This thing sells for $5,000!
I was shocked to learn that some friends' 1982 Mercedes station wagon could sell for nearly $5,000. This thing is so old, the glove box has a manually operated latch. The trick is that it's a diesel that's undergone a simple conversion to run on biodiesel. My friends are looking at upgrading to a 2006 Volkswagon Jetta TDI, which they say is a good deal at $14,000. The non-diesel 2005 Jetta goes for just $9,500. Diesel vehicles also last much longer, so they're a really good investment. And driving with zero [net carbon] emissions? Priceless.
Wow, I am surprised to see that a biodiesel conversion adds so much to the value of a used vehicle. Many of our readers already know this, I imagine, since they are also running biodiesel in their cares and trucks.
Photo of palm oil fruit from: http://ecoworldly.com/2008/01/15/asias-biodiesel-dilemma/
"We will plant palm trees here and convert palm oil into biodiesel. The one-million-hecatre palm plantation will eventually provide thousands of jobs for the local Congolese people," Zhang said.
ZTE, an IT company from China, is expanding to the biodiesel sector to diversify its operations. The regional manager said that weather conditions in the DR Congo is very suitable for growing palm trees, which are cultivated for palm oil. "Indonesia and Malaysia are traditionally major producers of palm oil, but after research we found that weather conditions herein the DR Congo is also very suitable for growing palm trees," he said.
Here is a story that tells us China is very serious about producing biodiesel from Congolese palm oil, a place where this is not currently done. China looks like a coming force to be dealt with in the biodiesel industry.
Photo of jatropha seeds from: http://www.treeoilsindia.com/products.htm
Bio-diesel companies are demanding a higher price than the government-mandated price for their product. Bio-diesel allows oil marketing companies (OMCs) to sell blended diesel. Cleancities Biodiesel, a Hyderabad-based company, with production capacity of 250,000 tonnes of bio-diesel at its Visakhapatnam plant, is in talks with a public sector OMC to supply 5 million litres of bio-diesel, but the deal is stuck on price.
Cleancities is seeking a significantly higher price than Rs 26.50 per litre fixed by the government in its biofuel policy. OMCs cannot enter a purchase agreement at higher than govt-mandated prices.
“At the current price of Rs 26.50 a litre, we are not even able to cover the raw material cost. We are not in a position to supply at an ex-factory price less than Rs 32 a litre,” said Srinivas Prasad Moturi, chairman and CEO. He said OMCs should buy at a price which is market-determined, the way they buy crude oil.
Here we see a major biodiesel manufacturer in India fighting back against government-mandated biodiesel prices. Does the biodiesel industry learn how to fight from India? I hope so.
Sounds like an awesome band name, but chocolate biodiesel is in fact what one vehicle ran on, in a 4-week trek from the UK to Timbuktu. A group known as BioTruck modded a 1989 Ford Iveco Cargo to run entirely by biodiesel made from chocolate -- specifically, discarded "waste chocolate" (*snort*) from a manufacturer. Photo of truck from: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/04/chocolate-biodiesel.html
Biodiesel is a controversial area of energy sourcing. Many believe it is a poor choice for breaking human dependence on carbon-based fuels, since it is essentially, yet another way of burning carbon to produce energy. But others say it is a healthy, incremental step, which can burn cleaner than petroleum fuels and will help diversify the scope of recycling and related inputs to the energy economy. Now chocolate is making its way into the biodiesel game.
If waste cooking oil makes your exhaust smell like frenchfries, does biodiesel make from waste chocolate smell like a Snicker’s bar? Hopefully, we will get to smell it for ourselves someday.