Here are some links: http://www.cooplife.com/startcoop.htm http://web.uvic.ca/bcics/store/manual/ http://www.agecon.uga.edu/~gacoops/info10.htm http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/homestead/Countryside/Wcc7729cf1292d.htm http://www.agecon.uga.edu/~gacoops/coopinfo.htm http://www.coop.org/welcome.htm
And this one in your neighborhood: http://www.icos.ie/content/content.asp?section_id=289 http://www.saos.co.uk/Co-operation/about_co-operation1.htm http://www.co-op.co.uk/index.html There are tons of links, just need to research them ..... ;-) James Slayden On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, martin.brook wrote: > I wondered how official your cooperative is and do you have a formal > constitution? I aam thinking of setting up a coop in the U.K. but all the > standard constitutions seem too "stiff", do you mind telling me how yours > works and is it reasonbly stable or is there lots of grumbling going on? > Martin, Biofuel. org .U.K.Ltd > ----- Original Message ----- > From: girl mark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <biofuels-biz@yahoogroups.com>; > <biofuel@yahoogroups.com>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 6:48 AM > Subject: [biofuels-biz] Bubble Drying and drying questions in general > > > > Apologies to those on multiple lists for all the cross-posting. > > > > I spammed a couple of the biofuel-related lists last week with some > > complaints about trying to make biodiesel in the midst of some dramatic > > local weather. We got the first real winter storm, serious rain- the > > Northern California version of winter is lots of rain and 60F. Not too > much > > to complain about considering I've lived in Leningrad and in New York. > But > > this weekend I wasn't too happy about the timing: my biodiesel > equipment > is > > all outside, and I had a lot of fuel that I had JUST finished washing, > and > > it was time to let it 'dry' or 'settle'. But the weather out there was > > pounding down rain (the remnants of a Typhoon that hit Guam a few days > > earlier, it turns out). > > > > I'd just recently found some info, re-reading a couple of the the U of > > Idaho biodiesel reports, about bubble drying fuel. It somehow didn't > make > > it into common homebrewers' practice, everyone I've talked to said, > yeah, > I > > remember reading that, but I didn't think about applying it to my > > situation. So I tried it out under the worst possible conditions- ran > a > > bubblestone into a tank of hazy biodiesel that was carefully swathed in > > tarps (therefore no real opportunity for the moisture in the biodiesel > to > > excape outside the now-closed tank)- and ran some severely humid air > > through it. > > > > People have different techniques and theories about 'drying' biodiesel > > after washing. Some people leave it in an open container, and claim > that > it > > clears up any water haze in anything from a day to a week. It sounds to > me > > that the people doing this live in dry regions. We don't. > > > > Others (like Aleks Kac' published acid-base two-stage directions) say > to > > let fuel settle for three weeks or so until it clears water haze. > > > > Other options include heating it to drive off water. There are some > > problems with this- among them, the fact that the MSDS for biodiesel > says > > that biodiesel fumes are not harmful to health- unless heated. I was > > prepared to do this as I really needed some finished fuel, but I feel > like > > it's not something to take lightly, besides the obvious unnecessary > energy > > input. > > > > At our biodiesel coop, we do the 'settling' technique after washing > fuel. > > Sometimes it takes 10 days, but quite often it is still hazy after that > point. > > I was getting frustrated about having all of these drums of settling > fuel > > sitting around at the co-op, taking up storage space, not clearing in > the > > humid weather. It was the bottleneck that was messing up fuel > production > > capacity- we store fuel to settle before washing, then we wash for > three > > days and then we store it some more. And this is a 12' x 8' space in > which > > we are trying to produce fuel for about 15-25 drivers (not very > > successfully). Sheesh. Seems like a common problem for small-scale > homebrewers. > > > > So back to the wet weather bubbledrying- it worked to clear haze in > that > > fuel, humid air and all. The 'technique' is to chuck an airstone into a > > tank of hazy fuel, and bubble for 24-????? hours. It doesn't seem to > make > a > > really HUGE difference how much fuel you're working with- around here > (in > > the humidity) Kenneth Kron cleared 3 gallons in 12+ hours, Mr.Biosmell > > cleared 55 gallons in similar conditions of humidity in under 24 hours, > > which seems about average for the several experiments with this so far > > (though in Nevada, Rainer Busch dried some fuel this way in 2-3 hours, > in > > the dry desert air)... In the storm, buried under a thick lid of > plastic > > tarp, my Wet Air treatment seemed to clear up a drum of hazy fuel in > > something like two days. (I didn't check after the first 24- I > eventually > > got sick of wading outside to see whether the entire site was going to > go > > airborne or to float away in the storm, and of babysitting the flapping > > tarps at my house. I threw a bunch of wood on top of the tarps to hold > them > > down against all the wind, and ran away to the boyfriend's house where > I > > could observe the storm from the comfort of a decadent California hot > tub > > where I still spent too much time worrying that my biodiesel site was > > floating away). > > > > 48 hours into the bubbledry I got back home to some clear fuel and > more > > cloudy skies. > > > > Some thoughts and questions: > > > > So the big question for me is, does clearing fuel 'haze' actually > remove > > water content? Most homebrewers consider 'clear' fuel to be dry fuel. > three > > weeks of settling will do this. The drylands(?) Infopop people say > that > > 'letting it sit outside in open drums exposed to drying breezes' does > this > > in 24 hours to a week. > > > > After prolonged settling, there will also be various crud at the > bottom > > of the settling tank, and often some hazy fuel near the bottom of the > > settling tank. I haven't observed it closely enough to see if there's > also > > visible free water. > > > > My local chemist friend Rainer confirmed (??) that the amount of > interface > > between air, and the water content of the biodiesel would be much > greater > > with bubbling than with just blowing air over the surface (which is > > something two or three people on the Maui/infopop site advocate cause > it > > works for them in their climate). But it doesn't entirely make sense to > me > > that bubbling the severely HUMID air through would do much for > evaporating > > away water. > > > > Also, it seems to me that in 'settling' fuel to clear it, it takes > > different amounts of time for different batches to clear. Obviously you > > can't account for things like ambient air humidity if these different > > batches were settling at different times. But what I've asked on these > > lists before is, is there some other chemical mechanism at work in > making > > some of these batches clear quicker than others? I think I've heard > people > > say that inadequate washing (ie there's still soaps or catalyst in the > > fuel) can lead to persistent fuel haze, but I don't remember where this > > came from exactly. It does make sense that residual soaps would bind > water > > somehow. > > I suppose the test would be like that for water content in oil: to > bring > > a weighed sample to the boiling point of water for a while, then weigh > it > > again and see how much disappeared. I did get a hazy sample for a > reference > > before starting the entire operation. Those of you with lab equipment > might > > have access to a better way to do this (moisture meter). If I do this, > I'll > > post something later. > > > > Mark the longwinded > > > > > > > > > > > > t > > > > > > Biofuels at Journey to Forever > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuel at WebConX > > http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm > > List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: > > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > > > > > Biofuels at Journey to Forever > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > Biofuel at WebConX > http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm > List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
