Biofuels are not the answer for sure. The earth's CO2 balance is 350 PPM. We're @ 392 PPM. Biofuels will push us even further past the 350 PPM equalibrium. Plus, it doesn't make sense to plant food crops strictly for fuel. We're going to have to make the big hard choices TODAY. We stopped the ozone depletion, this next one isn't going to be as easy.
Good luck! But it would make more sense to grow food on those lands.
When oil will become scarce, the shelves in the supermarket would be empty anway.. Note that ur buddies couldnt even make biodiesel out of soybeans without oil input.
This is No Solution. This is trying to continue an unsustainable life style w/ different unsustainable means. You don't need to worry about fuel, you need to worry about what you're going to eat when the petroleum dependent supermarkets are empty. I recommend going to transitionus. org or collapsenet , org cluborlov . com and doing some reading. I don't think you know how serious the situation really is. Cheers.
@Aleque alcohol small scale in a closed permaculture system... david blume - and try hthis one on for size... MIT...DAniel Nocera... open sourced electrolysis for sun / water / hydrogen.. youtube - personal energy... absolutely game changing... blow your minds! lets get on it boys and girls....times almost up!
One way I prepared for peak oil was converting my home to a net-zero solar powered home that uses no oil or gas..I made a video about it called, "Preparing for Peak Oil"....
so your going to farm all that land just to fuel the farm equipment? why not have a smaller diverse farm and eat the food yourself, and maybe sell the extra food?
I think that a new technology will emerge that the world will switch to for energy. Probably Orbo powered or perhaps Blacklight Power. These technologies can provide enough ridiculously cheap power for the entire world.
I highly encourage you to consider a permaculture or sustainable farm. Instead of trying to replace our dependence with more dependence, we need to learn to live without abundant oil and energy in agriculture. Sustainable farming reduces greenhouse gasses by reducing our dependence on heavy machinery, and by planting enough to clean our air. Sustainable farming improves the fertility of the soil and encourages biodiversity, which in turn increases yield without fertilizer.
Biodiesel is a flawed solution. It is still highly inefficient and oil-intensive, and mono-cropping is environmentally unsound, not to mention the fact that most soybeans are GMOs that rely on heavy pesticides and herbicides that have greater impacts on our environment than we care to think about. I commend your effort, but planting soybeans would be more of a problem than it is a solution. (continued...)
Interesting approach, the coop. I worked for a yr at a biodiesel pilot plant w/ used peanut oil. My 1984 VW Rabbit Diesel loved it.
I bought 5 acres in Hudspeth Co. and am starting a no till, drip irrigation, organic farm. The house is passive solar w/ wood. I'll add wind or/and solar later. Looking to convert a car to electric.
We all can that. Millions of individual solutions instead of waiting for the same system that screws us to hand us a Christmas wrapped solution. Good luck.
Not that I'm a fan of ethanol, but since the plants are up and running anyhow, they can process the leftover distiller grains and extract the corn oil to make biodiesel from.
I am curious to know how your plan is working. I'm a dairy farmer in NY. I've been working on a similar idea for our milk co-op but using waste grease instead. We could get a couple milk tanker trucks full of the stuff and process it over the winter having a bunch of 55gal/barrels of biodiesel ready for crop season.
Do you realize that it takes like 1 gallon of oil to farm an equivalent of 0.8 gallons of oil energy that consists of BIODIESEL?
How ironic, eh?
You have to PLANT the crops, which requires oil (no farm machinery could run on something else, and even if they can, mathematical reasoning says ceteris pluribus). You lose oil to get the biodiesel, so what's the point in planting in the first place?
Not to mention the opportunity cost of FOOD which is obviously more important than oil.
If you use biodiesel, food prices will rise and many poor people wouldn't be able to afford food and die. So just stop using cars is way more effective and it saves life instead of killing them.
yeah, unless i'm mistaken, biodiesel is an ester of natural (plant) fatty acids. Soy is protein rich, but not that high in fat...
uh...
well, sunflower may work. or castor. Hell, use a variation on soapmaking, followed by decarboxylation of the fatty acid, and you've practically got DIESEL or GASOLINE.
My solution is to be part of the relocalisation movement. It's happening in the UK, the US and we all need to get on board. Think of ways to use less fuel rather than silly ways to produce it using crops so we can carry on with business as usual. Use land to feed people. Work locally. Holiday locally. Support your local economy. Fly less. Drive less. Rebuild the arts and crafts movement. Produce mucic without oil. Take part in community soup kitchens. HAVE FUN!
Biodiesel and ethanol is not a solution. #1 It takes food out of the mouths of the starving poor. #2 It costs more BTU's / oil to harvest the biofuel (i.e. tractors, mfg. of fertilizers) than is produced in biofuel. Only the government would be dumb enough to subsidize this market-inefficient development, because no corporation would because it's not profitable or sustainable. Environmental Liberals only care how policies feel, not their reasonableness or logic.
The Gov't is not dumb. 20% bio fuel will be just enough to mass farm and truck the food to market. Eating is necessary for us to live. Driving cars is not. bio fuel mandates are not for keeping avg people driving they are for feeding the population. At least they are trying. Also your #2 statement is simply no true. New techs using algie have boosted yields by up to and well over 5000%
look sir, this is nice but as musch as we all need to drive our fancy cars to the mall everyday to buy more products that were probibly made using oil there are people starving in most parts of the world and i think your soy beans should go to them rather than going to our cars.
p.s.
How much oil is it taking you to make these soy beans?
HAHA, do you relly think that a few thousand achers of soybeans will make enough oil for the world??? The world uses 1,032,132,000,000,000 Barrels of oil per day. you need a reality check.
The future will be the horse walking maybe some trains , canal boats sail boats and people making things with mainly human and animal power. heating will be wood fires and there wont be that much wood so you better get some long johns and everyone will grow food
chernobyl 7 million people sick 78 citys and towns unliveable for thousands of years. have you ever cared for anyone dieing of cancer I did last year its not a nice way to die.
and even if you disregard chernobyl and three mile island ect ect we wont be able to run things long term on nuclear power google peak uranium . do we have a way to get rid of nuclear waste ?.
This whole oil thing will end in calamity. The end is already upon us (ie, Katrina) and soon it wont just be poor people dying, it will be young and old, sick and the weak. Power will come from muscle, the individual's ability to survive on his own--not money.
There is a problem with producing biodiesel, though. When we start to run low on oil, we run low on steel, plastic, energy, the things needed to make the farm equipment you want to power. It's a good temporary solution, but not a good long term solution. But, it will at least buy some time.
Search for an article called "The False Hope of Biofuels" for a summary of limitations people don't mention in starry-eyed polemics.
No energy source will be easy until we drop the idea that we can keep supplying a larger population with whatever it craves. There should be no more excuses for egregious growth and ravenous consumption.
1. As of October 2006, all US diesel fuel doesn't have sulfur in it.
2. BioDiesel isn't carbon nuetral if you factor in all the carbon that went into making it. (Worse if you include the Soy Bean and Palm Oil crops destroying the rainforrests and draining the water table to farm)
greyfalcon. net/ palmoil
3. Recycling waste vegetable oil is useful, but using it inside an engine instead of a generator is wasteful.
Peak Oil is here and life as we know it is about to end. We've had a good time, but now it's time to pay the piper. Participate in the ongoing knowledge think-tank at TheOilDrum dot Com
You may have the best of intentions growing soy, but it needs water and petroleum fertilizers. You're also damaging the soil/environment by encouring genetic monoculture. When you use biodiesel, you are not solving the underlying problem. When you save a barrel of oil, it doesn't magically stay unused. It gets used by someone else. Look up the Jevons paradox to understand this. The only answer is to dismantle everything we think of as modern life.
My mom was just talking about changing over to biofuel. I went shopping today and I found a store that had everything made out of hemp, flax or wax from veggies (candles and makeup). It's a pretty cool place actually.
We need to be growing HEMP for oil. It is easy to grow, resistant to bugs and disease. The fibers can be used for many things that are now used to make plastics. It is NOT good for smoking - so it is ridiculous that it is illegal to grow. HEMP will not deplete the soil like corn and other bio-diesel crops. The OIL companies are the ones who want to keep it illegal because they fear the competition. What a shame when the need it so great!
Yes ma'am, you bet. Most of the people down there have food plots or gardens for personal use, hunting is plentiful, and people have their own wells. I realize this isn't a right-away solution, but my hope is that if people think long-term/globally and make plans to get themselves through tomorrow, then next month, then next year, maybe it won't be so bad if there's a crisis. Thanks for your thoughtful comments!
be sure to stock up on fuel component parts before the crash - viton hoses, fuel filters, etc. Fuel filters clog and anything made of rubber rots with biofuel.
chuckles, that is a great idea, but I think it's a little too late to start it now, the crisis will be here before your plants are even planted. Plus, what's gonna power the plant that turns the raw soybean into biodiesel? No matter what, on your co-op, make sure to leave an area for food growing, the groceries won't have enough when there's no fuel for the trucks to bring in fresh veggies
Biofuels are not the answer for sure. The earth's CO2 balance is 350 PPM. We're @ 392 PPM. Biofuels will push us even further past the 350 PPM equalibrium. Plus, it doesn't make sense to plant food crops strictly for fuel. We're going to have to make the big hard choices TODAY. We stopped the ozone depletion, this next one isn't going to be as easy.
joelsvideospage 2 months ago
Good luck! But it would make more sense to grow food on those lands.
When oil will become scarce, the shelves in the supermarket would be empty anway.. Note that ur buddies couldnt even make biodiesel out of soybeans without oil input.
musza05 5 months ago
This is No Solution. This is trying to continue an unsustainable life style w/ different unsustainable means. You don't need to worry about fuel, you need to worry about what you're going to eat when the petroleum dependent supermarkets are empty. I recommend going to transitionus. org or collapsenet , org cluborlov . com and doing some reading. I don't think you know how serious the situation really is. Cheers.
kingofthebrittains 10 months ago
what now?
bathetcnow 1 year ago
not bad plan, but better would be electricity produced by windmills.. it's far from impossible
Aleque 1 year ago
@Aleque alcohol small scale in a closed permaculture system... david blume - and try hthis one on for size... MIT...DAniel Nocera... open sourced electrolysis for sun / water / hydrogen.. youtube - personal energy... absolutely game changing... blow your minds! lets get on it boys and girls....times almost up!
bathetcnow 1 year ago
free energy is one very important solution we need, oil companies dont care of us all they want is money trilions of dollars till the last drop.
dollywarrior 1 year ago
One way I prepared for peak oil was converting my home to a net-zero solar powered home that uses no oil or gas..I made a video about it called, "Preparing for Peak Oil"....
MrEnergyCzar 1 year ago
so your going to farm all that land just to fuel the farm equipment? why not have a smaller diverse farm and eat the food yourself, and maybe sell the extra food?
poppymock 2 years ago
Its not possible to grow the worlds needs of biodiesel and feed everyone aswell.
hablerz 2 years ago
I think that a new technology will emerge that the world will switch to for energy. Probably Orbo powered or perhaps Blacklight Power. These technologies can provide enough ridiculously cheap power for the entire world.
enantiomer2000 2 years ago
the world will never run out of oil it will only run out of cheap oil
87blazers4life 2 years ago
Clean up the grid and use electric power. It's the only way.
ndyt 2 years ago
I highly encourage you to consider a permaculture or sustainable farm. Instead of trying to replace our dependence with more dependence, we need to learn to live without abundant oil and energy in agriculture. Sustainable farming reduces greenhouse gasses by reducing our dependence on heavy machinery, and by planting enough to clean our air. Sustainable farming improves the fertility of the soil and encourages biodiversity, which in turn increases yield without fertilizer.
I wish you luck
DirtyOasis 2 years ago
What is "permaculture"?
0rangePete 2 years ago
Biodiesel is a flawed solution. It is still highly inefficient and oil-intensive, and mono-cropping is environmentally unsound, not to mention the fact that most soybeans are GMOs that rely on heavy pesticides and herbicides that have greater impacts on our environment than we care to think about. I commend your effort, but planting soybeans would be more of a problem than it is a solution. (continued...)
DirtyOasis 2 years ago
Good video. However, biofuels have their drawbacks. At best, they can only supplement the oil that's left.
Even then, we are still going to have to manage our fuel supplies *very carefully*. Meaning, radically change the way we live and work.
See my video "Peak Oil: Danger & Opportunity" for more details.
Pictor100 3 years ago
bad idea, grow a big garden with all that land. thats how you prepare.
kellaneric 3 years ago
Interesting approach, the coop. I worked for a yr at a biodiesel pilot plant w/ used peanut oil. My 1984 VW Rabbit Diesel loved it.
I bought 5 acres in Hudspeth Co. and am starting a no till, drip irrigation, organic farm. The house is passive solar w/ wood. I'll add wind or/and solar later. Looking to convert a car to electric.
We all can that. Millions of individual solutions instead of waiting for the same system that screws us to hand us a Christmas wrapped solution. Good luck.
FreesWorld 3 years ago
Oil is non-renewable =D
Derkks 3 years ago
Not that I'm a fan of ethanol, but since the plants are up and running anyhow, they can process the leftover distiller grains and extract the corn oil to make biodiesel from.
plainjane6476 3 years ago
I am curious to know how your plan is working. I'm a dairy farmer in NY. I've been working on a similar idea for our milk co-op but using waste grease instead. We could get a couple milk tanker trucks full of the stuff and process it over the winter having a bunch of 55gal/barrels of biodiesel ready for crop season.
plainjane6476 3 years ago
food for machines, hungry for the humans!!!
CopperFangunlimited 3 years ago
Dude guys.
Do you realize that it takes like 1 gallon of oil to farm an equivalent of 0.8 gallons of oil energy that consists of BIODIESEL?
How ironic, eh?
You have to PLANT the crops, which requires oil (no farm machinery could run on something else, and even if they can, mathematical reasoning says ceteris pluribus). You lose oil to get the biodiesel, so what's the point in planting in the first place?
Not to mention the opportunity cost of FOOD which is obviously more important than oil.
stagesofobsession 3 years ago 7
@stagesofobsession Just think industrial HEMP
sturgismom13 1 year ago
In addition to anticarguy's comment, don't eat meat. Let's Go, Vegetarians~!
intershark 3 years ago
We should just drive no cars anymore !!
If you use biodiesel, food prices will rise and many poor people wouldn't be able to afford food and die. So just stop using cars is way more effective and it saves life instead of killing them.
anticarguy 3 years ago
how do you turn soybeans in to biodiesel?
hkju435 3 years ago
yeah, unless i'm mistaken, biodiesel is an ester of natural (plant) fatty acids. Soy is protein rich, but not that high in fat...
uh...
well, sunflower may work. or castor. Hell, use a variation on soapmaking, followed by decarboxylation of the fatty acid, and you've practically got DIESEL or GASOLINE.
incyblak710 3 years ago
join my facebook group "world solutions"
luka1432 3 years ago
My solution is to be part of the relocalisation movement. It's happening in the UK, the US and we all need to get on board. Think of ways to use less fuel rather than silly ways to produce it using crops so we can carry on with business as usual. Use land to feed people. Work locally. Holiday locally. Support your local economy. Fly less. Drive less. Rebuild the arts and crafts movement. Produce mucic without oil. Take part in community soup kitchens. HAVE FUN!
tantrichousewife 3 years ago
As I was sitting here jotting down solutions, relocation and localizing was on the list. This would help, no doubt.
ibphotos 3 years ago
Biodiesel and ethanol is not a solution. #1 It takes food out of the mouths of the starving poor. #2 It costs more BTU's / oil to harvest the biofuel (i.e. tractors, mfg. of fertilizers) than is produced in biofuel. Only the government would be dumb enough to subsidize this market-inefficient development, because no corporation would because it's not profitable or sustainable. Environmental Liberals only care how policies feel, not their reasonableness or logic.
loveliberty1776 3 years ago
The Gov't is not dumb. 20% bio fuel will be just enough to mass farm and truck the food to market. Eating is necessary for us to live. Driving cars is not. bio fuel mandates are not for keeping avg people driving they are for feeding the population. At least they are trying. Also your #2 statement is simply no true. New techs using algie have boosted yields by up to and well over 5000%
itstakentoo 3 years ago
Also Algie can be grown in the desert it will not take arable farm land or pesticides made from oil.
itstakentoo 3 years ago
well, when it happens..i'll come looking for u : )
annr8 4 years ago
look sir, this is nice but as musch as we all need to drive our fancy cars to the mall everyday to buy more products that were probibly made using oil there are people starving in most parts of the world and i think your soy beans should go to them rather than going to our cars.
p.s.
How much oil is it taking you to make these soy beans?
hent808 4 years ago
Well i would love to be able to grow hemp. just like you can grow soybeans.
edward944 4 years ago
dude you got a good heart but start on the whole getting a good brain thing
i mean its good to think that thatll work but seriously we've just gotta face it, it just doesnt work like that
eastcoastkell 4 years ago
biofuels are a terrible solution, it takes 6 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of biodiesel.
kcorkery45 4 years ago
Wrong.Just 3 brents of oil = 2.2 brents of biodiesel.I live in Brazil.
daltonagre 4 years ago 3
HAHA, do you relly think that a few thousand achers of soybeans will make enough oil for the world??? The world uses 1,032,132,000,000,000 Barrels of oil per day. you need a reality check.
PCguy102 4 years ago
well geez are you saying we shouldnt do anything?
hent808 4 years ago
If you were an oil company posting record profits would you see any reason to change the system?
unvpw 4 years ago
The future will be the horse walking maybe some trains , canal boats sail boats and people making things with mainly human and animal power. heating will be wood fires and there wont be that much wood so you better get some long johns and everyone will grow food
bearsagainstevil 4 years ago
Nuclear power works better than horse power oh wise prophet.
loveliberty1776 3 years ago
chernobyl 7 million people sick 78 citys and towns unliveable for thousands of years. have you ever cared for anyone dieing of cancer I did last year its not a nice way to die.
and even if you disregard chernobyl and three mile island ect ect we wont be able to run things long term on nuclear power google peak uranium . do we have a way to get rid of nuclear waste ?.
horses are the way of the future if we are lucky
bearsagainstevil 3 years ago
This whole oil thing will end in calamity. The end is already upon us (ie, Katrina) and soon it wont just be poor people dying, it will be young and old, sick and the weak. Power will come from muscle, the individual's ability to survive on his own--not money.
AdamuSensei 4 years ago
There is a problem with producing biodiesel, though. When we start to run low on oil, we run low on steel, plastic, energy, the things needed to make the farm equipment you want to power. It's a good temporary solution, but not a good long term solution. But, it will at least buy some time.
oscarian 4 years ago
hahaha
total nonsense.
trissss 4 years ago
hahahaah! best joke in years!
posteat 4 years ago
I think the answer may be in 'water' :)
sm0ky40 4 years ago
Search for an article called "The False Hope of Biofuels" for a summary of limitations people don't mention in starry-eyed polemics.
No energy source will be easy until we drop the idea that we can keep supplying a larger population with whatever it craves. There should be no more excuses for egregious growth and ravenous consumption.
MPdmZVcQPq 4 years ago
Uhm
1. As of October 2006, all US diesel fuel doesn't have sulfur in it.
2. BioDiesel isn't carbon nuetral if you factor in all the carbon that went into making it. (Worse if you include the Soy Bean and Palm Oil crops destroying the rainforrests and draining the water table to farm)
greyfalcon. net/ palmoil
3. Recycling waste vegetable oil is useful, but using it inside an engine instead of a generator is wasteful.
greyfalcon. net/ biodiesel.png
insidegreentech. com/ node/ 376
greyflcn 4 years ago
i second the hemp. look up the hemp benz!!!!!
DWARSCO 4 years ago
Shale Oil makes good Snake Oil.
Got cash for investments? There's always someone ready to take your money.
Weaseldog2001 4 years ago
Not enough farmland in the world to make biodiesel from soybeans.
warlockwa 4 years ago
Peak Oil is here and life as we know it is about to end. We've had a good time, but now it's time to pay the piper. Participate in the ongoing knowledge think-tank at TheOilDrum dot Com
ZionTherapy 4 years ago
You may have the best of intentions growing soy, but it needs water and petroleum fertilizers. You're also damaging the soil/environment by encouring genetic monoculture. When you use biodiesel, you are not solving the underlying problem. When you save a barrel of oil, it doesn't magically stay unused. It gets used by someone else. Look up the Jevons paradox to understand this. The only answer is to dismantle everything we think of as modern life.
jaydumars 4 years ago
My mom was just talking about changing over to biofuel. I went shopping today and I found a store that had everything made out of hemp, flax or wax from veggies (candles and makeup). It's a pretty cool place actually.
coffeegirl18 4 years ago
We need to be growing HEMP for oil. It is easy to grow, resistant to bugs and disease. The fibers can be used for many things that are now used to make plastics. It is NOT good for smoking - so it is ridiculous that it is illegal to grow. HEMP will not deplete the soil like corn and other bio-diesel crops. The OIL companies are the ones who want to keep it illegal because they fear the competition. What a shame when the need it so great!
techinstructor07 4 years ago
er, cool and all chuckles. But I don't think I'd go with soy. It's just too darn low in oil content (18%). Rapeseed is probably the way to go. (40%)
wwoentropy 4 years ago
Don't worry there are still 1.2 trillion barrels of oil shale available. wikipedia -> Oil_shale
fredhorseface 4 years ago
And extremely costly to extract!
techinstructor07 4 years ago
Still a finite quantity. If we invest in the cost of extracting it, it is still a stop gap only. money better spent on an alternative.
ibphotos 3 years ago
Save the world , grow the soybeans
_world without oil_
can't wait XP
maxandmolly 4 years ago
Yes ma'am, you bet. Most of the people down there have food plots or gardens for personal use, hunting is plentiful, and people have their own wells. I realize this isn't a right-away solution, but my hope is that if people think long-term/globally and make plans to get themselves through tomorrow, then next month, then next year, maybe it won't be so bad if there's a crisis. Thanks for your thoughtful comments!
txchuckles 4 years ago
be sure to stock up on fuel component parts before the crash - viton hoses, fuel filters, etc. Fuel filters clog and anything made of rubber rots with biofuel.
sfgabe 4 years ago
chuckles, that is a great idea, but I think it's a little too late to start it now, the crisis will be here before your plants are even planted. Plus, what's gonna power the plant that turns the raw soybean into biodiesel? No matter what, on your co-op, make sure to leave an area for food growing, the groceries won't have enough when there's no fuel for the trucks to bring in fresh veggies
RedHatty 4 years ago