Okay, as a mental exercise (really because I can't afford to build the thing right now) I have been designing a prototype of the Clean Energy Bio-Fuels plant I mentioned earlier.

To make things simpler I've broken down the design into the component parts:

• Bio-gas Plant
• Bio-Diesel Plant

Now as you may remember, the idea is to create a plant that is as energy self-sufficient as possible while reducing the impact on the environment to the bare minimum, while producing quality fuels, and as I've discovered other products.

This entry will look at building the prototype Bio-Gas plant, the inputs that will be needed, the challanges faced and the outputs I expect to get out of it.

Bio-Gas Plant Prototype

Inputs:

• Bovine Manure
• Agricultural Waste (plant matter only)
• Kitchen Waste (vegetable matter only)
• Glycerol (A by-product of Bio-Diesel generation)
• Water

Outputs:

• Methane
• C02
• Hydrogen Sulphide (Rotten Egg Gas)
• Slurry (source material that has exhausted its ability to generate gas)
• Water (contanimated)
• Electricity
• Heat

Design of Prototype:

Reactor

Okay, first up some disclaimers. I am not an engineer. The closest I've come to fuel manufacturing is the internet and a softdrink bottle full of potentially successful bio-diesel. Also the following has not been costed in any way, so may end up being about as viable as cold fusion and as expensive as the QE2.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the shiny part.

Now that I've successfully (I think) made bio-diesel, I've been thinking about how to scale up production to say cater for a diesel car/van (the kids are starting to grow out of the car we have at the moment). Me being me, I've also taken it to the nth degree and thought about the best way to scale up to industrial production in the most environmentally friendly manner.

Energy

Any truly environmentally friendly plant needs to take energy production into account at the design stage. The ideal production figure for self energy production would be 120%. This allows for growth in plant production and also allows for a secondary income stream via putting energy back into the grid.

In this thought experiment I've selected a hetrogenous energy production solution, a combination of Solar, Wind and Biomass (Biogas). I've chosen those three based on where I live. The Illawarra is blessed with a high number of sunny days (though as I look outside it's grey and overcast now), coastal winds and is chock full of farms (for the moment, but that's another rant) which could supply biomass in the form of manure and other agri-waste.

Water

Water is a big part of the process of creating bio-diesel. Both in the titration process and after the initial reaction, in the washing process, water is used. An environmentally friendly plant would recycle as much water as possible. This would mean filtering the water after use, removing any contaminants and then feeding the water back into the system.

With thanks to Tilly for this recipe

Okay, I'm going to be putting together this post as I go through the process.

Ingredients:

1 Litre WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil - filtered through coffee filters)

250Ml Methanol

6gm Caustic Soda (this may vary depending on what the titration shows)

Tools:

Rubber Gloves

1 Glass

1 Plastic Softdrink Bottle (1.5l) - Must be dry

1 Teaspoon Measure

1 Mixing Spoon

1 Measuring Container

Step 1: Create Your Methoxide and heat your oil

Before you do anything you need to prepare your methoxide.

• Take one glass container, pour Methanol into container and add Caustic Soda. Mix vigorously with spoon until all of the Caustic Soda has dissolved. This will cause the mixture to heat up so be careful.

• Heat your oil. Nominal temperature is 55 degrees celcius.

Step 2: Mixing The Oil and Methoxide To Start the Reaction

Once you have your oil heated and the methoxide mixed you must combine the two.

• Take your dry softdrink bottle and place a funnel in the top.
• Pour your heated oil into the bottle

I've put it off for long enough, so today I'm going to actually make Bio-Diesel. I'll be using this recipe and once the process is finished I'll be putting up a post with pictures.

Hell I might even video it.

Okay, now that I have roughly three litres of filtered waste vegie oil I need to be able to turn it into bio-diesel. In order to do that I'm going to need the following:

• Methonal (99%+ purity)
• Sodium Hydroxide (caustic soda)
• Isopropyl Alcohol
• Distilled Water
• An Acid/Base checking mechanism
• Vineger
• Normal Tap Water

Needless to say I'm also going to need a well ventilated area and preferably rubber gloves and goggles as some of the chemicals mentioned above are incredibly dangerous.

By the way, for anyone who is interested I am following the process as laid out here:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_mike.html

Just a random thought.

Around the country there are coops for everything. From market gardens, to insurance, banking and more. However, there doesn't seem to be too many energy co-ops.

I wonder what it would take to set one up. I'm thinking it would take the following form (warning this is coming off the top of my head, and hence is most likely to be wrong).

• Each member must be producing enough energy to meet their own needs and be able to contribute to the collective store
• There should be a way to be able to store the energy that each member contributes
• Members should be able to purchase energy from the co-op.
• The co-op might be able to onsell the energy (excess to requirements) to the wider grid.

Setting up an energy co-op would take a lot of work, however I think it might be interesting to chase down what would be required.

Well the first round of filtering has occured, and below is the result:

As you can see, there was a hell of a lot of crud in the unfiltered oil and to be honest if I'd stuck with the paper towel I was initially using, most of it would still be in the oil. However Karin found a set of coffee filters and four filters later, the result is only a smattering of crumbs in the bottom of the bottle which I'm planning on washing out once the actual processing has occured.

The next stage in the processing is going to be titration. Given that this is used vegie oil, the exact levels of caustic soda I need to add to start the reaction are going to be variable.

Of course once this journey is over the next step is to work out how to do it with as little effort as possible and also, what the hell am I going to do with it?

That's right, I support filtering, of old vegetable oil.

I'm running this as a bit of an experiment at the moment. I have a bottle full of waste vegie oil (complete with BCB's) and I'm planning on turning it into some sort of bio-diesel. We'll see what happens.