Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

It seems as if World Bank isn’t placing 75% of the rise in fuel prices on biofuel. What was reported to be a secret appears to have been a draft, one that doesn’t reflect World Bank’s official position on the matter. While some have speculated that the report was suppressed due to political interests, Donald Mitchell, author of the draft report, states that the report has yet to be released simply because edits needed to be made. Representatives from World Bank contest that Mitchell is still receiving input from his peers and that the paper is in the process of being finalized. Furthermore, Mitchell claims that World Bank is looking to deliver a more polished version of the report which may be released as early as the end of this week.

Despite the confusion, World Bank stands firm on the belief that the increased production of biofuel has increased the need for food crops, which in turn has become the major contributor to steadily increasing food prices. This alone is more than enough to point the finger at biofuel whether the facts are derived from a draft paper or a full report.

As I wrote in a previous post. Fuel prices are high and they’re going to STAY high.

And this is a GOOD thing.

(boink!!!!!!!???, this is a good thing? How can that be? Stay tuned, more on that later)

Whatever can we do?

Well, buying a new truck is right out. I checked into that this last month. To replace my old KW it would cost me just about TWICE what I paid for it about nine years ago. Not quite but almost. I paid ninety something thousand in the year two thousand and the local KW dealer wants almost a hundred and seventy thousand for a very similar replacement.

And the new truck get’s worse fuel economy.

So no thank you. I’ll overhaul and rebuild for a while.

How long a while?

That’s kind of what THIS post is about.

Things are being done. It’s possible to get diesel from other places than an oil well,

from plants, algae and trash.

Read the rest of this entry »

BioFuels

Things are happening in the field (excuse the pun) of BioFuels. In case you’re not altogether clear on what BioFuels are my favorite “quick reference” source, Wikipedia, has a nice article on it.

Of the many energy related blogs that I follow these days are some of the more interesting and recent developments.

From New Energy and Fuel

Read the rest of this entry »

Nope, I’m not dispensing any answers in this post; I’m just asking questions. Asking questions, though, as Martha would say, is a good thing. Questions demand answers, answers require thought, thought requires critical analysis and critical analysis can lead to the revelation of both problems and the solutions to those problems.

In Part 1 of this post I asked several general questions but only detailed a few of them. In this final installment I’ll do my best to detail the remaining questions and sum up. Don’t think, by any stretch, I’m asking all the questions though.

I’m not even asking all the questions I’ve thought of let alone all the questions that could, and probably have been, asked by others who are far more informed than I am ever likely to be.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading an awful lot of stuff regarding the method and means by which the future will be fueled and one thing keeps popping up: diesel. And every time diesel is mentioned as a “progressive” fuel you can be sure that biodiesel will be touted somewhere in the article as a prominent player.

I’ve written several biodiesel related posts and, in general, I like the idea of a fuel that, unlike petroleum based fuels, is derived from a renewable source. Additionally, I’m not at all in favor of completely eliminating a power-train component as reliable as the internal-combustion diesel engine from the truck-transport equation. Yeah, hybrids, especially “series hybrids” like those Everitt has written about, are not only promising, they offer possibilities unavailable with current designs. But even the series hybrids often incorporate diesel power.

With diesel and biodiesel being pushed by the media as a so-called “fuel of the future” I’ve really got to wonder what the ultimate impact will be on truck transport. In fact, I’ve got a lot of questions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that biofuels have come under fire from several fronts; even environmentalists. Personally, I think that’s a good thing ’cause its never a good idea to jump on a bandwagon before giving some critical thought to the wagon’s destination (or its origination; for that matter). I’ve also noticed, though, that the two primary biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel, are frequently lumped together with the arguments against ethanol applied equally to biodiesel by implication. And that’s a mistake. Read the rest of this entry »

Biofuels can’t make us energy independent by themselves. But is that the goal? Personally, I would love to be completely energy independent, but the demand may be too great that we will have to import something to support our energy program.

Where would the corn come from for ethanol plant?

A proposed ethanol plant here could require 80 million bushels of corn each year - almost double what Virginia produced in 2006.

Since the state can’t meet the enormous demand, plant developer International Bio Energy Virginia LLC plans to bring in most of its corn from the Midwest and even South America.

Farmers in the Midwest, where much of the country’s corn is produced, have enjoyed one of the biggest economic benefits as the number of ethanol plants has increased. They have profited from rising corn prices and are saving money by sending grain to nearby ethanol refineries.

I love the idea of Biofuel but if it’s going to mess with our farming programs (which are already screwed up, thanks to government intervention) I’m not sure it’s the best idea

The ethanol plant could cause Chesapeake farmers to plant fewer acres of soybeans and more corn if they decide it’s worth the risk, Lawrence said.
“The increased need for corn will probably be a catalyst for the farm economy,” he said. “There will be more acres going into corn.”

The price of corn went from $1.50 per 56-pound bushel to $4 a bushel in just six months. Farmers also saved money by trucking the grain to the ethanol plant down the street instead of paying thousands of dollars to ship it to Minnesota.

But the article did go on to say that Virginia didn’t produce the quantities that is grown in the Midwest, maybe it’s a local phenomena or a sign of things to come.

Have you tried Bio in your truck yet? I need to get a couple more fuel filters on hand before I put some in the first time.

I love stories like this:

Biodiesel plants growWilson is one of the few places in the country with a biodiesel plant already in production and another under construction. And both have plans for future expansion.

Evans Environmental Energies on Industrial Park Drive is one of 148 biodiesel plants in the nation and seven in the state.

Because it means one step closer to being energy independent. Bio’s can’t do it alone, but with coal-to-diesel and hybrid technology, I’m hoping we can tell the mid-east,”to go pound sand.”

The only problem I can see is that when no one is buying oil, the price will drop so much that all of these alternatives will again be more expensive as we are only concerned with what’s the cheapest way to get things done. We will begin importing ‘cheap’ oil, restarting a vicious cycle that we so desperately need to break.

The cause for Jatropha-based biodiesel got a big boost last week when British Petroleum penned a deal that formed a joint venture with biodiesel producer D1 Oils to speed up the planting of Jatropha. According to an EnerPub article:

… BP and D1 Oils will invest around $160 million over the next five years with D1 Oils’ share of the investment cost being partly funded by the inclusion of their 172,000 hectares of existing plantations in India, Southern Africa and South East Asia. BP will have exclusive access to the elite jatropha seedlings produced through D1 Oils’ plant science program.

If you missed my previous post regarding Jatropha, you might not know that Jatropha curcas grows on arid or rocky tracts of land and doesn’t require much in the way of irrigation. Since the oil-bearing seeds are inedible, and it doesn’t take land out of production for food crops, it seems to be the perfect plant for biodiesel feedstock.

In a press release, D1 Oils’ CEO Elliott Mannis stated that: Read the rest of this entry »

As a reminder from my previous post about the subject.

Splash and Dash - The process of parking a foreign tanker of biodiesel at a US port, splashing a little diesel so it’s 80/20, receiving a US tax credit for the biodiesel, then dashing off to Europe or somewhere else to sell the biodiesel.

Senate committee aims to close loopholes in biodiesel blending
Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance hope to close a loophole to stop foreign traders of fuel from taking advantage of subsidies earmarked for the biodiesel industry.

Committee members marked up tax policy legislation this week to add to a growing energy act to include protections for the biodiesel industry.

It goes on to say they are trying to get into the upcoming US Energy Act.