$1.00 per gallon is not bad. If I could get methanol cheaper I could come close to that.
It does take time to make biodiesel. But it depends heavily on how you refine your processes. I have found alot of the process is set, and walk away. Come back to it when you have time, or when you know its complete and then move on to the next stage.
Example: When I'm in town I stop and pick up oil (5min at best). When I get home I dump oil into 55 gallon drum for settling (another 5min at best). When I have free time I pump oil from drum to biodiesel reactor (not even 5 min). I turn on my heating element and walk away. I know it takes aproximately 45min to heat up. I use this time to fill my methanol can (5min aprox). When I know its hot I come back and titrate (5min at best). Now I add the lye to the methanol and mix (aprox 10min). Now I add the methoxide to the reactor (20min). I like to add it slow as it mixes in much better this way. I have just dumped it all in at once in under 3min and walked away. Now I set my mixing timer for 2hours and walk away. When its done I have to drain the glycerine (under 5min) and pump the biodiesel to a wash can (2-3min at best). Add water and let my air compressor fill for bubble washing (2-3 min at best). Now it takes three stages to wash. Empty the wash barrel for all three stages (less then 10min). Fill wash can for the last two stages (I'll over estimate and say 8min). Pump to dry can (2min). Heat dry can and run for 30min all while I am doing other things. Time invested to dry while at equipment I'll say (20min) for everything including water testing.
Add all numbers in () and it = 100 minutes aproximate time invested in one batch. Now I wash two batches at once because I have a very small reactor. Add in an extra reaction before wash and dry for a full batch in the wash and dry can and you get - about another hour with figuring for grease pick up. Figure 160 minutes for a 30-40 gallon batch with my double reaction time cause of small reactor. If you had a really big say 50-80 gallon reactor you could cut this time down alot because you only have to titrate the grease, mix lye and methanol together, and mix the batch for 2 hours just once.
So you could say approximately 3 hours is invested in 40 gallons. Now, if your reactor is alot bigger, and you factor in two wash cans and two dry cans you could easily double your production and half your time invested. You could easily make 160 gallons and wash half of that one day and wash and dry the rest the next with only investing a weekend leaving yourself time to do other things while your equipment runs by itself.
I have no need for production scale this large so I just tinker. But I will say this. I heated my entire garage all winter long on a 55 gallon drum that I invested less then a weekend in producing. I also was able to dump three 55 gallon drums worth in my house. 55 X 4 = 220 gallons X $3.20 for heating oil = $704 value. I paid $200 for my drum of methanol including drum deposit. $704 - $200 = $504 I saved last winter.
55 gallons of methanol, 12 liters methanol per 60 liter batch = 17.19 batchs X 60 liters a batch = 1031 liters biodiesel per 55 gallon drum. 1031 liters / 3.78 liters per gallon = 272.75 gallons biodiesel per 55 gallon drum methanol. 272.75 gallons fuel X $3.20 heating oil cost = $872.80 value - $150 methanol cost (drum deposit $50) =
$722.80 savings.
Factor in 3 hours per 40 gallons biodiesel for an entire 55 gallon drum of methanol = approximately
20 hours production time. Like I said before, if you have a larger set up you can drastically reduce production times. All in all not including my time I would say I have invested $400 (estimated really high) into my set up and yielded a $720 savings = I'm still ahead $320. Figure into this a second run at $720 savings + $320 after equipment cost from the first run and I have made
$1040 worth of saved fuel cost between two 55 gallon drums of methanol. Just in two years just tinkering around in my shop, with approximately 40 hours total production time spent at the equipment during proiduction (not including time away while equipment runs). Now if I wanted to scale up production and get into methanol recovery systems I could really show some numbers. Not bad for screwing around on weekends when there is not much to do. Lets factor in $200 in electric costs for fun and I'm still up $804. And I seriously doubt my small scale plant cost me $60 since I started this experiment. There are farms here that make enough biodiesel in one reaction to fuel the entire farms equipment for three to four days. Now thats large scale production.....
So yes, I will agree it is very time consuming. But, it is also very rewarding. Even if I broke even I would still want to do it. I like recycling something that would normally go to waste. Something I can use to help curb our need for foriegn sources of energy. Plus its a blast, and when your done and you can see it sparkle in the sunlight its enough to give me shivers. Ok, so I'm weird. Everyone here already knows it.
Sorry for the long post
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