Kalifornistan, CO2, clueless politicians, climate hustle

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

You have brought up a very good direction a hybrid driven propane car. With that being said it would still be quite expensive to the average Joe..Yet quite attractive to the mid level buyer, in the Auto business there are two types of customers..A wants buyer and a needs buyer, to that point i feel it quite safe to say 70% of the market are needs buyers.

Needs Buyer: Financial constraints.

I think that most people spend twice as much as they need to for their cars and that much of their motivation is prideful self image. If my cars get a bad dent, I fix it and might get an insurance rate hike and pay the deductible. Most people do. The car will run as well with the dent. A very small car is much cheaper to operate and has enough room for five people of normal size. They get twice the mpg as a large vehicle but are not as popular. We ended up with a large van, a minivan, and a very high mpg small car. We are are driving the smallest car around town. The minivan on short trips and the big van around the country. We should probably trade it for another minivan eventually. 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

23 hours ago, NickW said:

That Neste Oil from what I have read is made out of Palm Oil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neste

If we are forgoing conventional diesel lets just skip straight to EV's for light vehicles and CNG - Hybrid systems for trucks and buses. 

Neste oil is made from palm oil because the european union loves stupid laws and puts a higher tax bracket on oil and gas than on vegetable oil, but the process is adaptable to use various other feedstocks, while is technically made from palm oil it doesn't contain any compound from vegetable oil

On 10/2/2020 at 2:36 PM, ronwagn said:

Sebastian,thank you for that. What is the availability and price? Is the feedstock plentiful enough?

You can use any feedstock that you wan't, natural gas costs how much? 200U$D a metric ton? you can also use coal and hydrogen, or hydrogen and captured Co2, with Natural gas at 4U$D is possible to produce let's say that making a Metric ton of diesel from natural would cost you around 400U$D incluiding feedstock, that is 0.3U$D a liter or 1.13 U$D a gallon, less than half current price, 1.5U$D a gallon counting taxes and maybe profit

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

Neste oil is made from palm oil because the european union loves stupid laws and puts a higher tax bracket on oil and gas than on vegetable oil, but the process is adaptable to use various other feedstocks, while is technically made from palm oil it doesn't contain any compound from vegetable oil

You can use any feedstock that you wan't, natural gas costs how much? 200U$D a metric ton? you can also use coal and hydrogen, or hydrogen and captured Co2, with Natural gas at 4U$D is possible to produce let's say that making a Metric ton of diesel from natural would cost you around 400U$D incluiding feedstock, that is 0.3U$D a liter or 1.13 U$D a gallon, less than half current price, 1.5U$D a gallon counting taxes and maybe profit

But is anyone planning on marketing it? Canola oil might work and is cheap right now. The retail price point is vital. Diesel is cheap and looks to stay that way. Maybe California would mandate it eventually. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

9 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

But is anyone planning on marketing it? Canola oil might work and is cheap right now. The retail price point is vital. Diesel is cheap and looks to stay that way. Maybe California would mandate it eventually. 

I intend to manufacture diesel from canola oil.  Looks like a big winner. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I intend to manufacture diesel from canola oil.  Looks like a big winner. 

Good luck. Find some companies that want to green their marketing. Maybe special signs on their trucks etc. 

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I intend to manufacture diesel from canola oil.  Looks like a big winner. 

I recall the economics of producing diesel from Canola and other vegetable sources are madhouse territory. Something like 1.3 tonnes per hectare. 

No problem with waste vegetable oil being converted into fuel as it has limited other uses. Not considered healthy to use as feedstock for animals due to the build up of toxins. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

16 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Good luck. Find some companies that want to green their marketing. Maybe special signs on their trucks etc. 

The targeted user will be the snowplow trucks of the State of Vermont  (and by extension, various town trucks also). 

The reason is that those trucks can never be electrified.  They don't shut down for re-charge, they have to run constantly.  Thus, perfect market for liquid fuels. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, NickW said:

I recall the economics of producing diesel from Canola and other vegetable sources are madhouse territory. Something like 1.3 tonnes per hectare. 

No problem with waste vegetable oil being converted into fuel as it has limited other uses. Not considered healthy to use as feedstock for animals due to the build up of toxins. 

Not really.  You are implicitly making the mistake that all the output from the canola seed will be used only as fuel. 

The proper marketing of canola oil recognizes that different fractions of the product stream have different utilities and thus different value added.  When you segregate it all out, that liquid fuel component would be out there at about $1.10/gal (US).  Without doing anything else, it already is a higher cetane and a lower cost than conventional diesel manufactured from $40 crude.  You sell that to the State for their snowplow dump trucks, and mark that $1.10 up to whatever gives a decent return on the overall investment.  If you mark it up to say $1.60 then the State has a nice windfall and you make a nice tidy profit.  Everybody is ahead of the game.  Cheers. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

Not really.  You are implicitly making the mistake that all the output from the canola seed will be used only as fuel. 

The proper marketing of canola oil recognizes that different fractions of the product stream have different utilities and thus different value added.  When you segregate it all out, that liquid fuel component would be out there at about $1.10/gal (US).  Without doing anything else, it already is a higher cetane and a lower cost than conventional diesel manufactured from $40 crude.  You sell that to the State for their snowplow dump trucks, and mark that $1.10 up to whatever gives a decent return on the overall investment.  If you mark it up to say $1.60 then the State has a nice windfall and you make a nice tidy profit.  Everybody is ahead of the game.  Cheers. 

You are explicitly making the mistake that Oil refiners* don't extract every last drop of oil from the seed for vegetable oil production. This is why they use hexane to extract the oil. What is left is basically protein, carbohydrate and fibre which goes for animal feed. There is a little waste oil from the process and quality control rejects  but nothing that would support an alternative to conventional diesel program or other use. Thats why they use natural gas in their combined heat and power plant .

* Mrs W is a Chemical Engineer for one of the worlds largest processors of rape seed oil (Canola) in their oil refineries

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

15 minutes ago, NickW said:

This is why they use hexane to extract the oil

And that is why it cannot be sold as "pure" oil.  Now, the hexane extraction process removes all the usable oils, roughly 42% by weight of the seed, but there are minute, tiny trace amounts of that hexane left in there.  And that prevents the label of "pure," and thus the value added is excluded. 

If, instead, you used a mechanical crush method on the seed, then you would get some 23% of the oil.  That oil I would sell as "Pure Vermont Canola Oil."  the "Pure Vermont" label adds value.  Then the remainder gets the hexane wash, and that component becomes the diesel fuel.  the mash left over becomes cow feed for the Vermont dairy industry, displacing corn grown with added phosphorus and nitrogen that cause contamination of Lake Champlain and vast algae blooms, which the State is under orders from the EPA to clean up, at a cost of two billion dollars. 

What you do with that seed is exactly what crude-oil refiners do with the crude: you separate it into the best value-added streams.  The value added from the "Pure Vermont" label in effect cross-subsidizes the diesel.  And that's fine.  It all depends on what the final objectives are.  If your desire is to get cheap diesel, then selling the Pure Vermont at $24/gallon is a great way to obtain maximum value out of the seed. 

Run that logic by the wife, see what she says and report back. 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

18 hours ago, ronwagn said:

But is anyone planning on marketing it? Canola oil might work and is cheap right now. The retail price point is vital. Diesel is cheap and looks to stay that way. Maybe California would mandate it eventually. 

Neste does try to market it a lot in europe and other companies that do "blue-diesel" that is Hydrotreated, or hydrogenated vegetable oil, is like synthetic diesel that Shell makes but from veggie oil; neste and other companies sell the synthetic diesel and HVO that looks like milk, they don't market it to the general public because Gasoil or Diesel fuel is a niche fuel in north american passanger cars, Diesel in north america is consummed generally by marine, industrial and transport sectors that aren't very interesed in marketing tactics

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 hours ago, NickW said:

You are explicitly making the mistake that Oil refiners* don't extract every last drop of oil from the seed for vegetable oil production. This is why they use hexane to extract the oil. What is left is basically protein, carbohydrate and fibre which goes for animal feed. There is a little waste oil from the process and quality control rejects  but nothing that would support an alternative to conventional diesel program or other use. Thats why they use natural gas in their combined heat and power plant .

* Mrs W is a Chemical Engineer for one of the worlds largest processors of rape seed oil (Canola) in their oil refineries

The same is true of ethanol. Few realize that there is a great market for the part of the corn used as high protein feed. Only the carbs go to ethanol. Greens don't figure that into their arguments against it. It is the safest and best additive to gasoline for octane boost. I realize many gearheads hate it. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

4 hours ago, ronwagn said:

The same is true of ethanol. Few realize that there is a great market for the part of the corn used as high protein feed. Only the carbs go to ethanol. Greens don't figure that into their arguments against it. It is the safest and best additive to gasoline for octane boost. I realize many gearheads hate it. 

There are several issues with ethanol. Yes it increases octane and there's a whole class of dragsters that run on pure alcohol. However, it is hydrophilic and continuously sucks moisture out of the atmosphere. It also can't be pipelined like other fuel products, so must be inefficiently trucked and manually blended with gasoline. In addition it costs mileage in almost direct proportion to its percentage in the fuel tank. For instance if you fill up with 10% ethanol blend, your mileage will be 10% worse than if you'd filled up with pure gasoline of the same octane. I'm thinking this is Deja Vu, we've had the same discussion before. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 10/4/2020 at 7:35 PM, Jan van Eck said:

And that is why it cannot be sold as "pure" oil.  Now, the hexane extraction process removes all the usable oils, roughly 42% by weight of the seed, but there are minute, tiny trace amounts of that hexane left in there.  And that prevents the label of "pure," and thus the value added is excluded. 

If, instead, you used a mechanical crush method on the seed, then you would get some 23% of the oil.  That oil I would sell as "Pure Vermont Canola Oil."  the "Pure Vermont" label adds value.  Then the remainder gets the hexane wash, and that component becomes the diesel fuel.  the mash left over becomes cow feed for the Vermont dairy industry, displacing corn grown with added phosphorus and nitrogen that cause contamination of Lake Champlain and vast algae blooms, which the State is under orders from the EPA to clean up, at a cost of two billion dollars. 

What you do with that seed is exactly what crude-oil refiners do with the crude: you separate it into the best value-added streams.  The value added from the "Pure Vermont" label in effect cross-subsidizes the diesel.  And that's fine.  It all depends on what the final objectives are.  If your desire is to get cheap diesel, then selling the Pure Vermont at $24/gallon is a great way to obtain maximum value out of the seed. 

Run that logic by the wife, see what she says and report back. 

They already do both in series as there is a market for physical crush Canola. After those two stages there is nothing left and unless there is a tax fiddle biodiesel doesn't compete with conventional diesel

• physical crush first removing the  'pure oil' sold into the virgin oil premium market
• Then remove the rest using Hexane for frying chips at MCD's / filling crisp & dry bottles. 
• As you say the mash goes for animal feed

Try running the logic of getting the best value out of the whole manufacturing chain. 

retail in Walmart it sells at $1.98 for 1.3 litres as food.  How much is a litre of diesel in the USA minus taxes? 

BTW - lets not forget that a litre of Canola Oil is not a litre of diesel. You need to add methanol (which costs money) and then separate the diesel from the low value glycerine

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by NickW

[NickW + 2,714]

On 10/5/2020 at 5:38 AM, Ward Smith said:

There are several issues with ethanol. Yes it increases octane and there's a whole class of dragsters that run on pure alcohol. However, it is hydrophilic and continuously sucks moisture out of the atmosphere. It also can't be pipelined like other fuel products, so must be inefficiently trucked and manually blended with gasoline. In addition it costs mileage in almost direct proportion to its percentage in the fuel tank. For instance if you fill up with 10% ethanol blend, your mileage will be 10% worse than if you'd filled up with pure gasoline of the same octane. I'm thinking this is Deja Vu, we've had the same discussion before. 

I mainly see the value in ethanol as being a niche byproduct utilising waste sugar or other carbs rich food as the feed source. I am not a fan of using food grade products for producing fuel. We are exhausting the land and fertiliser sources, particularly Phosphates. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 10/5/2020 at 5:38 AM, Ward Smith said:

There are several issues with ethanol. Yes it increases octane and there's a whole class of dragsters that run on pure alcohol. However, it is hydrophilic and continuously sucks moisture out of the atmosphere. It also can't be pipelined like other fuel products, so must be inefficiently trucked and manually blended with gasoline. In addition it costs mileage in almost direct proportion to its percentage in the fuel tank. For instance if you fill up with 10% ethanol blend, your mileage will be 10% worse than if you'd filled up with pure gasoline of the same octane. I'm thinking this is Deja Vu, we've had the same discussion before. 

Thats not true - the Ethanol is not water and has Calorific value, about 2/3rd of conventional gasoline therefore 10% ethanol by volume won't cut fuel economy by 10%. 

My understanding is small quantities of ethanol, upto about 5% will slightly improve fuel economy due to improving the octane rating and then it falls off as the % increases because of the the lower calorific value 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, NickW said:

They already do both in series as there is a market for physical crush Canola. After those two stages there is nothing left and unless there is a tax fiddle biodiesel doesn't compete with conventional diesel

• physical crush first removing the  'pure oil' sold into the virgin oil premium market
• Then remove the rest using Hexane for frying chips at MCD's / filling crisp & dry bottles. 
• As you say the mash goes for animal feed

Try running the logic of getting the best value out of the whole manufacturing chain. 

retail in Walmart it sells at $1.98 for 1.3 litres as food.  How much is a litre of diesel in the USA minus taxes? 

BTW - lets not forget that a litre of Canola Oil is not a litre of diesel. You need to add methanol (which costs money) and then separate the diesel from the low value glycerine

And yet we have Holly Frontier closing their Cheyenne refinery switching to biodiesel, Total doing the same in France and now Phillips 66 I think in California. I've only looked closely at Holly because they were first to announce and loudly claimed 20-30% margins. Now as an investor in refineries I was very curious about this, given that most refiners operate on low single digit margins (like grocery stores). 

Turns out the margins are due to RINS (Renewable Identification Numbers). There's multiple classes of RIN and the highest value ones are associated with biodiesel. So they can sell a gallon of diesel for $2.50 and pocket $2-3 more in RIN sales. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how reality follows. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, NickW said:

Thats not true - the Ethanol is not water and has Calorific value, about 2/3rd of conventional gasoline therefore 10% ethanol by volume won't cut fuel economy by 10%. 

My understanding is small quantities of ethanol, upto about 5% will slightly improve fuel economy due to improving the octane rating and then it falls off as the % increases because of the the lower calorific value 

I'm going by my mileage. Sight exaggeration but close enough for government work. Significantly, and I'm too busy to look it up now, there's an FAA study about piston engine airplanes using ethanol fuels. Notwithstanding that all the hoses need to be replaced the same volume of fuel only carries you 60% of the distance you planned for. Aviation fuel is 100 octane so you'd think ethanol is great, but not so much. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, NickW said:

Try running the logic of getting the best value out of the whole manufacturing chain. 

retail in Walmart it sells at $1.98 for 1.3 litres as food.  How much is a litre of diesel in the USA minus taxes? 

The median IQ (intelligence quotient, a measure of inherent intelligence, more or less) is by definition 100, and then there are "tails" off that Bell Curve distribution for the very bright and the totally stupid.  One of the nice things about being totally stupid, as I am reminded by various posters here, is that I remain oblivious to all the obvious factors that will spell doom to anything I touch, including of course this canola oil project, notwithstanding that the (very small) pilot plant is already producing diesel fuel at a price below that of retail diesel.  I have been repeatedly reminded that, in addition to being totally stupid, I am, at least in accordance with the pronouncements of a certain Canadian apparently hiding out in Edmonton, totallly "senile,"  and of course have a remarkably minute, microscopic reproductive organ structure, and because that organ is so microscopic, am an involuntary celibate [an "incel," in Canadian argot], suffering from premature ejaculation and whatever else comes to mind.  That last part about being an Incel is particularly cruel as, readers herein will note, my wife was murdered shortly ago, but according to Canada Edmonton standards, I should immediately go out and be a Ho, and not doing so is fertile grounds for derision on these pages. 

I shall thus proceed with the canola oil project, lose my shirt, be a failure, and all because I am hopelessly, incorrigibly stupid, well below that mid-point on the IQ Bell Curve, and in my stupididy will not be able to recognize that I am far too stupid to think through how do market this product.  I guess that is the nice thing about being stupid:  I am too stupid to realize that I am too stupid.  That part about being an Incel is just frosting, at least according to Canadians hiding out in Edmonton.   Such is life. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

The median IQ (intelligence quotient, a measure of inherent intelligence, more or less) is by definition 100, and then there are "tails" off that Bell Curve distribution for the very bright and the totally stupid.  One of the nice things about being totally stupid, as I am reminded by various posters here, is that I remain oblivious to all the obvious factors that will spell doom to anything I touch, including of course this canola oil project, notwithstanding that the (very small) pilot plant is already producing diesel fuel at a price below that of retail diesel.  I have been repeatedly reminded that, in addition to being totally stupid, I am, at least in accordance with the pronouncements of a certain Canadian apparently hiding out in Edmonton, totallly "senile,"  and of course have a remarkably minute, microscopic reproductive organ structure, and because that organ is so microscopic, am an involuntary celibate [an "incel," in Canadian argot], suffering from premature ejaculation and whatever else comes to mind.  That last part about being an Incel is particularly cruel as, readers herein will note, my wife was murdered shortly ago, but according to Canada Edmonton standards, I should immediately go out and be a Ho, and not doing so is fertile grounds for derision on these pages. 

I shall thus proceed with the canola oil project, lose my shirt, be a failure, and all because I am hopelessly, incorrigibly stupid, well below that mid-point on the IQ Bell Curve, and in my stupididy will not be able to recognize that I am far too stupid to think through how do market this product.  I guess that is the nice thing about being stupid:  I am too stupid to realize that I am too stupid.  That part about being an Incel is just frosting, at least according to Canadians hiding out in Edmonton.   Such is life. 

Differentials in taxes  applied to conventional and biodiesel may make biodiesel economic to the manufacturer. 

I suppose if there is a surplus of Canola the economics might add up but ultimately you are requiring about 1 hectare of land to produce 1300 litres of oil (plus some animal feed). 

The economics of biofuels simply don't scale up on a planet with 7 billion people living on it. 

[NickW + 2,714]

15 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

The median IQ (intelligence quotient, a measure of inherent intelligence, more or less) is by definition 100, and then there are "tails" off that Bell Curve distribution for the very bright and the totally stupid.  One of the nice things about being totally stupid, as I am reminded by various posters here, is that I remain oblivious to all the obvious factors that will spell doom to anything I touch, including of course this canola oil project, notwithstanding that the (very small) pilot plant is already producing diesel fuel at a price below that of retail diesel.  I have been repeatedly reminded that, in addition to being totally stupid, I am, at least in accordance with the pronouncements of a certain Canadian apparently hiding out in Edmonton, totallly "senile,"  and of course have a remarkably minute, microscopic reproductive organ structure, and because that organ is so microscopic, am an involuntary celibate [an "incel," in Canadian argot], suffering from premature ejaculation and whatever else comes to mind.  That last part about being an Incel is particularly cruel as, readers herein will note, my wife was murdered shortly ago, but according to Canada Edmonton standards, I should immediately go out and be a Ho, and not doing so is fertile grounds for derision on these pages. 

I shall thus proceed with the canola oil project, lose my shirt, be a failure, and all because I am hopelessly, incorrigibly stupid, well below that mid-point on the IQ Bell Curve, and in my stupididy will not be able to recognize that I am far too stupid to think through how do market this product.  I guess that is the nice thing about being stupid:  I am too stupid to realize that I am too stupid.  That part about being an Incel is just frosting, at least according to Canadians hiding out in Edmonton.   Such is life. 

I don't know whether you are living in Canada or Vermont today but as regards Vermont:

There appears to be a 55 cent per gallon tax on conventional diesel (state and Fed) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Fuel_taxes_in_the_united_states.png

However in regard to Biodiesel there is a $1.00 per gallon tax credit (subsidy)

https://bioenergyinternational.com/policy/us-biodiesel-bodies-welcome-passage-of-biodiesel-tax-credit-extension#:~:text=For qualified biofuel blenders in the United States,2019%2C as well as for the years 2020–2022.

Even if you don't claim the subsidy the tax on conventional diesel is going to work in the favour of biodiesel. 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by NickW

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm going by my mileage. Sight exaggeration but close enough for government work. Significantly, and I'm too busy to look it up now, there's an FAA study about piston engine airplanes using ethanol fuels. Notwithstanding that all the hoses need to be replaced the same volume of fuel only carries you 60% of the distance you planned for. Aviation fuel is 100 octane so you'd think ethanol is great, but not so much. 

Octane rating only has a marginal influence on fuel economy and has nothing to do with the calorific value. It just gives a slower longer burn and reduces the risk of pre-ignition - that's where the increase in fuel economy comes from a small addition of ethanol. 

Sure if you run on pure alcohol you would only get about 70% of the miles per gallon compared to the correct grade of fuel for that engine. Ethanol is about 25MJ/L compared to 35MJ/L for gasoline

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

To @Gerry Maddoux who put a "laugh" response to my post above regarding IQ:   I was being perfectly serious.  Very serious.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

^

Jan, I'm very sorry.

I didn't see the part about "my wife being murdered shortly ago." I would never laugh at something like that!

I just ran through the post.

Since you're such a bright polymath sort of guy, I suppose I just figured the whole thing was satirical. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Since you're such a bright polymath sort of guy, I suppose I just figured the whole thing was satirical.

The reason it is serious is that invariably the inventors and entrepreneurs of the world do what they do in spite of being told that they are headed for perdition and failure.  Typically most fail, and those that succeed do so in spite of themselves.  I give you as one example Mr. Elon Musk and his electric car.  By accounting standards he is a failure and his company stock should be valued somewhere around six bucks, at best.  Nonetheless, he is a multi-billionaire, all on an improbable product that does not provide real value over the conventional product.  How does he end up that way?  becausxe he is just too stupid to recognize that he is a failure. 

Entrepreneurs are out there not becuse they want to be, but because they have to be.  Conventional society has written them off.  The only way for them to even make a living is to do the unconventional and ignore those who know be3tter, and know more.  Right now, at this very moment, there is a refinery in Newfoundland at Come-by-Chance (Placentia Bay) that produces some 130,000 bbl/d.  It is being closed by the owners, Silverlake Capital partners  ( a NYC hedge fund) because they see no way to position the refinery to make money.  Silverlake tried to sell it to Irving Oil, the other big refinery player in Atlantic Canada, and that deal just fell apart. Now, what is Silverlake going to do with its failed investment?  Tear the refinery down for its scrap metal?  Or just mothball it until they can find a buyer in the next five or six years?  

This is a huge hit for the Province; that refinery likely contributed some 5% of provincial GDP.  The Premier is tearing his hear out; it emplys hundreds, all to be fired before Canadina Thanksgiving.  What is interesting is that these New Yorkers cannot figure out how to position an obviously well-positioned refinery to make any money.  They have feedstock right there from the offshore wells, and they have a customer base, and they cannot run it in the black.  What does that tell you?

An entrepreneur can pick that up and do well, not because he has any brains, b ut because he is too stupid to figure out that he will lose his shirt.  mark my words, some entrepreneur will buy it for a song and make money with it.  That is the nature of entrepreneurs, they are too stupid to know that they will fail.  Ask Elon.