What kills me if in America, especially in New England, is we still have tons of people, if not a majority a huge percentage, burning #2 heating oil during the winter. It used to be so cheap as to hardly think about filling the tank before winter, but it’s almost as much as gasoline now. My thought is “how hard can it be to convert those burners to biofuel, either reclaimed vegetable oil like diesel or with a mix of ethanol from corn to lower the cost.” Because if there’s one thing America has the capacity to produce a shitload of, it’s ethanol.
If somebody with a better grasp of the subject has an answer for that I would be very grateful.
So it does exist, requires no retrofit up to 20% biodiesel, and with minor retrofit can go to pure BD, but it congeals around 45°f so some amount of petroleum as a stabilizer is required for winter heating. Apparently ethanol from corn does not produce more energy than is required to create it, but biodiesel already being partly made for another purpose and otherwise wasted brings its creation energy down a lot.
What kills me if in America, especially in New England, is we still have tons of people, if not a majority a huge percentage, burning #2 heating oil during the winter. It used to be so cheap as to hardly think about filling the tank before winter, but it’s almost as much as gasoline now. My thought is “how hard can it be to convert those burners to biofuel, either reclaimed vegetable oil like diesel or with a mix of ethanol from corn to lower the cost.” Because if there’s one thing America has the capacity to produce a shitload of, it’s ethanol.
If somebody with a better grasp of the subject has an answer for that I would be very grateful.
I’m back from the Internet with knowledge to share!
https://www.northeastbiodiesel.com/heating-with-biodiesel
So it does exist, requires no retrofit up to 20% biodiesel, and with minor retrofit can go to pure BD, but it congeals around 45°f so some amount of petroleum as a stabilizer is required for winter heating. Apparently ethanol from corn does not produce more energy than is required to create it, but biodiesel already being partly made for another purpose and otherwise wasted brings its creation energy down a lot.