Honestly, I would have real reservations about pouring homebrew into something as technically advanced as one of today's diesel engines.

But the recipe for biodiesel in particular is not a lot more complicated (or dangerous) than the one used to make soap, and I don't see anyone outlawing soap-making at home. I could see requiring some certification, but the way fire and rescue has gone about it certainly looks like they're in the pocket of the fuel retailers.

control for controls sake steve,

i know a few people who brew their own nothing wrong with their vehicles/tractors and certainly no black sooty exhaust pipe or smell. and none have ever had any risks in making the stuff nor have i ever heard of any emergency that was caused by this practise.

len

Oh, I think we're on the same page as far as allowing people to make biodiesel at home -- my comparison is that it's not much harder (or significantly more dangerous) to make than soap.

Pumping homebrew into an old indirect-injection diesel, however, is much different from using it in a modern turbocharged performance diesel of the like found in passenger cars and light trucks these days. When fuel is being injected into a combustion chamber at up to 30,000 pounds per square inch (1800 bar), even the smallest contaminants or less-soluble components can cause problems. I've even seen fuel pumps froth up and turn excess glycerine into a mayonnaise-like mixture that most assuredly does not go through fuel injectors. I don't believe most home-brewers go to the lengths necessary to guarantee the highest-quality product. But being lax can be very expensive as time passes.

g'day steve,

have you ever seen homebrew bio-diesel?

it is as opaquely clear as is the profit makers product but without that odour, the bi-product from making it is all the sediment sludge sets like very firm jello(jelley) and can be used as soap for clothes washing and body washing etc.,. just in sensative spots around the eyes the caustic residue just like ordinary soaps irritates. i've used it for bathing with does a good job just doesn't lather like soap. we make our own laundry/hand-wash gel so guess one day they will regulate that also, this product is much safer for the garden which gets all our grey water.

and as a precautionary fitting a better quality serviceable inline filter might not be such a bad idea even if using the bought product which is just as likley to have microscopic contaminates.

when mr diesel invented the diesel motor he invented it to run on vegetable oils, and many people also grow tung trees and extract the oil from them and use it direct into their machines. fuel injection is just another way of delivering fuel to the cylinders other than by normal aspirated carburation.

len

steve,

heres another control for controls sake topic link:

garden rules

len

have you ever seen homebrew bio-diesel?

Yes, I have. I have nothing against biodiesel as such -- in fact, I use B20 in my car during the summers here. I purchase it at a farmer's co-op fuel station.

But I would argue that a commercial establishment selling fuel must -- and can -- meet a higher standard than a home-brewer who operates unlicensed and uninspected. The refiner and the fuel vendor have a reputation and a business to maintain, neither of which are served by inadequate fuel. The home-brewer likely is doing it him/herself as a sideline to the rest of daily life, and most likely will encounter limits on the quality (price) of the components used and on the amount of time (price) available to brew the fuel.

I'm not "for" Big Oil. I am for feeding my car the best fuel I can find in an effort to keep it on the road as long as possible (apparently I'm much more picky than most people I know who drive diesels). I don't believe I can devote the time and money to producing better fuel than the farmer co-op. If you can, or if your vehicle is less particular about fuel, more power to you. It's simply not a risk I'm willing to take.

sounds like you support the profit makers and loss of freedom of choice to some degree me thinks??

the homebrew i have seen looks equaly as clean as the diesel from the bowser. for the home brewer they are looking at an all up cost into their tanks of around 60 cents AUD per liter compared to around $1.30 from the profit rakers. that is the only reason for the control.

len

It's not a crime to profit from business. Even treehuggers must agree on that. Excess profits; that we can talk about. Corporate welfare; that we can talk about. Making sure businesses pay the full costs of the impact they have on our environment; that we can talk about. But it's a straw man to imply that anyone who is okay with businesses making money is somehow in their pockets.

the homebrew i have seen looks equaly as clean as the diesel from the bowser

But how do you know the fuel is "equaly as clean"? Because it looks clean? Glycerine (a component of making biodiesel) is clear. How do you propose to see if there's too much in a batch? Visually inspect for a clear liquid? Or sample frequently to make sure it meets independently-established chemical standards -- or, at the very least, the standards of the company making the engine in which the fuel will be used?

Would you allow a surgeon to operate on you after (s)he dropped the instruments on the floor? They might look clean after that. But how would you know they are clean? Would you want to take that chance?

I have a full-time job/career. I care for an elderly mother and an infirm relative. I would like to have some semblance of a life in the remaining hours of my days. I don't have time to homebrew my own fuel any more than I have the time to grow my own wheat, mill it, and bake bread with it. I also don't have the kind of budget that allows me to spend lots of money on fancy production setups or on the continual analysis which will prove to me that what I'm stuffing into the tank of my vehicle will not harm it in the long run. Muffing the motor of my sole vehicle doesn't have any "green" fixes.

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to prove, len, but you're ignoring my point. And, in declaring profit from a business "evil", you are setting up an argument that you cannot win -- unless you live in a hut, like Theodore Kaczynski or Henry Thoreau.