Let's make some money!
A quick search on the Internet yielded the following results:
- lard price in 2004 ~0.19 $/pound ... ~0.42 $/kg;
- rapeseed oil price 615 EURO/tone.
It appears that it is cheaper to make biodiesel from lard than from rapeseed oil.
Lard is an unwanted animal fat. Pork producers have been doing their best to:
- find feedstocks rich in proteins that would act against a pig's tendency to accumulate fat;
- breed pig races that make more meat and less fat.
Rule of thumb says that for every 3 kg of feed, the pig will gain 1 kg in weight. If you feed the pork straight corn (which is what he likes), the kilo he gains will be mostly lard and, up to now, this was not OK, since everybody was trying to avoid lard.
But what if we welcome lard, for it's energy value?
Would it be profitable?
How would the corn4pork/lard/biodiesel chain compare to the corn4bacteria/glucose/ethanol chain?
What will be the environmental impact?
Bonjour - buenos días - bom dia - buon giorno Mircea!
In the scale of your own small company, you may try it. But don't dream of replacing the whole worldwide gasoline consumption by lard fuel: as soon as lard would become the main output of pigs and not a byproduct, it would be unaffordable.
Just like leather was unaffordable when we ate less cow meat during the BSE crisis: leather is affordable only as a byproduct of meat. Logically, it's better to convert an oily vegetal to oil than feeding an animal with it to get animal fat.
By the way, corn or rapeseed oil shouldn't be converted biodiesel, but the oil burnt directly in old-technology Diesel engines. But converting the remains of the vegetal to ethanol would be nice.
Testimony: I was in Brazil 10 years ago, they already ran their cars with ethanol. It works, and the air smelt better than with gasoline.
In the scale of your own small company, you may try it. But don't dream of replacing the whole worldwide gasoline consumption by lard fuel: as soon as lard would become the main output of pigs and not a byproduct, it would be unaffordable.
Just like leather was unaffordable when we ate less cow meat during the BSE crisis: leather is affordable only as a byproduct of meat. Logically, it's better to convert an oily vegetal to oil than feeding an animal with it to get animal fat.
By the way, corn or rapeseed oil shouldn't be converted biodiesel, but the oil burnt directly in old-technology Diesel engines. But converting the remains of the vegetal to ethanol would be nice.
Testimony: I was in Brazil 10 years ago, they already ran their cars with ethanol. It works, and the air smelt better than with gasoline.
QUOTE (Mircea the Romanian+May 21 2007, 06:10 AM)
It appears that it is cheaper to make biodiesel from lard than from rapeseed oil. ...
Rule of thumb says that for every 3 kg of feed, the pig will gain 1 kg in weight. If you feed the pork straight corn (which is what he likes), the kilo he gains will be mostly lard and, up to now, this was not OK, since everybody was trying to avoid lard.
But what if we welcome lard, for it's energy value?
Would it be profitable?
How would the corn4pork/lard/biodiesel chain compare to the corn4bacteria/glucose/ethanol chain?
What will be the environmental impact?
Enthalpy is correct, raising pigs for their lard would be a loss, but using lard that is a byproduct would be a good idea and give the farmers a better return for their effort.
But Lard doesn't, like rapeseed or corn, have to be the total solution.
In this case, consider if one used the Corn for Ethanol and used the distiller's grain residue as a main ingredient in the pig's feed.
You get X liters of Ethanol to blend with gasoline for your petrol vehicles and you get Y kgs of lard to convert to bio-diesel, that you mix with your rapeseed bio-diesel as discussed before.
All of these are pretty much CO2 neutral.
Arthur
Rule of thumb says that for every 3 kg of feed, the pig will gain 1 kg in weight. If you feed the pork straight corn (which is what he likes), the kilo he gains will be mostly lard and, up to now, this was not OK, since everybody was trying to avoid lard.
But what if we welcome lard, for it's energy value?
Would it be profitable?
How would the corn4pork/lard/biodiesel chain compare to the corn4bacteria/glucose/ethanol chain?
What will be the environmental impact?
Enthalpy is correct, raising pigs for their lard would be a loss, but using lard that is a byproduct would be a good idea and give the farmers a better return for their effort.
But Lard doesn't, like rapeseed or corn, have to be the total solution.
In this case, consider if one used the Corn for Ethanol and used the distiller's grain residue as a main ingredient in the pig's feed.
You get X liters of Ethanol to blend with gasoline for your petrol vehicles and you get Y kgs of lard to convert to bio-diesel, that you mix with your rapeseed bio-diesel as discussed before.
All of these are pretty much CO2 neutral.
Arthur
I don't know if this is correct, but I think I have seen some of the math for calculations on how much corn can be produced.
Is it true that we do not have enough space to produce enough corn to feed the Pig to feed the car, to keep us moving?
As a secondary approach, it may be efficient.
Is it true that we do not have enough space to produce enough corn to feed the Pig to feed the car, to keep us moving?
As a secondary approach, it may be efficient.
Biodiesel from animal fat (tallow) is already being done.
Check out this report on Biodiesel From Tallow, by Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, New Zealand.
Check out this report on Biodiesel From Tallow, by Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, New Zealand.
QUOTE
In Europe about 850 000 t/a of vegetable oil methyl esters are produced from rapeseed oil. France uses a 5% ester/diesel blend as the standard diesel fuel. Germany uses neat esters in fleets. Austria and Italy have substantial ester use. Approximately 65 000 t/a of esters are produced from soy oil in the USA where it is used neat or as a 20% blend with diesel. Methyl esters are also produced on a relatively small scale from spent cooking oils.
20% to diesel is what I look at.
Anything that will help is good as far as I am concerned.
QUOTE (adoucette+May 21 2007, 01:32 PM)
Enthalpy is correct, raising pigs for their lard would be a loss, but using lard that is a byproduct would be a good idea and give the farmers a better return for their effort.
I didn't say pigs should be raised for their lard only.
It's just that for at least 50 years we've been going out of our way to produce "skinny" pigs, feeding them with mixes low in calories and rich in proteins, because there was no use for lard.
Maybe now we can go back to feeding pigs with straight corn and some grass for vitamins and allowing them to get to 150 kg before slaughter. They are now slaughtered younger, when they are 110 kg.
We remove 50 kg of lard for biodiesel and leave the rest of the pig for human consumption, as usual.
When you make ethanol from corn, the BACTERIA in the fermenting tanks feed on the starch to convert it first to glucose and then to ethanol. So it is not a simple chemical reaction, but a biological process where you are breeding and feeding a (simple) animal.
Why should breeding and feeding PIGS be any different?
I didn't say pigs should be raised for their lard only.
It's just that for at least 50 years we've been going out of our way to produce "skinny" pigs, feeding them with mixes low in calories and rich in proteins, because there was no use for lard.
Maybe now we can go back to feeding pigs with straight corn and some grass for vitamins and allowing them to get to 150 kg before slaughter. They are now slaughtered younger, when they are 110 kg.
We remove 50 kg of lard for biodiesel and leave the rest of the pig for human consumption, as usual.
When you make ethanol from corn, the BACTERIA in the fermenting tanks feed on the starch to convert it first to glucose and then to ethanol. So it is not a simple chemical reaction, but a biological process where you are breeding and feeding a (simple) animal.
Why should breeding and feeding PIGS be any different?
QUOTE (adoucette+May 21 2007, 01:32 PM)
In this case, consider if one used the Corn for Ethanol and used the distiller's grain residue as a main ingredient in the pig's feed.
You get X liters of Ethanol to blend with gasoline for your petrol vehicles and you get Y kgs of lard to convert to bio-diesel, that you mix with your rapeseed bio-diesel as discussed before.
Distiller's grains are fiber and protein rich, therefore feeding them to cattle, poultry or pigs will favor meat production and not fat production.
But they are best suited to feed cows and not pigs or poultry.
Let's compare some figures:
One bushel of corn will produce 2.9 gallons of alcohol plus X distiller's grains.
3 kg of corn will produce 1 kg of "obese" pig. Set aside 2 kg of corn and the 2/3 kg of "skinny" pig inside the "obese" pig. Let's focus on the 1 kg of corn that produces the additional 1/3 kg lard.
Or, in US, units 1 "extra" bushel of corn yields 8.46 kg lard ... 9.6l B100 =2.54 gal B100.
Let's convert both to gasoline gallons:
1 bushel corn ... 2.9 gallons E100+X distiller's grains ~= 1.885 gallons gasoline +X
1 bushel corn ... 2.54 gallons B100 ~= 2.54 x (127/123) = 2.62 gallons gasoline
At first sight, you get more gasoline-equivalent from pork than from bacteria. Is X worth the difference?
You get X liters of Ethanol to blend with gasoline for your petrol vehicles and you get Y kgs of lard to convert to bio-diesel, that you mix with your rapeseed bio-diesel as discussed before.
Distiller's grains are fiber and protein rich, therefore feeding them to cattle, poultry or pigs will favor meat production and not fat production.
But they are best suited to feed cows and not pigs or poultry.
Let's compare some figures:
One bushel of corn will produce 2.9 gallons of alcohol plus X distiller's grains.
3 kg of corn will produce 1 kg of "obese" pig. Set aside 2 kg of corn and the 2/3 kg of "skinny" pig inside the "obese" pig. Let's focus on the 1 kg of corn that produces the additional 1/3 kg lard.
Or, in US, units 1 "extra" bushel of corn yields 8.46 kg lard ... 9.6l B100 =2.54 gal B100.
Let's convert both to gasoline gallons:
1 bushel corn ... 2.9 gallons E100+X distiller's grains ~= 1.885 gallons gasoline +X
1 bushel corn ... 2.54 gallons B100 ~= 2.54 x (127/123) = 2.62 gallons gasoline
At first sight, you get more gasoline-equivalent from pork than from bacteria. Is X worth the difference?
And what if you let the pork pull your car?
[Sorry Mircea, I just couldn't resist]
[Sorry Mircea, I just couldn't resist]
QUOTE (Enthalpy+May 22 2007, 04:40 PM)
And what if you let the pork pull your car?
That may work as well, but we would have to adjust the road infrastucture.
You see, pigs have a radiator problem and they overheat.
We need to build frequent mud pools by the side of the roads, to allow the pig-engines to cool off.
That may work as well, but we would have to adjust the road infrastucture.
You see, pigs have a radiator problem and they overheat.
We need to build frequent mud pools by the side of the roads, to allow the pig-engines to cool off.
and some serious explaining when you are pulled over for speeding.
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