We still have choices and options - Reactor converts vegetable oil into biodiesel

Thank you Willie!!!! LOL


(Willie Nelson owns a station called Carls Corner where he sells biodesiel)

As a side note, I had to stop in there one time and found out there's a strip joint in the back. Go figure.

here is a different link ... more about the same I believe.


[link to pesn.com]

I want one, hope they are cheap!!

LOL VG, so what was the deal. Did they save the oil wrestlin' for friday nights?

I hear ya 7308, these new micro reactors look promising. If this is a cheap and reliable source, it could easily encourage industries to start converting.

I remember my older brother's COX engine model tether flown airplane, it used vegetable oil as fuel, no conversion process needed, it was pure vegetable oil. There really is no reason at all for converting vegetable oil to bio-diesel.

What we really need a user reprogrammable fuel systems in our cars, both spark plugs and diesel glow plugs so we can burn a variety of liquid fuels in our vehicles.

I have already felt that you are in a real problem when you have to burn your food to get around or stay warm.

<The device — about the size of a credit card — pumps vegetable oil and alcohol through tiny parallel channels, each smaller than a human hair, to convert the oil into biodiesel almost instantly.>

Sound promising, still one has to extract the vegetable oil and do the corn squeezing, fermenting, and distilling to get the alcohol.

Just how many gallons of ehtanol alcohol are you allowed by ordiance, code, and law to make and storage in your 2 car garage anyways?

Maybe unrelated, but then again I am finding this wind energy system especially interesting.

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Turbine Company Harnesses Wind Power
By Margaret Allen
The Dallas Business Journal

Sunday 25 December 2005

High energy costs and green building initiatives could boost interest in the rooftop units.
Fort Worth real estate mogul Ross Perot Jr. will be among the first to use a new alternative energy invention from a Plano-based company - the Mag-Wind rooftop turbine, which uses wind to generate electricity.

Mag-Wind Co. LLC in February will install one of its first five pre-production models - possibly the one nicknamed "Toto" by its inventor - atop the developer's Victory office building in downtown Dallas.

"We are allowing them to put a turbine on the Victory marketing center," said David Pelletier, a spokesman for Perot. "It will allow us an opportunity to evaluate how Mag-Wind works for possible use in projects down the road. Ross Perot Jr. wants all our people to look at green forms of energy."

The founders of privately held Mag-Wind have been developing the patent-pending vertical-axis turbine since 1991. Each Mag-Wind can generate 900 to 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, depending on the amount of wind. That's enough to power the average household, according to Bob Thompson, CEO of Mag-Wind.

Production of the units begins in March. Mag-Wind will sell the units exclusively through volume homebuilders, renewable energy-based distributors and utility power companies, which also will handle installation and connectivity to local power grids.

Good Timing

The company's timing couldn't be better, according to Ray Tonjes, chairman of the green-building subcommittee for the National Association of Homebuilders and past president of the Texas Association of Homebuilders.

"It takes a long time for our industry to mature to new concepts and new building materials," Tonjes said. "But (green building) participation is just growing exponentially, thanks to $60-a-barrel oil."

This year, the influential NAHB introduced national green building guidelines, and now many of its state and local homebuilder associations across the country are following suit. In Texas, the Dallas Homebuilders Association is a few months away from launching its green building program, Tonjes said.

The Mag-Wind unit, made of aluminum, fiberglass and steel, measures 4-feet square and weighs 250 pounds. It retails for $6,599. The installed cost is $10,000 to $15,000, Thompson said. Mag-Wind says homeowners will earn back their investment in five to seven years.

Designed to last an estimated 20 years, Mag-Wind features no gears to wear or freeze. Its platform of aluminum sails, or wings, float on magnets. The platform base rotates around a stabilizing, vertically fixed shaft through its center. A circle of magnets on the inside of the base pass by a circle of coils to create electricity.

The small-scale, wind generation unit may be a first in North America, according to Cory Lowe, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit energy consultant in Boulder, Colo. that advised Texas Instruments Inc. on the green aspects of its new $3 billion chip manufacturing plant in Richardson.

"This is the first one I've heard of," said Lowe, noting RMI has advocated for large-scale wind generation for years. At the individual customer level, solar has been the standard, so Mag-Wind appears unique.

"This is kind of new territory," Lowe said. "If it does all they claim it will do, the potential could be there. Generating electricity on a smaller scale can be profitable for both the energy producer and the customer."

Canadian Connection

Mag-Wind was invented by Canadians Jim Rowan and Tom Priest Brown, who along with Thompson each own about 11% of Mag-Wind. Toronto-based NCRC Energy Solutions Inc., an engineering and management company, is majority shareholder and silent investor, with 51%. The remaining 16% is split among a handful of investors. Rowan said Texas is the perfect place to launch Mag-Wind.

"In Texas, you present an idea and they just roll up their sleeves and get to work," he said. "That's why we're here and not in Ontario."

Richardson-based Vector Systems Inc., which owns about 5% of Mag-Wind, will build the units, some 4,000 in 2006, said Ken Smith, vice president of business development for privately held Vector. Thompson said 1,700 units have been contracted by a Canadian distributor, while homebuilders he declined to identify have spoken for the remainder.

The 19-year-old Vector makes custom fluid-processing systems for many different industries, from petrochemical and refining to water treatment and power generation.

Partly because of Mag-Wind, Vector will invest nearly $3 million to build a new, larger manufacturing plant. Currently operating from a 15,000-square-foot space in Richardson's Telecom Corridor, Vector will move to a Collin County city, which it declined to disclose until the land deal is finalized. The new 48,000-square-foot plant is expected to be up and running by July 1, 2006.

Mag-Wind is driving some of the need for more plant space. Smith said the Mag-Wind venture in 2006 will likely add $1.5 million to $2 million to Vector's revenue. Vector's existing business will add an additional $1 million, and another new opportunity in the baking industry will add $1.5 million to $2 million.

Smith estimates Vector will record slightly more than $4 million in revenue for 2005, and probably twice that in 2006. Vector employs 18 people, including engineers, skilled technicians and welders, and will hire that many more in 2006, he said.

A long-time Austin homebuilder, Tonjes has advocated for and constructed green buildings since the early 1980s. He indicated he was thrilled to be brought on board as an adviser to Mag-Wind. Tonjes also has a small equity position in the company.

"I hate to use the word revolutionary, but really (Mag-Wind) is," Tonjes said. "It promises to be a very cost-effective alternative to solar, and actually in some applications the two probably would be used together."
[link to www.truthout.org]
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Hmm, I wonder how the units do in the 60-70+mph winds they've been getting in the central states?

That would be good for some decent power output MM.

These units are only 4 square feet, 2ft x 2ft, not sure how deep they are, but I can just see a 30 of them on the 60 foot roof peak here. At good wind speeds 25 feet off the ground, on could be getting a max of 60 KW/hr off of them. Now, if you could just buy them right now for the $400 each, would not that be wonderful?

The problem with this, if you really think about it, is that all of the vegetable oil is already consumed.

To make enough to replace petroleum based energy would require massive farming worldwide if it was even possible.

You can get energy from many sources but oil is cheap, and you just pump it out of the ground.

Yep, that would be great Askakido. Affordable wind farms.

Arch Angel, what about recycling the oils that are disposed of from the fast food chains and restaurants?

Butanol mixes with biodiesel and solves the cold weather gelling problem:

Powerfully persuasive [link to www.butanol.com]
[link to www.peswiki.com]

Go look at how much vegetable oil is on the shelf in all the stores. Then compare to the gasoline and diesel at the fuel stations.

Which is greater? To replace motor fuel with vegetable oil would require a thousandfold increase in production.

Simply not possible.

the issue is not what we consume...it is the essence of our consumption.

Mechanical diesels could burn vegetable oil straight. They could run off pretty much anything but gasoline.
Diesels can't run gasoline, because of the compression ratio.

Biodiesel works at most ambient temperatures. Vegetable oil only works well when it's warm.