I apolgize if I came across as an attack to call it junk. I called it that since my assumption was that if it was sewered.. it was junk.
I just am wondering what most people would do. I like a decentralized fuel system, but not with many people just dumping waste. It would defeat the purpose. A few people might be ok to dump some of that stuff. But a whole lot would be bad. If one or two guys just dumps vegetable oil down their street sewer, it could be small enough of a problem, but if everyone in town did it at the same time.. it would be a mess. A little nitrogen in the water. manageable.. alot.. bad. algae plumes and dead zones.. etc. I understand that it can be ok.. but most people arent dumping a barrel full of drain cleaner down.. It would get worse if even more people did it in the same area. I was just wondering. what the wastes were and what people did with it. I was hoping that some people or companies actually wanted some of the wastes. ie: i had heard that you might be able to sell your glycerin to companies..etc. ------------------------------------ Message: 21 Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 19:58:58 -0800 From: Ken Provost <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: doing with the wastes David Crabb writes: >Sewer it? I hope that is not bad. what is everyone doing >with the leftovers of processing? > >If you are dumping a bunch of leftover junk, then it kind of >takes away from the green feeling of driving on biofuels, >i think. > >Is the process that makes commerical grade glycerine too >hard/expensive for most home brewers? The "junk" as you call it, is composed primarily of three things -- leftover(ie, excess) methanol or ethanol, glycerol, soap, water, and alkali (NaOH or KOH). Methanol, ethanol, glycerol, and soap are all entirely biodegradable over a very short timespan. The alkali can be sewered in urban areas to the same extent as any drain cleaner. If that is bothersome to you, it can easily be neutralized to NaCl or KCl using hydro- chloric acid. I personally have no qualms with any of that, and I consider myself fairly "anal" about what I put down the drain. This is why I'm particularly focussed on the gasoline denat- urant used in fuel-grade ethanol. It's the one component which is truly nasty.... As for purifying glycerol -- yes, it is beyond the capabilities of most garage-scale producers, including me...... -K Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
