Best source of WVO?

[renewablejohn]

Northern Installer

I am a farmer not a farmer basher. I just get annoyed at some farmers who have the attitude that bigger is better.Could be true for large arable farms but for the rest of the country I have my doubts. Coming from an era when hp went up from 35 to 65 the added productivity was reflected in a decline in agriculture workers. The equipment increased in size and the productivity went up. However certain jobs did not require the additional horsepower so efficiency in those jobs actually declined. With tractors now in excess of 100hp and some over 200hp the efficiency has decreased again as the tasks for the 35 and 65 hp tractors have still to be done.

As for air conditioned cabs what people forget is that before the use of such cabs farmers were contracting "farmers lung" on a massive scale.Thankfully by using the cabs the incidence of farmers lung has significantly reduced.

[Ivan]

NI,

Actually, yes I have driven tractor/bailer/sledge. I've also loaded the bales onto trailers, driven them to the barn, and stacked them. For  about 6 years, I used to help a friend of mine bring in the hay every summer. We used to do about 100acres. I've never driven an air-con tractor, but I have operated a combine harvester that had air-con (on a different farm).

Yes, you are right, the dust is choking, when the wind isn't blowing it away from you. We didn't have the luxury of air-con in any of our tractors, but we did at least have cabs. We also had self-contained battery-powered filter masks. Oh, and it got hot in the cab, but we put up with it in those days (early 90s)

My point is that air conditioning (which is cooling the air) saps considerable engine power, and the engine will consume even more fuel. It's for comfort, the same as air-con in cars.



Ivan

[northern installer]

glad you understand Ivan,and hope you didnt take that as a personal insult!but its not 'comfort' its health and safety! I dont think you could put an employed worker in that environment without a/c and get away with it! (your combine experience must have underlined that,half the time you cant even see for the dust!)
I run both a small farm,and an electrical and engineering company,and see two sides of the coin
But my real point is,there seems to be an public undercurrent of thought that farmers are greedy,rich,wasteful,pampered,dishonest,and drive round in fancy and unnecessarily large tractors;Some of that thought is reflected on these pages;quite why this has come about I dont know,but as I said earlier,no one criticises the engineering company for buying a large and fancy cnc machine,nor for installing a/c to give a better working environment! I take your point that you are just remarking on an addition to the emissions/fuel,but I think you will find that fuel economy and efficiency are paramount in modern ag machinery design;incidentally,of our two main tractors(now nearly9 yrs old,but modernish) the larger 110hp uses less fuel than the smaller 85 hp;both turbo diesel I can only assume that the larger one has more torque,it is certainly 'easier'to drive with a heavy load or implement.Incidentally,it doesnt have a/c,a mistake I regretted when ending up with heat exhaustion one summer,and collapsing in the cab!
This country needs its farmers,large and small,as part of a renewable future. End of rant

[northern installer]

OH! forget what I came on to say!
wvo could soon be an expensive way to go the future ,as long as we keep eating beef,or lesser meats, is TALLOW ! (imagine that written in drippy melting letters,cant find a font with that on)
Just had a farmer talking to me in the workshop about bulk storage/transportation of tallow,he wants to make biodiesel from it....being an astute fellow,he remarked 6 months ago that wvo was a blind alley " the suppliers will start to take it back on contract " he said;"buts theres tonnes of tallow about"

[Ian]

Ken, Macro (apparently) allow 9 drums per visit at that price but you can have more if you pay more. He just visits them many times in the week whilst they are the cheapest. Tomorrow, another wholesaler is cheaper... He reckons that a drum will be £20 by the end of the month and one or two distributors are already at the £18 mark.

He currently has 200 litres per day available. Some goes (straight) into his Merc and not all is used as WVO generator fuel. He does have other outlets for his (filtered down to 10 microns WVO) but he has not confided in me about that.

He is looking at getting additional plant in to burn the excess WVO and registering with NPower as different customers (it allows him to get round the G/83 limit). [That is where my part in this comes in...]

Yep, his property is an old school with high vaulted ceilings and thick stone walls. It is also listed so it does not allow for good insulation additions.

Regards,
Ian

[KenB]

Ian,

I can just imagine a bank of 10hp Listers in a barn all driving individual alternators and G83 approved inverters.

Alternatively, several small Listers, scattered around the countryside, all running on your colleagues 10 micron filtered WVO.

This makes for an interesting point. If a litre of WVO will generate about 1.5kWh of power  - worth about 18p, does this not set the value of the fuel as a generator fuel? Also taking into account the heat content of the fuel plus the ROCs allowance.

It is probably more lucrative to process the WVO into biodiesel and then sell for at least 85p per litre.



Ken

[County 4x4]

It is probably more lucrative to process the WVO into biodiesel and then sell for at least 85p per litre.

Ken

"Lucrative" is not a word that has appeared in the biodiesel dicussions for a while at the vegetableoildiesel forum - well not unless it counts when paired with "not"! The current consensus of opinion seems to be that the absolute minimum for a "going concern" would be making (and selling) at least 10,000 litres per week - a number of regulars feel that figure needs to be higher. Not helped of course by the fact that as soon as you wish to sell a single litre of the stuff, you have to jump through a hundred and one regulatory (and extremely costly) hurdles. Unfortunately, the little guy appears to be getting his pants pulled down once again.....

Andy

PS - The idea of a shed full of Listers chuntering away to themselves is one I shall keep to cheer me up on a rainy day

[KenB]

Andy, List,

I suspect the doubling in price of rapeseed oil has seriously affected the economics/viability of the fledgling biodiesel industry.

As long as new oil costs less than pump diesel, some will pour it into their vehicle tanks.

Tallow might be one solution, or you could always do a deal with a liposuction clinic   

A shed full of Listers...  you'll have to come around one day 


Ken

[renewablejohn]

I am surprised Npower will pay for the "green" electric. I was going to do the same thing with a couple of ex hospital generators however I was told that I would not be eligible for ROCs unless I used virgin pressed rape seed oil. If I reused  waste vegetable oil it would be classified as part of the waste disposal rules and not eligible for ROCs.

If you want something larger than a lister there is this up for auction

http://www.goindustry.com/en/auctions/65-mw-diesel-power-station-saledetails-8370.asp

On current Power Purchase Agreement rates that would generate an income of £5.2 million per year

 

[stephen]

Found these guys whilst surfing the net.  Never come across them before so dont know what the quality is like.

http://norfolkwasteoil.jimdo.com/quanities_available_today.php

May be of use to someone.

Stephen

[County 4x4]

Nearly fell off me chair when I looked at their website!! These guys were selling IBC's on ebay at £550-ish a week or two back. Just looked at their price list and for "A grade" they're asking 71.9p/litre with a minimum order of 1000 litres! "C grade" which is untouched and sold as they have collected it is 55.89p/l - and that's DOWN 4.1p

Also noted that the A grade is currently sold out!

Off to the workshop now to count the litres!!

Andy