While fuel prices are nothing like they were last summer (but
they are climbing), there are still plenty of reasons to want to make your own biodiesel. Homebrew biodieselers are, on the whole, a careful bunch and there are
plenty of classes available to make sure your mixing of vegetable fat, lye and methanol goes smoothly. Not everyone does it right every time, though, and the
Associated Press has found a few incidents of biodiesel makers setting garages and backyards on fire in at least five states (Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Oregon). These fires have not caused any deaths, yet, but at least one home was destroyed - and rebuilding must cost way more, environmentally and financially, than was saved by going bio.
There are few rules against making biodiesel at home, but more might be coming. In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, you need to be on a property that is at least one acre so you're not endangering a lot of neighbors. Just a reminder to be careful out there.
[Source:
Associated Press]
But if you want to try making your own biodiesel, I suggest you get this course for at least you know the safety precaution and risk involved before you actually start the process. Read here for more information.
Original text:
De-linking NGOs Concerns over Deforestation and Palm OilSource:
http://ceopalmoil.blogspot.com/2008/10/understanding-ngos-concerns-over.htmlAuthor: Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron, CEO, Malaysian Palm Oil promotion Council (MPOPC)
1. A few years ago when oils and fats were cheaper than petroleum, the EU and USA rushed to promote the use of biofuels for various reasons. One not-so-frankly-revealed reason was that oilseed farmers will benefit from the new market outlets and the increase in prices. The governments also benefited from this strategy because agricultural subsidies would be reduced if prices of soybean and rapeseed were high and price support subsidies would not be needed. In addition, it makes good political statements to say that biodiesel will help reduce global warming through reduced green house gas emissions, and also enable the countries to be less dependent on imported petroleum fuels.
2. Diverting a major portion of rapeseed and soy oil supply and stocks for biodiesel did result in increasing prices which benefited the EU and US farmers tremendously between 2004 and the middle of 2008. During this time, it became obvious that palm oil was a potentially good raw material to participate in the biodiesel industries in both the EU and USA as it is generally cheaper than soyabean or rapeseed oil. This resulted in increasing concern amongst the EU biodiesel lobbies who are integrated with the rapeseed industry over the potential competion from palm oil and they tried to prevent it from being imported for biodiesel production and use in the EU. This was also to ensure that biodiesel subsidies are not shared with competing imported oils.
3. Various trade barriers were set up by the goverments. For example, biodiesel standards were developed in the EU to disqualify palm oil biodiesel from being accepted. The cold flow plug point(CFPP) standard was introduced to ensure palm oil did not meet the required test and the anti palm oil lobby was relieved at the new arrangement. However, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) announced that palm oil biodiesel methyl esters can be processed with a new technology that would overcome the CFPP problem. Furthermore, if the blending of biodiesel is only at 5%, the CFPP value of palm oil biodiesel methyl esters becomes irrelevant as the 5 parts of palm biodiesel is totally dissolved by the 95 parts of petroleum diesel giving an acceptable blend. However, unknown to many, tallow produced in the EU and used for biodiesel would also fail the CFPP test and this would not go well with the local tallow lobbies.
4. EU farmers continue to question the reason for an imported commodity such as palm oil biodiesel to be accorded biofuel subsidy which is meant for local oilseed farmers. The outcries became louder as some power plants began to use palm oil as biofuel and enjoyed the subsidies and the cheaper prices. The rapeseed lobbies were worried that by allowing cheaper palm oil for use as biofuel in vehicles and power plants, it will eventually affect the demand for local oils, and create a substantial outflow of subsidies.(This narrow view ignores the fact that Malaysia imports large amount of EU and US goods and needs market access for its exports in order to remain a valued trading partner.)
5. A new import barrier for palm oil was subsequently introduced arising from the view of the former Dutch Environmental Minister who argued that if palm oil is encouraged for use as biofuel it would stimulate an increase in production leading to the opening of forest land. This apparently will affect the environment, animal habitats and biodiversity. He was able to introduce the fear factor of what could happen in the future if palm oil demand undergoes a rapid increase.
6. The environmental NGOs were quick to sieze on the opportunity to harp on the fear of potential deforestation, and started to report on orang utan habitat loss and global warming effects of oil palm cultivation on peat. The change in focus from deforestation due to logging to now oil palm plantation became a refreshing rallying point for NGOs perpetual campaigns. Afterall palm oil has more money to offer than the logging industry which has over the years witnessed a decline.
7. Once the issues of deforestation and palm oil fell into the hands of NGOs like FOE and Green Peace who use unscrupulus methods to attack their target victims, the whole issue of biodiesel development and protection of subsidies was totally forgotten. The farmers in the EU and USA who are worried by palm oil invasion for the new found application of their oils and fats as biodiesel are totally served by the NGOs who gladly run the anti-palm oil campaign while pocketing huge amount of funds. The collusion to get the NGOs to campaign against palm oil was cleverly disguised. It was reported for example, that the Dutch Lottery money of a staggering US$2 million was instrumental in financing Green Peace to carry out a blockade of a ship carrying palm oil from leaving an Indonesian port to sail to Europe in 2007.
8. It is clear that the fear factor used is based on the assumption that if demand for biofuel is increased, more oil palm cultivation will occur thus causing deforestation. Fortunately, Malaysia has consistently proven the assumption as baseless and wrong.
9. Let me debunk the various fallacies that are often cited to paint a bleak picture of the ever popular oil palm.
Fallacy 1 Oil palm plantations are claimed to be the cause of deforestation. Palm oil producing countries such as Malaysia have permanent forest reserves which take up to 55% of the country's total land area. Laws are in place to disallow these permanent forest areas to be converted to other uses including for agriculture or growing of oil palm. The remaining forest areas are meant for conversion into other uses, including agriculture. Some of these conversion forest areas are already alienated to individuals or organisations although the land may still not yet be converted and remain under forest cover. NGOs like Green Peace argue that these unconverted areas should be declared as forest through a moratorium on deforestation which essentially means a stop to a developing country like Malaysia from using its potential agricultural land to improve the life of its farmers. It is equivalent to asking the EU farmers to reforest back some 50 % of their agricultural land to help prevent global warming and preserve biodiversity. In all fairness, Greenpeace should agressively campaign for reforesting 50 % of agricultural land of the UK and EU and if successful, Malaysia should have no problem following the standard set by the EU in terms of land use ratio for agriculture.
There are also calls by NGOs for the Prince Chales Conservation fund to compensate developing countries for conserving more forests. Logically, these funds would be better used to reforest the over extended and over deforested agricultural areas in the UK. Most agricultural land can be easily reforested if so desired. The slogan "Plant Thy Own Forest" and "Stop Envying Thy Poor Neighbours Green Backyard" can be adopted. Otherwise Green Peace is cunningly introducing double standards where the EU can deforest and develop these areas into agricultural land, while the developing countries farmers are comdemmed to perpetual poverty by preventing them from exercising their sovereign rights to develop their agricultural land.
Fallacy 2 -It is often claimed that the expansion of oil palm cultivation will affect the habitats of the orang utans in Sabah and Sarawak. A recent study revealed that orang utan population is Sabah has not declined because the permanent forest area ( the favourite habitat of the orang utans that was surveyed five years ago) has not changed over the last five years. The study further revealed that the orang utan population in the non-permanent forest areas is increasing based on the survey of nesting sites. More surprisingly, orang utans living near oil palm plantations were observed to regularly visit the plantations to feed on loose oil palm fruitlets and benefit from an all year round availability of a healthy food source which is naturally rich in vitamin A and E, giving the orang utans a healthy shining coat. This suggests that development of the oil palm as a crop and conservation can successfully operate side by side.
Fallacy 3 The third fallacy is linking oil palm to deforestation and attributing this to global warming. The oil palm planted area of 4.3 million hectares in Malaysia represents a mere 0.09% of the world agriculture land. Assuming these areas were originally forests, Malaysia's share of deforestation for world food production is 0.09 %. I wait to see the NGO global warming scientists' prediction on the rise in global temperature caused by oil palm cultivation in Malaysia that resulted in 0.09 % of total deforestion via agricultural development. Even doubling the oil palm area may not add substantially to the world deforestation total. However, expanding oil palm may save deforestation by curtailing the rapid expansion of other inefficient land-use oil seed crops which need to be grown otherwise to overcome world shortages.
Fallacy 4Potraying palm oil as inferior to soyabean or rapeseed oil in global warming debate. Oil palm in Malaysia and Indonesia is an agricultural crop which is grown mainly for the export market. We are the only two major net exporter countries (Argentina is a distant third) for vegetable oils and fats. The rest of the world are mostly net importers. It implies that if palm oil supply is reduced in the future, ten times more forest areas will need to be converted to agriculture to meet the shortages by growing soyabean or other annual oilseed crops compared to the area needed to grow oil palm to produce the targeted quantity of oil.
Recently, it was revealed that new varieties of oil palm are capable of increasing the yield by 3 times more and if further research to stabilise this yield potential is undertaken through international collaboration, palm oil can be a sound candidate to help solve not only future food shortages but also the biofuel need of the world. In simple terms, it has been calculated that a hectare of oil palm will potentially produce oil sufficient to fuel a VW Polo car 400,000 km of travel per year including the use of the methane fuel generated by the oil palm mill effluent, while a hectare of soya bean can fuel only 8,000 km of travel by the same car as a comparison. The irony is that the EU and USA are gladly promoting the most inefficient bio fuel derived from soyabean and rapeseed sources ,which can only mean massive deforestation possibly in Agentina, Brazil or where ever soyabean and rapeseed can be grown. The opportunity for oil palm to serve as an efficient fuel source and to save more forests from being converted into soyabean and rapeseed farms is sadly overlooked and we can only blame this on the manupulative science which is used by NGOs to raise emotions and blur the truth from reaching the attention of decision and policy makers in the EU and USA.
The EU bio-diesel industry is currently in ‘political no man's land’ while it waits for a European biofuel sustainability and greenhouse gas certification scheme expected from the Commission later this year, according to the head of the European Biodiesel Board, Platts reports.
Meanwhile the head of the ILUC team at the European Commission for transport and energy said that the team is trying to understand the underlying drivers of land use change, using different models, but has no answers yet.
An official at the Commission’s environment directorate said the EU is in a dialogue with California about its sustainability standards and is considering the ILUC models used there.
Separately, France has mandated a B7 biodiesel blend with 7% FAME (fatty-acid methyl ester), but the mix has already caused serious problems with some motorists by clogging up fuel filters during the winter months, according to French car maker Renault. Renault’s fuels affairs manager said that a lack of EU conformity and sufficient specifications to control cold flow properties and oxidization of the new bio-fuel blends have led to the recent problems.
According to oil refiner Total, different national bio-fuel mandates across the EU are complicating the production, blending, distribution and marketing of bio-fuels across borders.
Calling investment and operations planning ‘a real nightmare,’ Total's marketing head of strategy and regulations said there has been an ‘incredible impact’ of bio-fuels on blending in the logistic system, including higher volumes in pipes, increased difficulty of processing, the need for better cleaning of rail cars and separate storage for exports.
Swiss bio-diesel maker Biopetrol Industries posted sales of 296.0 million euros in 2008, up 35.7% from 218.1 million the previous year despite sales of bio-diesel grinding to a halt in Germany and the economic recession, Ad-hoc News reports. Of its sales, 51.1% were made to Germany and 48.9% mainly to other European countries. Biopetrol said it was able to exploit the logistical advantages of its seaport locations at Rostock and Rotterdam to strengthen its international trade in biodiesel and biodiesel components. However it reported a negative Ebitda of 11.8 million euros, compared with a positive 8.3 million euro the year before.
The company is building a plant in Rottterdam with an annual capacity of 400,000 tonnes of biodiesel and 60,000 tonnes of bioglycerine. This will more than double its capacity to a total of 750,000 tonnes. World Energy adds that Biopetrol may idle its 400,000 mt/year biodiesel plant in Rotterdam for up to 18 months as it waits for conditions to improve. The company will also sublease its Rotterdam tanks while rates are high.
Dutch producers of biodiesel say they are unable to compete with imports of US product, Radio Netherlands reports. They say the US has managed to circumvent the extra EU duty by exporting to Europe through Canada. (May 21, 2009)
While fuel prices are nothing like they were last summer (but they are climbing), there are still plenty of reasons to want to make your own biodiesel. Homebrew biodieselers are, on the whole, a careful bunch and there are plenty of classes available to make sure your mixing of vegetable fat, lye and methanol goes smoothly. Not everyone does it right every time, though, and the Associated Press has found a few incidents of biodiesel makers setting garages and backyards on fire in at least five states (Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Oregon). These fires have not caused any deaths, yet, but at least one home was destroyed - and rebuilding must cost way more, environmentally and financially, than was saved by going bio.
