Deesil

I'm in the very beginning stage of making my own biodiesel. I've sourced the WVO and researched the Appleseed that it so popular.

The problem is that I've run some numbers and unless I'm missing something, it's just flat not worth it! It's a good deal of work, can be a bit messy it seems, however I LOVE to tinker and probably would have a lot of fun doing it. I've already even made a couple of small test batches in the kitchen. But the numbers don't lie, I just need to know what I'm missing.

40 gal of WVO---------------------------Free!
8.8 gal of methanol @ $6/gal---------$52.80
34.7 oz lye @ $.69/oz-----------------$23.94

Just consumable ingredients----------$76.74 for 40 gal of biodiesel

which is $1.92/gal!!!!!!!!

This is in florida where diesel is $3.50/gal. The thought that as fuel prices get higher and higher bio looks better and better does not compute with me. We still need almost 1/4 in volume of methanol that will rise right along side fuel costs. Methanol may even rise faster, or maybe a little slower.

Of course nowhere in this $1.92/gal is there factored in for electricity, start up and maintenance costs, parasitic fuel lost in obtaining WVO and discarding waste, time to process, containers, possible decrease mileage etc etc. Even if I ignore all these costs I still don't think it's worth it.

I keep reading about how people say it should cost less than $1/gal. I'm just not seeing it. In fact I dare someone to show me less than $1.50 /gal. I'm sure you can invest in a distiller to recover some methanol, but since I didn't add all the peripheral incidentals, I didn't account for this. I imagine the break even point on the distillers is a good number of batches.

Can anyone tell me where I'm hosed up here? With that kind of consumable cost I'd just as soon continue with my current hobbies, not enough savings for me.

mishkaya

Deesil
I think you are getting hosed on the prices you are paying for supplies. While I am not in FL, and I am not even making biodiesel currently, I do procure methanol for about $3.50 per galllon, and sodium hydroxide for $1.15 per pound. At these rates biodiesel can be worth your while depending on what your time is worth. I personally won't consider making my own diesel unless I get a fully automated system to cut down on time spent for production.
mishkaya

Deesil

Well that begs the obvious question....where do you get your Methanol? Is it available to everyone? I can't say that I've done exhaustive research on it, but it seems pretty normal for people to pay $300 for a 54 gal drum. The local race fuel distributor wants $8/gal here

Mountaineer

Been there, made it , and also found it not worth it unless you have ample amount of time. My time is worth alot to me and with current prices I just run a Svo blend (when above freezing)and have been sucessful with that.

mishkaya

Deesil
My last purchase of methanol was made locally last Sept. I can tell you that it is worth making plenty of calls to find a reasonably priced supplier as the prices can vary tremendously. I know on my last purchase, prices varied from $3.10 per gal to over $5.00 per gal delivered. I last dealt with Interstate Chemicals if that helps any.
mishkaya

MikeyB

It's pretty easy to build a condenser to recover the methanol and reuse it.

MikeyB

Deesil

Well I just re-read my post and I definitely come across and whining like a little girl. Not my intention at all. So let me start over so to speak.

I'm very interested in doing this, but right side of my brain makes me work the numbers out first. It's a curse, I know.

It seems to me that the process would be pretty fun (except for procuring the WVO). I'm happiest when I'm out in the garage messin' about with whatever I can get my dirty hands on, so the work involved is not a deterrent. I am however having a helluva time procuring reasonably priced Methanol. I just recently learned how much of it you actually use in each batch, not what I expected.

Thanks for the input and I'll try to contact any recommended source for the meth.

I haven't researched SVO, or SVO blends that much, so I'll get on that. So I admit I'm not informed on that aspect but it does scare me a bit as it seems risky to put blends into my high pressure system. From the little research I've done there seems to be a LOT of contradictory info on running blends in my system. If I still had my old Bobcat with the Perkins in it....I'd do it in a minute, couldn't kill that sucker for nothin! However, like I said before I am in central Florida so the temperatures are favorable almost year round, but the high humidity is a concern. Thanks guys.

patdaly

Your numbers are correct, if that is the cheapest you can get your raw materials for.

Currently, Methanol is going for about 4 bucks a gallon here in middle Illinois.

The local dirt track racers are bracing for it to go up.

I am still setting on the sidelines deciding if it is worth my time to make bio.

Deesil

What does you diesel cost/gal in Illinois? I would be interested to see if the people that are getting Meth "cheap" also are in an area where #2 is "cheap" as well. It's $3.50 for #2 here, $6-8 for meth. I can only assume that it would be beneficial to find it locally as I can imagine that shipping a barrel of it cross country would quickly eat up any savings per gallon. I'm sure I can find the lye cheaper than I listed, but it's a smaller portion of the overall cost.

DeanM

I looked into making Bio myself. The cheapest I found methanol around here was $5 a gallon. That was 5 years ago. If I bought a rail car of it the price was .70 cents a gallon. So it wasn't worth it to me to make. The last time I checked B100 was selling for $3.70 a gallon.

patdaly

Deesil, #2 is currently between 3.33 and 3.39 a gallon here.

Deesil

Thanks Pat. It would seem that proportionally speaking your Methanol is quite a bit cheaper (for now)

kawi600

my last methanol purchase was 180$/55gal which is 3.27/gal. My lye cost me about 1$/lb. I use about 3lb of lye and 11.25gal of methanol for a 50gal batch of oil . so Im paying around 1$/gal in supplies for biodiesel. This doesnt take into account wash water or electricity and Im still paying off the investment in the reactor parts. Right now Im using it for heating oil at home since #2 is so expensive.
Any time I can take my money and redirect it to american business instead of big multinational oil companies is a good time. I might not save much money but its worth every dollar and minute of my time.
One thing to mention is the methanol is a petro distillate. You can do this process with acid instead of base and use ethanol, which can come from plant sources.

Deesil

Well I would have to say @ 3.27/gal for methanol you have a very viable reason to make your own bio. I wish I had your source of methanol! By the by, how do you get it so cheap? I see NUMEROUS people on MANY different threads and forums saying that they get meth cheap, but no one ever says where they get it from. Why is that? Do they get discounts because of their job or what? OR They say "last time I bought it", well that might have been two years ago

Unfortunately I fall into the category of "the general public" so I don't get discounts on chemicals.....I wish I did!

biododge1

your cost is definitely the meth. also, try a little less-no less then 12% by volume though. as for the lye, if your using 34oz your titration result is 2.5
if your numbers were lower, you used too much lye(for this batch 908g of lye)
pure oil has a titrant of 0.0 so regularly test your titrant solution for accuracy(it starts to breaks down).
i would try to get a better source of oil(not used as much) with a lower titrant reading. oils with higher #s run the risk of making soap
as for your time. once you are proficient at processing the hands on time will be approx 1 hr- wash not included( provided you don't need to de-water the oil).


sorry for long post
eric