Thought I would post a few photos of canola in bloom. I never get tired of look at the yellow fields. We will use the crop to produce biodiesel for our own farm.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/burnsalot/2011canola7.jpg)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/burnsalot/2011canola4.jpg)
What method do you use to get the oil? Do you just press, or do you use an extractive/solvent method?
Yes, please educate us on your entire process.
Casey
Is that a Monsanto spy tower on the distant hilltop? I wish that was funny.
We run a press to extract the oil. The oil is then processed into biodiesel.
A little more complicated than that, but not much.
A few clips..........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BFuiFrK5C0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbECYEJWyoM
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/burnsalot/2011canola8.jpg)
fuelfarmer,
What part of the country you in or latitude if you prefer???
What type of yield (oil) per acre you getting for canola???
Why the choice of canola over other oil crops like sunflowers???
If the used for anything on the farm or is there a market for it???
Thanks,
Curbie
Curbie, We are in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The hardiness zone is a 6b I think
.
Canola has 2 gallons of oil per bushel and we can get yields of 60 bu. per acre in a good year. It is not possible to extract 100% of the oil with a press. 1 1/2 gallons per bu. is about what we get.
Winter canola works well because it can be planted in the fall and harvested soon enough in the spring to plant another crop. And canola is one of the highest oil yielding crops. We also plant soybeans for feed and oil.
Most of what we grow stays on the farm. The press cake is used to feed our dairy cows. Raw soybeans need to be processed with heat before they are used for feed. Running them through the press takes the place of flame roasting and we get the oil as a byproduct of making cow feed.
fuelfarmer,
Beautiful yellow fields ! (and I am green with envy) :)
Here in Alberta, there are tens of thousands of acres dedicated to Canola growing.
I acquired a 2 tone press in order to make some oil from local grown seed.
Seeing your setup is very helpful. Thanks for posting it.
veggie
Feaulfarmer,
Nice going over there, I can see you're a good father, farmer, chemist and environmentalist as well.
Why don't you use the oil straight in the vehicles?
Tim
I would wager that the oil is processed into biodiesel for the following reasons:
1. Compatability with all types of diesel engines
2. Less requiremet for fuel preheat in warm months
3. Viscosity correction makes the product easier to filter and handle than raw oil
4. Raw oil will be "wet", BD processing eliminates water if done correctly
5. Consistent fuel quality.
Of course, I may be wrong entirely about fuelfarmer's rationale - I don't speak mean to speak for him here... ;D
Fuelfarmer,
1.5 (gal) x 60 (bu) = 90 (gal) x 2 (harvests per year) = ~180 gallons per acre per year
If you know, what hardness zone will canola go down to while still producing two harvests per year at roughly 1.5 gal per bushel??? That second harvest a year really bumps the yields.
How many inches per year of rainfall keeps canola happy???
Curbie
We started out blending veggie oil with diesel. That worked fine, but we have a ton of money invested in our equipment and it just seemed safer to make and run biodiesel. We still run oil in an old 2 stroke 6-71 Detroit. Nothing goes to waste as we recover methanol and add the glycerin back into the cow feed. We are after all primarily growing feed for livestock and the oil is almost a byproduct. A very desirable byproduct.
When I said second crop I should have said another crop like soybeans or corn. It gets to hot here to grow summer canola. Soybeans will produce about half the oil of canola, but they produce a lot more protein.
I don't know how much rain canola likes, or how cold it can get in the winter. I have heard that some drought stress at the correct time will cause canola to produce more oil.
Fuelfarmer,
I'm easily confused, do you grow 1 crop of canola per year, or 1 crop of canola & 1 crop of soybeans per year per (same) acre??? I'm trying to get at the total oil yield per acre per year, until now, I was under the impression that at our latitude, oil crops where about 100 gallons of vegetable oil per acre per year?
My data shows you get about 40" of rainfall per year; does that seem about right???
Curbie
We can get two crops per year from the same acre if the rotation is correct. With oil seed crops the second crop (soybeans) will grow late into the fall and prevent getting the fall seeded crop in soon enough. So you would get 3 crops every two years. I have read that canola should only be planted every 4 years on the same ground. It would be possible to get 90 to 100 gallons of canola oil and another 50 gallons of soybean oil in the same year if the weather was perfect. The second year there would be one crop harvested and a crop planted in early fall. More confusing???
The way I look at oil farming is it is not just about gallons of fuel per acre. It is both fuel and feed at the same time. And oil seeds should be part of a good crop rotation.
40 inches is close to what we get.
Fuelfarmer,
"More confusing???" No I don't think so, canola along with a second soybean crop can yield 90 + 90 + 50 (gal) = 230 / two years = 115 (gal) average per year, as long as you only plant canola on the same acre once every four years (I think).
I like the sustainability of your setup, thanks for your time and help.
Curbie
Very interesting, seems like you farm a little bit of everything. I wish the US would focus more on growing oil crops than ethanol crops...
Quote from: BioHazard on April 25, 2011, 09:49:53 PM
I wish the US would focus more on growing oil crops than ethanol crops...
Bio
I was always going to answer that on another thread but just never had the time and forgot about it.
Fuel farmer says he gets about 90 gallons of canola oil or 50 gallons of soy oil per acre.
In my area we can only have 1 crop per year because of a short season but corn yields about 180 bu to acre on average here and the ethanol plants run about 2.8 gallons per bushel that makes 504 gallons of ethanol per acre give or take.
Which is going to go farther if used in the appropriate engine?
Billswan
Bio & Billswan,
Just some quick math on ethanol vs. Bio-diesel:
The rough math looks something like this:
Crop yields:
Oil crop yields (sunflower or conola @ ~42˚ latitude) ~100 gallons per acre per year.
Ethanol crop yields (sweet sorghum or Jerusalem Artichoke @ ~42˚ latitude) ~400 gallons per acre per year.
At 4 to 1 yield ratio it seems an easy choice, but next you need to account for
fuel value.
Bio-diesel 125,000 btu per gallon.
Ethanol 75,000 btu per gallon.
SVO 100 (gallons per acre) x 125,000 (btu per gallon) = 12.5 million btu/per
acre.
Ethanol 400 (gallons per acre) x 75,000 (btu per gallon) = 30 million btu/per
acre.
The gap narrows form 4 to 1 to 2.4 to 1 but still in favor of ethanol.
Next we need to account for production energy, any energy used in production
which is subtracted from the total.
Bio-diesel about 12,000 btu per gallon (screw press, Bio-diesel processing)
Ethanol about 40,000 btu per gallon (chopping, cooking, fermenting, &
distilling)
SVO 100 x (125,000 - 12,000) = 11.3 million btu/per acre.
Ethanol 400 x (75,000 – 40,000) = 14 million btu/per acre.
Again the gap narrows yet further form 2.4 to 1 to 1.25 to 1 still in favor of ethanol
but bio-diesel is getting close, close enough to where what type of fuel your current equipment requires could nullify such a small advantage either way.
Curbie
Quote from: Curbie on April 25, 2011, 11:40:17 PM
Again the gap narrows yet further form 2.4 to 1 to 1.25 to 1 still in favor of ethanol
but bio-diesel is getting close, close enough to where what type of fuel your current equipment requires could nullify such a small advantage either way.
Yeah...in addition to more oil crops we need more "oil engines" to burn it in. If a diesel engine is almost twice as efficient as one burning ethanol, that 1.25:1 line gets pretty blurry. But we don't need to start another arguement about that...
If I had the property I would surely be growing both oil and ethanol for personal use.
Quote from: BioHazard on April 26, 2011, 01:33:55 AM
Yeah...in addition to more oil crops we need more "oil engines" to burn it in. If a diesel engine is almost twice as efficient as one burning ethanol, that 1.25:1 line gets pretty blurry. But we don't need to start another arguement about that...
If I had the property I would surely be growing both oil and ethanol for personal use.
That's another issue to consider, the availability of suitable diesel engines in small power ranges, they seem to be out of favor the government in the US. A diesel burning bio-diesel needs to be 31% efficient to equalize with a 25% engine burning ethanol using the rough btu/acre math below.
It seems to me, that growing and processing bio-diesel has an advantage in that is is pretty easy to get your mind around each step, where growing and processing ethanol it's far more difficult for each step and there are more steps, ethanol's advantage is more btu/acre.
Curbie
Diesel (BtuD) 128,000 btu/gal
Bio-Diesel (BtuB) 11,300,000 btu/gal btu per acre, 118000 btu per gallon
Gasoline (BtuG) 115,000 btu/gal
Ethanol (BtuE) 14,000,000 btu/gal btu per acre, 76000 btu per gallon
Diesel Engine Efficiency (DEE) 25%
Bio-Diesel Engine Efficiency (BEE) 25% 31% to equalize
Gasoline Engine Efficiency (GEE) 25%
Ethanol Engine Efficiency (EEE) 25%
Diesel Fuel Production (DFP) 12.6 hp-h =(BtuD / Btu2Hp) * DEE
Bio-Diesel Fuel Production (BFP) 1109.9 hp-h =(BtuB / Btu2Hp) * BEE
Gasoline Fuel Production (GFP) 11.3 hp-h =(BtuG / Btu2Hp) * GEE
Ethanol Fuel Production (EFP) 1375.1 hp-h =(BtuE / Btu2Hp) * EEE
Constants
BTU Per Hour Per Horse-power (Btu2Hp) 2545 btu =(Hp2W / 1000) * kWh2Btu
1 kWh to BTU (kWh2Btu) 3412 btu
1 Horse-power to Watts (Hp2W) 746 watts
Curbie
You wrote this quote
"Ethanol crop yields (sweet sorghum or Jerusalem Artichoke @ ~42˚ latitude) ~400 gallons per acre per year."
I have to ask - I always thought that sweet sorghum yielded much higher than 400 gallons of E per acre? are there any plants turning it to ethanol? I was not aware of any.
Billswan
rm /
"Again the gap narrows yet further form 2.4 to 1 to 1.25 to 1 still in favor of ethanol"
AND... The oil plant still has value as animal feed after the fuel component is removed !!!!! Where does that fit into the calculations?
rm /
Yes an oil seed has meal that has feed value and corn ethanol have either wet or dried distillers grain.
Also a VERY valuable feed source for cattle and some other livestock.
BUT here is a little known tidbit if you take the distillers grain from corn ethanol and press the oil out of it guess what you also have corn oil that can be used as fuel!!!!!!!!!!! It does degrade the distillers grain and make it less valuable but some plants do remove a part of the oil and sell it for fuel or just plain burn it to fire the process of distillation and fermentation.
And thanks to you deeiche for the kind words but I have got to also hand it to fuel farmer for his work on his own private biodiesel fuel fuel process it is well beyond my patience. But he might be one of the few left in business if there is a real fuel shortage for reasons unknown. (Read that as stupid moves by government)
Billswan
Quote from: billswan on April 26, 2011, 06:08:48 AM
I have to ask - I always thought that sweet sorghum yielded much higher than 400 gallons of E per acre? are there any plants turning it to ethanol? I was not aware of any.
Crop yields are tricky numbers, they depend on climate, rainfall, soil, fertilizer, planting and harvesting techniques. There are studies that show yield numbers all over the map for sweet sorghum and especially Jerusalem artichokes, I'm more interested in small or home-scale solutions (the energy companies seem to be doing just fine) so I tend to use pretty conservative numbers.
I use this btu/acre example in both ethanol and bio-diesel groups because after making both ethanol and bio diesel over that last 30 years, no matter which you choose, it's a good choice for you but may not be the best choice for others.
Curbie
Thanks for the kind words also. I see biodiesel as a bridge to something that will be better down the road. For now I can grow and run the fuel in existing equipment. The railroads made the change from coal to diesel and they had to change out a lot of equipment to do so. We might have to change equipment to match fuel in the future.
We also use corn for energy. It is burned for heat. No processing needed.
It is good to be able to grow a lot of our own fuel, but as they say, no man is a island. We still need a good healthy economy and some leadership on the energy front or we will all suffer a lower standard of living. My dad is from a time when farmers grew most of their energy. The horses ate all year long.
Life without cheap energy is very hard, and short.
QuoteWe still need a good healthy economy and some leadership on the energy front or we will all suffer a lower standard of living.
I second this completely. You just can't ship all of your gravy to another part of the world and expect your potatoes to stay yummy. (Irish decent) I planted oil palms last year but they may just turn out to be pretty. The important thing is to be looking for self investment and moving towards universal applications like our diesel engines.
Casey
This hobby sometimes is just fun.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/burnsalot/2011canola13.jpg)
Speaking of hobby, does anybody know where I can get a small quantity of seed suitable for growing in the North Texas area? I'd like to try a very small plot on a hobby basis, maybe like a pound of seed or so. I don't have a combine, press, and lots of acres, so I'm more interested in what I can plant and process "by hand", maybe something like a 3rd world country. Which seems to be where we're headed. I'm looking for an online retailer I can order it from.
Fuelfarmer - what variety do you grow?
We have been planting a variety of winter canola call Virginia most of the time. This year we also tried Sitro and Hornet.
Here is a time lapse clip of canola blooming. Not the best clip ever. This was my first try at time lapse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOVUCcEBWJc
Here is a youtube clip of a TV show where I "played" a canola farmer. The biodiesel story starts a 3 min. and our farm footage starts a 7:20 and runs to 8:52. My favorite shot is at the end of the show (13:23). We make fuel on the farm, but showing the canola crop was the main reason they filmed at our farm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8odQH0Yzs5Q&feature=feedf
You've really got me thinking about this "growing fuel" idea. I just took a 300 mile trip down I5 and I can't even imagine how many acres of land going completely to waste that I saw along the way. Just imagine how many acres the strip of weeds and grass is between directions on the freeway for hundreds of miles. All that land just sits there rotting, or catching on fire when someone throws a cigarette out. I don't know how canola grows in our climate but imagine if we covered all that space with an oil crop, how much we could generate, without impacting food space at all. I wonder how the state would react if I asked to grow in this space. Probably tell me to get lost....
There is so much empty space going to waste in this country and we don't even realize it. Don't feel bad about filling a landfill, we have PLENTY of space for that.... ::)
And on the other side of the coin, I wonder how many acres of cattle feed we grow, without first taking the oil out of it for fuel...
A slightly different approach.
I got these oil palms from the University of Hawaii when their grant was cancelled. Out of 40, 38 are still alive. (They don't hold up to mowing nor constant watering from a broken irrigation system.) You don't need to get out of they're way while their growing. The white stuff on them is soda water to kill the coquí frogs which were in a load of plants from Puerto Rico a few years back and threaten the entire island with noise pollution. (You're asking why are people importing plants from Puerto Rico? My answer is because international corporations would rather pour millions into the transportation industry rather than building a diverse economy in the areas they reap profits. We spend a couple of hundred dollars a year on the farm here in control efforts. But was it the Great Walmart of China, Home Depot or Kmart?)
Casey
Casey,
That tape measure might grow faster if you get it away from the shadowing effect of the plant. BTW, I'm told to be careful to never overwater a tape measure. :D
Quote from: LowGear on May 29, 2011, 11:22:47 AM
..... The white stuff on them is soda water to kill the coquí frogs which were in a load of plants from Puerto Rico a few years back and threaten the entire island with noise pollution. .....
Soda water as in "carbonated fizzy water" or soda ash mixed into water ??
QuoteSoda water as in "carbonated fizzy water" or soda ash mixed into water ??
It can be baking soda blown through an agricultural blower (even a battery pack hand held) or more often lime. When it hits the wet leaves or it rains the dust turns to a low PH water. The change of one point (so I'm told) in PH will kill the frogs but not the eggs which do not need standing water. And prolific bastards they are. I've asked a couple of people on the phone what the racket was in the background. Coquí!
Of course as broadcasting PH lowing dust to control coquí is against some government agency rules so we are forced to do it only to counteract the acid rain from the volcano. The recommended way is citric acid but that's a liquid and requires a more complicated delivery system and it burns some plants.
My dream is that all rule making
conspiracies committees have one person over 55 and one person that has lived the life that the committee is governing have equal voting powers. But hey, I'm on a radical political rant and we're looking at different ways to grown your own oil. And as we all know, there is nothing political about burning oil to produce power.
Casey
Casey,
How long does it take for oil palms to mature to the point where you can start harvesting oil, and where part of plant is the oil harvested from?
Curbie
hi, i am a oil palm grower from Malaysia.
the tree will take less than 3 years to mature and bear fruits.
generally, well maintain palm tree can produce up 1 ton of fruit per acre of 50 trees per month. this give about 200Kg of palm oil. once pressed and filtered, it run straight on my Lister CS with preheating of palm oil fuel by the exhaust heat.
i have clocked my CS more than 4000 hrs without decoke driving a 3 KW Madwley fully loaded. palm oil has very short polymer chain and it doesn't coke up the engine that much.
in Malaysia, the palm oil industry is very developed. all palm oil mill are energy self sufficient. empty fruit bunches after oil extraction is use to drive steam turbine for power generation and exhaust steam to sterilise the fruit.
kernel oil from the oil palm seed is separately process by refineries for medical grade alcohol and other uses.
although getting a bad pres always, one has to come to Malaysia to see the scale and the very developed processing techniques use. most Malaysian oil palm owners are RSPO certified for supplied to EU market on the ground of it sustainability efforts.
http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5588
http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5584
Wow Startomatic,
The real thing! Great looking trees and fruit. I'll bet you have soil to grow them in. Notice I didn't write "good" soil. Camp Aloha was a lava flow around 150 years ago. Any soil carries bragging rights around here.
More good news. I was thinking that I got my trees two plus years ago but the properties tag reads 2-10-2010. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I have fruit in five years.
The bad news is you probably have a pest on your hands. Not a stalker but a pest.
Do you have photos of your engine and generating system? And the oil extraction program? And ..............
Thanks for sharing.
Casey
Startomatic,
Thanks for the pictures and information, I lived in South Florida for 25+ years and don't remember ever seeing one, although I don't think I knew what to look for.
How is the harvesting done, manually by hand?
Curbie
Casey, Curbie,
the tree looks like a stumpy coconut tree. the trunk is much bigger in girth and doesnt grow as tall as the coconut tree.
haversting is done manually using a flat face 4 inch chisel attached to a cylindrical pipe for fruit below 6 ft. once the tree grows taller, you need a sickle knife attached to aluminum pole. tress can reach more than 50 ft at the end of 30~35 years life span.
as i said, we have a fully developed supply chain in oil palm cultivation. as a grower, you grow the tree and when it matures, there are company offering harvesting services, transportation to palm oil mill for oil extraction. even the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) price is determine on monthly average by the Malaysian government.
the smallest palm oil mills produce 60T oil per day while the larger one go up to 200MT per day
FFB is sterilize first with steam, individual fruit shake loose from the FFB. the empty fruit bunch (EFB) is use as biomass fuel.
loose fruit are then press in a twin screw press. each charging is about 6MT where you can 1.2MT oil on continuous basis.
in Malaysia, biodiesel production come to a grinding halt when western buyer alleged that we are burning food for the rich to drive while depriving the poor of food. the government then introduce 5% biodiesel into fossil diesel since Jan 1st.
palm oil is among the highest in oil content to weight. although i had toy with Jathropa in the past, it is not so promising comparing to the very hardy oil palm tree. and yes, the soil most suitable for oil palm cultivation is semi swampy soil with lot of sunshine.
My CS modification is minimal, just a 3 way valve to start it on diesel, once the palm oil is sufficiently heated up by the exhaust manifold, i switch it over to straight palm oil. the oil from the mill need to be centrifuged filter to protect the fuel injection system though.
so far, the engine run like a clock work with no smoke.
if you need to know more on oil palm cultivation, it would be my pleasure to share my knowledge.
Startomatic,
Thanks for your time and knowledge, very interesting education.
Curbie