Interesting, I did a search on this entire forum on "hermetia" and it didn't show up even once! :) With all this talk of algae, I am aware of something along similar lines which is much simpler. Well, it seems I'm introducing something new to this board. Not necessarily "better" than algae but it just has to be mentioned on here by someone!! ;) Has anyone heard of Hermetia? Ahem, Ecogenics etc, you guys might be interested in this is you haven't tried it yet. Black soldier fly larvae are currently being used to treat a wide variety of organic wastes including food wastes and manure. They are aggressive consumers of organic waste, outcompeting all other organisms when they are introduced. 95% reduction of pig manure has been reported, CHECK THIS OUT: They self harvest themselves at maturity by crawling up a ramp out of the compost bin and into a bucket. Now that is astounding. Much easier to implement than mechanical harvesting manure fed algae ;) They are extremely easy to raise, requiring no specialized knowledge to speak of, the system is about as simple as anyone could ask for, and provides for a decent end product that can be used as an aquaculture/livestock feed, and yes, with some lipid extraction equipment biodiesel is very feasible and is has been discussed, albeit it seems to be very low profile, attracting even less attention than algae despite the relative ease of implementation vs algae. These critters are naturally 35% oil by weight, I don't know a lot about extraction process is but I am assuming it would be the same as rendering/centriguging fat from any other type of animal matter, or they could be dried and pressed. There is a small group of passionate individuals working on making this a commercial reality, though they are not focusing on biodiesel, they are focusing on the waste reduction and animal feed aspect. Here's a company which is commercializing simple, inexpensive bins to digest waste using these organisms. http://esrbio.com/ Check out this discussion board. http://segate.sunet.se/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind04&L=et-jizo&H=1&O=D&P=19810 PDF Presentation: http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/ele/awi_2000/particip/oliver.pdf Very interesting stuff. I can't wait for more talented people get interested in this as well as algae. Want more info? Google "hermetia" and/or "black soldier fly"

that's even weirder than the turkey-gut processor, i like it! ******* constituency of one

this was discussed late last summer, also in the context of waste to fat, also spiked with glycerin, I remember girl MArk among the posts

Maybe the "black soldier fly" will be the next "Worm Farm?" As kid I remember reading "Boy's Life Magazine" and seeing the 'make money with a worm farm' advertising. Does anyone remember it? Every issue seemed to have an advertisement that marketed a Worm Farm business plan to young kids. Raising Black Soldier Flies for biodiesel would seem to be kin to raising worms? (spotted a [url="http://www.boyslife.org/workshop/worms.pdf"]PDF[/url] that is now just given away through the BoysLife.org website.) I never became a 'worm farmer,' but recall that several of us pooled our nickels to buy a set of 'x-ray glasses!' [:D]

Aha! Yep,I found it with a little more searching "Gettin' buggy for biodiesel" ;) My bad ;)

good reminder though. compared to algae, it's a biomass converter. Algae's advantage is it's up to 10% efficient at coverting Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) to biomass, 5X or so better than land plants. And I think you get that when you feed them CO2. Who'd have thought transport cost that much.

I did some reading on this subject. It seems the only place it's economical is where they are factory farming pigs, chickens or cows. In other words some place that packs the animals in tight. Not the environmentally friendly organic farm. Only then is the manure sufficently concentrated to do it economically. The guy at the university of georgia said that a typical georgia hog farm could expect to raise 58 tons of larva a year. They are 45% protein and 35% oil. Sold whole and alive they are worth about $500/ton as animal food. Lets see.. after squeezing a ton of the things you get 700 lbs or about 90 gallons of oil. That would make about $320 worth of biodiesel. So why would you make $320 worth of biodiesel out of $500 worth of magots? It is a neat idea, but it dont pass either the environmentally friendly test or the profitability test. Rick-da-Tech www.kitchen-biodiesel.com

one of the technologies that ecogenics works with extensivwely is vermiculture, we have grown BSF and are quite excited with the potential there are other grubs that can provide fats also ,some pretty big ones with even more fat. BSF can be used for bioremediation of putrecent municipal waste streams as well as a means of vermicomposting. at this time however ,we are more involved in vermicomposting with earth worms in fact ALL THE FOOD WASTE HERE IS PROCESSED BY WORMS also including paper, shredded office paper and newspapers, also ,even coffee filters and as those of you atrtending our seminars will see there is absolutly no odor and the worm bins are in the kitchen... P.J. nicely, vice pres of ecogenics is the vermiculture expert as well as our herbal expert.here, we process our wastes a combination of vermiculture and algae culture, both the worm tea and castings as well as the offal remaining when we harvest our tilapia as well as some of our algae are ingredients in our "tillies emerald green emulsion fertiliser" which is one of our value added products. I agree that buying BSF larvae to make biodiesel is expensive as a stand alone feedstock very much like buying any biodiesel feedstock makes for a very narrow profit margin.... however when bsf is used as part of the cascading stream of value added products ,the economics favor the grower-alternative fuel producer in the closed loop scenario. we discussed BSF some time ago here atBDNaround the time girl mark brought it up in one of her posts. the BSF is not considered a pest fly in fact they kill housefly larvae so they also help us in that matter of insect pest control. when done properly ,in the right scenario raising BSF IS very environmentally friendly . Marc Orion Cardoso

I agree that it doesn't make much sense to produce biodiesel from a product that has higher value as an animal feed, a business running such an operation would always be best to choose the most profitable end use of course. It's just another one of those off the wall ideas that gets you thinking outside the box. I'm interested in the practical application of hermetia at a very small scale for non-biodiesel purposes. It should be useful in some niche areas simply as an environmentally friendly method of waste disposal where composting/digestion is impractical, there are some organics which are not recommended for composting and are too small scale for anaerobic digestion: i.e. high protein wastes such as meat scraps, dog poop, etc.

no meat and no grease in a composting system ....no human or dog poop either but those can be run through a anaerobic methane digestor. the ideal ios to hasve all the systems integrated.. creating food fuel and fertiliser Marc Orion Cardoso

Matt_P, When I was a kid, we burried that stuff you don't want to compost several feet deep in the fallow part of the garden where the weeds grew. It was deep enough to keep the varmits from digging it up and would decompose over time in an anaerobic manner. Rick-da-Tech www.kitchen-biodiesel.com

When I was in Iowa, Jon VanGerpen mentioned this. They did a limited test and found the FFA level to be near a 100%. Gary T

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Originally posted by GarytHunter
When I was in Iowa, Jon VanGerpen mentioned this. They did a limited test and found the FFA level to be near a 100%. Gary T

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Jon Van Gerpen had a sapmle that he had some students working on at the Becon center (Iowa State University) where they hold the Biodiesel workshop. Not sure if they did any further research.

I think Dr Van Gerpen mentioned that it was mishandled, though (which would explain the high FFA), or maybe one of his graduate students at the time who I was talking to speculated that was the reason, I don't remember who. Mark Biodiesel Homebrew Guide: Everything You Need To Know To Make Quality Alternative Diesel Fuel From Restaurant Fryer Oil www.localb100.com/book.html ********

Where in north america are you going to get 30C weather more then a few weeks a year ? Should work great in Mexico . Even today in Vancouver BC just north of Seatle the temp was only 19C a very nice day on the coast and they need above 21C Terry

I build a fiberglass tank 4in deepx 8 ft x16 ft ft for someone that is trying mosquito larvae he said that they where 35%oil and he made a qt of Bio diesel from them last year kiss the best way

Terry, If you look at a map you will see that Vancouver BC is at 49 deg N. The don't call Canada the Great White becasue of the sandy beaches and tropical summers. Looking South of Canada You will see the United States. The US streaches from 47 deg N to 25 deg N and encompases a wide range of climates from temperate to tropical. There are places in the US that have temperatures above 30C for more than a few weeks. Enough of 3rd grade geography, BFS are native to about 1/3 of the US. Like Marc said, they are used in the US as an important link in the chain of sustainable agriculture and have many benifits. It's just the grubs are worth more as animal food than biodiesel. They play an important roll in helping to make high density factory farms a little greener. Rick-da-Tech www.kitchen-biodiesel.com

Apparently when contained in the right type of bin, they generate their own heat, enough to keep it at their required temp. All you need is a little bit of insulation, and a reliable supply of eggs.

as garbage decomposes. it puts out heat, up to 149 F in compost.... one can even heat water by putting a water heater tank in the middle of a round straw bale and wetting the bale thoroughly the bale will begin to decompose and as it does, it will heat the water. in a putrescent garbage pile the seam heat of decomposition will keep the BSF nice and warm in the winter.. Marc Orion Cardoso

Just a question from an ignorant person - me - why would you have to continuously re-buy the BSF larvae? Why would you just let them breed them on-site? Thanks, Wes