Yes, Keith, I really, really do want the design and specifications
for a complete solution that includes an appropriate washing
tank...and also a condenser. I am using the word "solution" in the
marketing sense.
The FuelMeister may be both a poor fuel processor and a poor consumer
value, but in an unemotional marketplace it is simply filling a void
for a complete solution that requires no mechanical or design skills,
scavenging, or sourcing to acquire and set up. In this country there
are many people of conscience who could be attracted to processing
their own biodiesel. If some percentage of those people purchase the
FuelMeister out of ignorance and subsequently damage their vehicles
with its poor quality results, how will that affect the biofuel
movement in this country?
You're right about extreme thinking. It's not about either you buy a
lousy FuelMeister OR you spend a lot of time doing research, piece
together a custom designed processor out of scavenged parts, and
spend time tweaking it until you get it right. I'm not recommending
that you abandon the approach you are using on JtoF, I'm suggesting
it makes sense to explore a supplement: in addition to the library of
examples you currently offer, provide plans, specs, and sources for a
series of generic D-I-Y (do-it-yourself) processors.
The spectrum of processor possibilities in the marketplace could then include:
- Customized D-I-Y designs
- Select an approximate design for each component or sub-system
- Customize each design to accommodate locally available parts
- Acquire the parts (scavenge most at a variety of sources)
- Assemble the processor
- Standard D-I-Y designs for a complete solution
- Select the appropriate set of plans
- Acquire the parts (scavenge some or purchase most at a
variety of sources)
- Assemble the processor
- Packaged D-I-Y kits for a complete solution (the FuelMeister and others)
- Acquire all the parts you need at once with a single purchase
- Assemble it
If some of us could work together to provide the Standard D-I-Y,
everybody would be happy. As you point out, it's about empowerment.
For some people, empowerment is about controlling the whole thing:
the mechanics, the chemistry, and the results. For those people, a
library of designs that accommodate local needs and parts
availability is ideal.
For other people, empowerment is focused on the result...the ability,
in a society where it is challenging to do without one, to drive a
car that doesn't consume fossil fuel or contribute to wars of
aggression. For these people and me (I also have a sincere desire to
remake my life to be compatible with the sustainability described in
the Earth Charter [http://www.earthcharter.org]), a choice of D-I-Y
solutions sized by output capacity is ideal. And it would help to
prevent people from making the mistake of purchasing a packaged
solution that produces poor results.
My professional expertise is in instructional design...figuring out
how to teach people how to do things they don't know how to do and,
in some cases, don't want to do. I am seriously offering my services
to help develop the documentation to support the Middle Way
solutions. The end-user population that would be interested in the
Tiny Tot Easy-Fuel, Junior Easy-Fuel, or Senior Easy-Fuel solutions
will need accompanying set-up and processing instructions.
Finally, I sincerely thank you, Keith, for giving so much attention
to what I ask and what I say. There's literally no one else in the
world who bothers to pay that much attention to me. When I come to
Japan two years from now, I hope to meet you and thank you in person
for the important work you do.
Maud
St. Louis, Missouri
>Yes, Maud, but do you really, really seriously, require a design and
>specifications for a washing tank???
>
> From your previous:
>
>>it needs an associated washing system. Could Mark's
>>posting of Sean Davis' stand-pipe system be an appropriate companion
> >for the $150 Fumeless?
>>
>>http://www.veggieavenger.com/avengerboard/viewtopic.php?t=332&view=pr
>>evious&sid=a09397e0e325291fa2943e830a4151a0
>>
>>Or should it be even simpler?
>
>The main point about the stand-pipe tank is the stand-pipe, which can
>be comprehended at a glance. Neat and useful, but hardly obligatory
>(we use such a standpipe in the WVO tank to separate the crud, though
>actually we don't get any crud these days, good sources). Why would
>anyone need plans for a wash-tank? Good resources on technique, sure,
>why's and wherefore's, do's and don't's, that's all readily to hand,
>but a tank? Anything will do. Our first wash-tank was a plastic
>garbage bin. We softened a bit of the bottom near the edge with a
>lighter, cut a hole in it with a cutting knife, melted the edges a
>bit more and set a valve into the hole then let the plastic cool and
>set round the valve, secured it with epoxy putty, covered the putty
>with silicon, then wired the bin firmly on top of a defunct
>steel-pipe four-legged stool with the seat missing, just high enough
>to get a 20-litre pail under the valve, bent two of the legs slightly
>so it inclines forward towards the drain, and taped an aquarium pump
>to the lid. It worked perfectly well. We're still using it as a
>glyc-settling tank.
>
>>For neophytes you would have to specify how to integrate the
>>two...some kind of plumbing and pump to move the fuel from one to the
>>other.
>
>Or just drain and fill with 20-litre oil cans until you figure out
>something better. Four bucketsful once a month, in your case?
>
>>Now, to provide a complete solution that can compete with the
>>Fuelmeister,
>
>I think the Fuelmeister is an object of derision, not any sort of
>standard which has to be bettered. Any and all processors at our site
>do that in every way but one - they're not ready-mades.
>
>You can, if you like, pay US$150,000-450,000 for a more sophisticated
>piece of junk than the Fuelmeister that has just that kind of
>approach in mind - like a washing-machine, just pour some stuff in
>the top, flip some switches and go shopping while it does everything
>for you, very convenient. These are the "processors" you find here in
>Japan. Well, they're what's sold here by a few companies, you'd have
>to look quite hard to actually find one, and even harder to find one
>that's actually being used. Couple of problems with them though...
>One is that they make sub-spec fuel - I have some of it here, murky
>stuff that'll never settle clear, poor conversion, very inadequately
>washed, and they only make 100 litres a day max. (20 gallons), and
>that only from virgin oil or the very best quality WVO, maybe the top
>5% of the WVO stream. This is another:
>
>>list, and sources). And we must also find ways to make processing
>>biodiesel as simple and mindless as it is to do a load of laundry.
>>Only then will more of the very people who squander the majority of
>>the world's natural resources (yes, my compatriots) will feel able
>>and willing to process their own biodiesel and use it as their
>>primary fuel.
>
>Up to now biodiesel has been exactly nowhere in Japan. Only now is it
>slowly starting to emerge from the dark, and that's in spite of these
>processor companies, not because of them - it's apparently partly or
>largely because of us, the JtF approach to it, NOT the "laundry"
>approach. Mainly because of our Japanese website (lots of visitors!),
>the Japanese Biofuel mailing list, and the seminars we run every
>month (which bring people from all over Japan). Now people are making
>their own biodiesel, and the main message they're getting is that
>it's the process that matters, NOT the processor, and the process is
>free. That we can and do make high-quality fuel with processors that
>cost exactly nothing, and that we're NOT technicians of any kind, is
>exactly what seems to count most in encouraging people to try it
>themselves.
>
>This is the essential step - it has to do with empowerment (some say
>the revelation that you can make your own fuel is at least as
>important as making it), not just consumerism. IMO this is the only
>way that a critical threshold-level of awareness and demand can be
>created for the quite profound changes required to have a chance of
>taking place - and that's NOT just replacing fossil-fuel use with
>biofuel use. With those changes, sustainable biofuels use -
>sustainable energy use generally - becomes generally available at the
>consumer level. It's happening, rather fast I think.
>
>Another previous message of yours:
>
>>That's just the problem...it's not that there's not enough
>>information, it's that there's too much!
>
>Too much information? What could that mean? There ain't no
>one-size-fits-all, people's circumstances and needs differ. Now if
>the information available covers a range of choices (it does), is
>reliable (it is), and isn't contradictory (it isn't), then "too much
>information" can only mean you're looking for a different *kind* of
>information.
>
>>That's why a solution would be so nice...one well-designed choice
>>that's proven and predictable. After building confidence through
>>experience, scaling up or developing a more customized or complex
>>processor will undoubtedly seem like a piece o' cake.
>
>Or a loaf of bread or a dish of tofu. (Yes, I also make those things
>from scratch, which has included growing the wheat and the soybeans,
>also from scratch, and nobody had to teach me farming either, nor
>cooking.) Maud, there's a whole world between the two extremes of
>having to be a rocket scientist and just flipping a switch, "simple
>and mindless", and that's where biodiesel is at now. You could buy it
>from a Big Soy producer or you could buy a Fuelmeister, but it seems
>neither will guarantee you good fuel, and neither will change
>anything. And if you don't want to change anything, then why use
>biodiesel? Changing things is never easy. Yet making biodiesel IS
>easy. So is making a processor.
>
>Best
>
>Keith
>
>
>>Among other things, I can make bread and tofu from scratch. In fact,
>>tomorrow morning I'm going to bake special rolls for the American
>>holiday Thanksgiving.
>>
>>Fortunately, before I start baking tomorrow morning I don't have to
>>figure out how to design a Yeasted Roll Processor that will later
>>scale up to a Loaf of Bread Processor. I don't have to research
>>sources of the flour and yeast I need, nor pay hazmat charges for
>>shipping these raw ingredients, nor fake an industrial address
>>because they can't be shipped to a residence. I can store my
>>ingredients and my Yeasted Roll Processor safely in my home rather
>>than in a locked outbuilding. And when I pull my rolls out of the
>>Yeasted Roll Processor, I will be able to inhale the fumes both
>>safely and with pleasure.
>>
>>Before I leave the house tomorrow to take my freshly baked rolls over
>>to my family dinner, I will probably start another chemical process
>>before I go...and let it proceed unmonitored! Yes, I will toss a load
>>in the Laundry Processor, measure in the chemicals without bothering
>>to get out my triple beam balance, and start it up as I leave the
>>house. By the time I get home my clothes will have been washed,
>>rinsed, and wrung out. And I won't have to distill the alcohol out of
>>the rinse water or find a sustainable way to dispose of an unwanted
>>byproduct.
>>
>>Just like baking bread and making tofu, processing biodiesel is easy
>>and fun for some. But that doesn't mean that it isn't alien,
>>complicated, and intimidating to others.
>>
>>Until the day arrives that we can go to any appliance store to
>>purchase the Biodiesel Processor that meets our family's needs, we
>>must work together to figure out how to make it as easy as possible
>>to build a one that is as safe and efficient as a washing machine in
>>a matter of hours (which means providing a standard design, parts
>>list, and sources). And we must also find ways to make processing
>>biodiesel as simple and mindless as it is to do a load of laundry.
>>Only then will more of the very people who squander the majority of
>>the world's natural resources (yes, my compatriots) will feel able
>>and willing to process their own biodiesel and use it as their
>>primary fuel.
>>
>>Maud
>>St. Louis, Missouri
>>
>>
>>Quinn said:
>><snip>
>>
>> > >No, Keith, you don't have to be a rocket scientist. But I bet it would
> > >>help. ; )
>>
>>Keith said:
>>
>> >I bet it wouldn't. More likely it'd be largely or entirely
>> >superfluous, perhaps even a hindrance - this is Appropriate
>> >Technology stuff, KISS, which rocket science isn't too good at. Would
>> >it help a whole lot in figuring how to clean up the wash-water in a
>> >simple greywater system? Or rigging a washing tank from a 55-gal drum
>> >or a plastic garbage bucket or defunct washing machine whatever you
>> >happen to find lying about the place? This stuff isn't much more
>> >complicated than baking bread, if any. I'm a journalist, not a
>> >techie, I don't have any technical training of any kind, I think the
>><snip>
>
>
>
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