Biodiesel Prices

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:01 am

...Oil leftovers provide asphalt, I am sure you have seen it and driven your CRD on it.
Most of the land in the in the Midwest used to grow soy beans is not irrigated, so water mining is not practiced on most of the land. Where water mining is practiced they should grow crops that can grow with out the irrigation. As far as irrigation on river bottom land that is mostly sand and the water plentiful and is not being mined, I have no problem.
Most of the corn and soy beans have gone into animal feed, do they have to call Biodiesel and Ethanol an animal feed bi-product to satisfy you?
What is wrong is extracting oil from the soy beans and feeding the rest to animals? Or do they need to crap the oil out so that it is land applied with the manure because it is not economically feasible as a fuel crop only, look at the big picture, not just the oil to make biodiesel extracted.
You want to fixate on only the bottom line coming from the oil from land crops, but you blindly miss the point that the oil is one of the crop products and not the only profit generator.
Farmers grow the soy beans, some of the soy beans are pressed to remove the oil, the farmers buy back the feed made in this process for more money than what they sell the soy beens for. From this feed they get a better feed conversion than feeding unprocessed ground up grain, more profit, the profit you factor out of your statistics.
The crap that comes out of the back end of the animal is the fertilizer :!:

Cowpie1 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:00 am

Too bad MOST farmers don't use what comes out the business end of the animal to fertilize crops. They instead use anhydrous ammonia made from natural gas. (some hog producers do inject the slurry from hog manuer ponds) Ever see those propane looking tanks that a lot of farmers pull behind their pickups in the fall? They are sure not filled with animal byproduct.

Cattle and hogs need more than corn and soybeans (like alfalfa, clover, milo, oats to name a few). But since the bulk of acreages being put into more corn and soy production, the other needed crops are being driven up in cost as well as land prices, which in turn reduces available land for cattle. Except for the major feed lots, a lot of beef production is also declining and therefore, beef prices will be rising accordingly, along with dairy because of the increase cost of production there as well.

If a farmer is strictly into corn and soy production, then there is definately a profit to be made for them. That is why they are planting these types of crops more frequently. But it is affecting the balance of agriculture to quite a degree that all of us will have to pay higher prices for other items. Therefore, we have paid for biofuel production, whether we use it or not. And of those that do us it, they are paying for it at the pump as well. Thus, they have actually paid far more for it than even the cost of regular fuels.

If the normal market forces had been at work without government intervention, then the biofuels markets would have grown at a more moderate pace and filled a niche. The Midwest has been using ethanol for several decades and it didn't affect the overall agricultural balance. But once government mandates kicked in due to political fads, we are now seeing the unintended consequences.

I have no problem with biofuels and use them to some degree myself. I was a strong proponent of their use for some time. But as I watch the agricultural balance becomming unbalanced, I have had to rethink my positive outlook for biofuels.

Like most, I was rather myopic in my view of biofuels.

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:50 pm

Cowpie1: Farmers will raise what ever they can get paid for. In Afghanistan poppies are grown in abundance to make heroin, because it generates money. Here the farmers are mostly paid on yield so the corn farmers knife in anhydrous just shy of the point of diminishing returns. The corn they produce has little nutritional value and needs numerous supplements to make it suitable for animal feed. One redeeming fact of soy beans is that they make nitrogen and don't need anhydrous. Since the soy been has been bred to produce food stuffs, the oil is a secondary product. When the farmers are paid for the oil more than other products, the soy bean will be bred to produce more oil and less usable food stuffs.
Since the oil from soy beans does not provide an abundance of nutrition to the grilled steaks, chicken breasts, and pork chops I eat and slides out the back side of the animals, I don't mind some of it enhancing the fuel I use in my CRD. For those who like fried food, recovering the used oil and processing that into Biodiesel is also a good use, my cp3 pump and the rest of the engine thank them in advance.
I favor recovering every source of biodiesel including what is recovered from what comes out our backsides (just like the farm animals, most of the oil we eat comes out the backside) in our Waste Water Plants. I share my research with Waste Water Plant operators so they can set up a relationship with biodiesel home brewers so the grease from restaurants stays out of the Waste Water Treatment Plants.

Algae biodiesel is promising, but so is Warp Drive, most of the articles I have seen have the hard sell with the fishing for government grants overtones. When an individual or company steps up and starts driving a car or truck around with a common rail diesel engine under the hood, powered by algae biodiesel, I will be impressed. When I see it in a pump, I will buy it.
For now I will favor suppliers who sell quality biodiesel or biodiesel blends coming from conventional sources.

For those who think that the water used in irrigation is Potable, drink up, our medical doctors need paying customers to help them to make their Mercedes payments. First of all, most of the crop land in the Midwest is not irrigated. Unlike some areas where they mine water, most of the irrigated land in the Midwest that is irrigated, is sandy soil with a very shallow water table where the water is pumped out of the sand with a shallow well pump using a sand point. Is this water Potable? I would not drink it because it is loaded with nitrates that is put on the crops and used by the crops. Do farmers intentionally apply excess nitrogen to contaminate the irrigation water with nitrates, H#!! NO, they have to pay for it and that comes out of their profits! Most of the nitrates in rivers and shallow aquifers often used for Midwestern irrigation come from home owners and other businesses who over fertilize their lawns. Farmers will only knife in the anhydrous to just shy of the point of diminishing returns, not beyond it.

Steve

Threeweight · **Joined:** Mon May 14, 2007 5:57 pm **Posts:** 679

Water for irrigation in Central Oregon comes from rivers like the Deschutes, which is fed by springs that result from snow melting in the Cascade Mountains.

Drive down to the supermarket and buy a bottle of Evian. If you are in the in the Northwest, it is likely bottled Deschutes spring water. Doesn't make farms bad folks, but it begs the question "is this really the best use of resources", especially since much of what is grown through irrigation in OR and WA is low-value crops like alfalfa.

When you irrigate a field, a portion of the water applied, even with the best technology, ends up either running off and into the local stream or being absorbed into the groundwater. Whatever was applied to the field where the water was used (pesticides, fertilizers, etc...) ends up in the water. No big deal on small scale family farms. Really BFD with giant, corporate farms.

http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/wcp/

Cowpie1 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:11 pm

Steve,

That was my point. Farmers will raise whatever they can get the most profit from. That is why all other things are going up in price as well. That is why the law of unintended consequences is kicking in and we are all paying for biofuels whether we use them or not.

Corn and beans are far easier to plant, harvest, and transport than alfalfa crops and the return on oats and wheat is not as great as corn and soybeans. Therefore, we get hit in the wallet for increased costs to US for these other items. Dairy cattle need a LOT of alfalfa. So does all those horse owners out there. Wheat will have to be imported this year to cover demand, so you can expect your bread and soda crackers to increase in cost as well.

soooo, you and everyone else is, by default, paying for biofuels whether we like it or not.

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:20 pm

A typical Midwestern acre produces 3120 pounds of soybeans. Of that 11.74% is soy oil which is processed into the 48 gallons of biodiesel and 4.33 gallons of glycerin. What is left over is 2754 pounds of anamal feed used to produce pork chops, steak, chicken breast, turkey, cat fish, and dog food.
I feel no guilt in taking the 11.74% of the soy oil to have it processed into biodiesel for my CRD. As stated before, the soybeans add nitrogen to the soil that does not run off.

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:26 pm

Cowpie1: I heard the price of wheat has shot up to over $20 bushel (60 pounds). Also I heard that more of the crop land will be planted into wheat to cash in on the disaster in Australia that has contributed to the wheat shortage. Crop land diverted to wheat will jack up the prices of soybeans and corn along with the biofuel prices.
I wounder what bread made from post Ethanol corn meal would taste like :?:

How about post biodiesel soy meal tofu :?:

I will stick with meat grown from post biofuel meals.

Steve

onthehunt · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:08 pm

Is it so hard to accept that the biofuel companies might be doing the same thing as big oil?? I'd rather buy usld once than pay for bio-d twice. Make it cheaper and I will buy it. Capitalism works.

Cowpie1 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:56 pm

onthehunt wrote:

Is it so hard to accept that the biofuel companies might be doing the same thing as big oil?? I'd rather buy usld once than pay for bio-d twice. Make it cheaper and I will buy it. Capitalism works.

Same here. I just buy the cheapest diesel I can find. Bioblend or not.

Oh.. no wheat hasn't gotten to $20 a bushel yet. doubt it will ever get that high. But wheat goes into a lot of food items you find on the store shelf, so either way, food prices will rise accordingly.

Alfalfa puts MORE nitrogen into the soil than soybeans and developes a deeper root system to break up soils better. Plus it is a perenial plant crop as opposed to soy beans. Most major crop producers are planting soybeans and alternating with corn. So there is no net gain of nitrogen in the soil and therefore, anhydrous ammonia (nitrogen) must be applied. Soy never puts enough in the soil to compensate for what corn removes.

The old days of 2 years alfalfa (1st year an oat crop starter for the alfalfa), 1 year corn, and 1 year soy worked rather well. And prices balanced each other to make it feasible. Now with Corn and Soy getting the lions share of attention at the trading table, alfalfa is out on a lot of farms and now it's only corn alternated with soy. Pretty brutal on the soil and a lot of herbicide (alfalfa tends to help in weed control) and anhydrous has to be applied to make it work.

Look, we can go back and forth on this, but if you really want to find out the facts on these crops, call your state ag extension office or your local Farm Bureau. I have been directly involved with agriculture since the 60's. I watched the biofuel ordeal from its infancy in the 70's. When it was purely market driven, it was a pretty good thing to use soy oil (a byproduct that the ag industry was trying to find a way to get rid of) for biodiesel, cooking oil, and such, and excess corn for ethanol. It provided an outlet for excess crops and helped keep prices relatively more stable.

Once ethanol mandates nationwide, and various state biodiesel mandates (Illinois and Minnesota most prevalent) kicked in thanks to recent energy legislation, then there became a mad rush to make a buck and move all production at the farm and coop level to capitalize on the mandates. This has caused increased soil degradation and erosion in trying to use every square inch of land for corn and soy production and not maintain a sound crop rotation cycle and various soil erosion techniques such as grassed waterways and erosion buffers. Only when the Soil Conservation Service has a hissy fit, do a lot of the "mega" farmers knuckle under and institute very limited soil conservation practices. Unfortunately, even many "family" farms are giving into the greed process as well.

Even beef, pork, and poultry production is suffering from the same mentality. Use of synthetic hormones and antibiotics are messing up the food chain. Feeding back animal parts to these animals has caused the mad-cow problem, for one, to surface. Just ask American Protein Corporation (one of the largest suppliers to the meat producers) how they make their granulated protein suppliments.... from rendered pork and beef blood brought in by the tanker full. NOT from soy protein. If you would care to check this out, I can take you to some of these facilities here in Iowa to see for yourself. My father in law, before he retired, hauled blood and internal organs to American Protein for their use and I have hauled the finished product out of their facilities.

This is a bigger mess than you will ever read in Time or the Wall Street Journal. As I stated in an earlier post, the law of unintended consequences has kicked in big time.

I promise now.... I will get off my soapbox and not rant here about this anymore

I know I have made a spectacle of myself.

Reflex · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:48 pm **Posts:** 567

I, for one, appreciate your insight. I find it interesting that a lot of the people who opposed what I had to say a year ago have started coming around as the unintended consequences become more obvious. Honestly, we should have listened to the farmers in the beginning. This is quite simply not sustainable in its current form and is causing more harm than any potential good.

Biofuels are great. They are probably the future. But not like this.

b100 · **Joined:** Sat Sep 23, 2006 1:38 am **Posts:** 22

I've been making biodiesel for 3 yrs. When I first started petro was about $2.30/gal.
A drum of methanol was about $110 which equates to about 55-60 cents/gal.
It has been between $180-$230 for the last 18 months or so. My last drum was $300
and was told the next price would be about $380 which would put cost of materials
to about $1.60-$1.70/gal. Thats without electricity, chasing down used vegi oil,
complaints from the wife about spills in the garage.

Biodiesel Prices

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