearby poultry-processing plants.
The liquid fat is exposed to an alcohol mixture inside a heated tank. A reaction takes place that forms biofuel as glycerin, a byproduct, settles out.
The state government could help biodiesel get a firmer grip on the domestic market with incentives, suggests the Solar Center’s Tazewell.
One option would be to give both producers and sellers a break on their state taxes for every gallon sold, she said. Another would be to provide a guaranteed market by requiring all diesel fuel sold in North Carolina to include a small percentage of biodiesel.
Whatever happens, biodiesel’s day is coming, Estill believes. He sees it as essential in healing the economic and other damage the nation has suffered from decades of addiction to foreign oil.
“America can get this,” he said. “If we just face up to it, we can do this. We just need to wake up and smell the coffee.”
Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com
Oct
22
I have been watching the price of a barrel of oil fall along with the price at the pump as many of you have. I am sure a lot of folks have breathed a big sigh of relief, and many believe that whoever wins the upcoming presidential election is going to save us all.
I have a fear that with new car dealer lots teaming with unsold last year model SUVs, and a declining price at the pump that some manufacturers are going to have a fire sale on those remaining vehicles. The folks who can afford it or the foolish ones who can’t, will be lured in with the disguise of cheaper gasoline and a new “don’t worry the government will save me” attitude, will go ahead and buy that luxury vehicle that they don’t need or really can’t afford. Then reality will kick in and oil will rise once again to even higher prices than the record $145 a barrel and $4.00 a gallon at the pump amounts of the summer of ‘08. Once again keeping the junkie hooked.
It boils down to the fact that we still have not learned the lesson taught to us in 1973 that the Saudis enjoy having the power and money that oil brings them, and they do not like anything interfering with it. They will try to maintain that power as long as possible, OPEC has said that it will reduce production in order to raise prices.
The Iraq oil minister stated that $100 dollars for a barrel of oil was very reasonable, since Americans must drive everywhere they want to go, I feel the same way and believe that the bushel of wheat and corn that we sell them as well as many of the other food supplies that cannot be grown in the barren desert climate should be worth $150 a bushel after all even an oil tycoon has to eat right?
Oct
11
I have been so busy with school and other projects that the blog has suffered. We did a segment for Melissa Painter at Fox8 on a fuel saving device. This device like all of the others I have ever seen only serve to give you better mileage by lightening your wallet!
Here is the link you may watch it and decide for yourself. My colleagues and some of our students in the automotive department were a big help! Thanks go to Instructors: Grant Swaim & Rankin Barnes, and students Ernest Farr, John Bolander,and Brian Pumphrey.
I have continued running biodiesel with absolutely no problems. I changed the fuel filters as part of a regular maintenence service on the car. I cut them open afterwards and found no real debris at all the filters probably could have gone another 25,000 without being replaced. I am getting ready to start a brand new series of cold weather tests with some new additivies on the market.
Apr
26
I am beginning to wonder if we are seeing the early signs of “Peak Oil” If you are not familiar with the predictions of geologist M King Hubbert here is a link you can read for yourself. http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Hubbert/
I heard of the first publicized gasoline theft on the news today, it really makes you think at what point is this going to become a fight among citizens to get this resource? It would seem that as we have said before history repeats itself when you don’t learn from it. This is similar to the Arab oil embargo of the 70’s except this time the oil isn’t being withheld, the demand is higher than supply with the two new consumers, China and India, who want to live like “The Americans” the demand is likely to stay high. We have sat on our laurels here in America and enjoyed cheap energy for a long time we have cared little for fuel efficiency or tailpipe emissions. We have as a whole focused on luxury and status and now we are going to pay for it. I think we are going to see some very desperate times as the national average price of regular gasoline heads toward a predicted $4.00 per gallon! The sad part is those who would like to get rid of their inefficient gas guzzling SUV will really take a huge loss since most people will be trying to get rid of theirs as well. I think we may at last be reaching the breaking point I mentioned in an earlier blog. I hope that others like myself will use what they have learned to try to help people reduce their dependence for oil and in the end rather than a tragedy this will make us less dependent on other countries for our energy needs. – Gadget
Apr
05
Let me start this post by saying I am not a hard core environmentalist. I like having clean air to breathe and clean safe water to drink. I think that we will eventually have to give up our fossil fuel addiction either financially or by environmental catastrophe whether man made or otherwise. I thought this was interesting that this chunk of ice the size of Manhattan just recently broke off of the Antarctic ice shelf much to the surprise of scientists who had been studying the ice for some time.
Here is a link to the article. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/25/antartica.collapse.ap/
I am not totally sold on the idea that man’s release of CO2 into the air by burning fossil fuels is the total cause of our problems, I look at the solar activity and the past records of ice core and geological surveys and the fact that during the Permian extinction 95% of all species living on the planet went extinct for uncertain reasons although ice core records show dramatic climate changes over just a few years rather than 100’s of years during this mass extinction. The next mass extinction came in the Cretaceous when 75% of land life and 95% of ocean plankton went extinct. The ocean became stagnant and an anoxic event occurred it is believed to be the point in time that created the oil deposits that we find today. The seabed collected all of these tiny dead animals and plants and as they decayed they used up all of the oxygen in the water killing more sea life, and forming a sludge of dead matter several hundred feet thick then just the perfect amount of sediment heat and pressure occurred in a one time event to form the crude oil we hold so precious today. The creatures that lived during those times had no ability to change their environment , we on the other hand have the ability to change our environment more than any species on the planet, the question is will we be able to make any difference or are we just merely going to suffer the same fate as other species during a mass extinction? I do believe that we are going to witness some of the wildest weather that has ever been recorded during our lifetime. Whether it will be something that man’s technology and intelligence can change…..we will just have to wait and see.
Feb
21
Here is an excellent article from the Seattle Times on just the very thing I have been mentioning on this site. The price at the pump won’t change until the American driver does. We seem to have this misconception that we are entitled to cheap energy prices no matter what is happening in the rest of the world and that we should be able to have our 13 MPG SUV and be able fill it up for $20. Americans are going to get a big wake up call very soon if oil prices continue as many analysts are predicting to $4.00 a gallon for regular gasoline. This will mean that the average SUV with a 25 gallon or larger tank will cost $100.00 or more each time to fill up, a lot of people will just not be able to work this into their budget. It will be more good news for fuel efficient imports and hybrids and more bad news for GM and FORD who still don’t have very much to offer in the line of efficiency. They still seem to be banking on the SUV sales while cars like the VOLT are several years or never. If you want to try something interesting go to Ford motor companies website at this link, http://www.showroom.fordvehicles.com/Showroom.jsp?space=Cars and set the selector to 35 mpg. You have a wonderful selection of one car I hope you like the Focus. It drives me crazy because I know from having worked for GM for a great many years that they have the capability to built a superior product to many of the import vehicles being currently sold but they just won’t do it and it doesn’t make sense as to why. If the domestics don’t get on the ball I predict it is going to be another record year of lost profits and poor sales while efficient import sales go up. – Gadget
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003708544_gasdemand16.html
Feb
05
I have had my first vehicle failure on my 1987 Mercedes 300D it was not caused by using biodiesel though. The glow plugs finally gave up the ghost and burned out 4 out of six were open and the other 2 had resistance values that were out of spec. Steve Trivette is the afternoon instructor, and also teaches second year classes. Steve has worked for a Mercedes dealer in his career before entering the teaching side of the business and is a pretty sharp technician all around and a great instructor. He let some of the guys in his class assist and for the most part do the job of replacing the glow plugs. The job turned out great and the car is back to it’s old self thanks to Steve and some of his students. – Gadget
