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The UK’s Carbon Trust has launched the Algae Biofuel Challenge to try and flush some good ideas for biofuels from algae off the top of the pond and closer to commercialisation. Worth applying.

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US meat producers are saying in the Des Moines Register that aid to ethanol producers that are facing trouble because of movements in the price of corn over the previous year would be unfair and “would be a startling new development that discriminates in favour of one segment of American agriculture,”in a letter to the US secretary of agriculture.

This is a new front in the ethanol-from-corn industry’s battle to stay profitable/in business.

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OK this is slightly off beam, but a lot of people are very keen of feeding distillers grains to cattle. For some ethanol plants it is the most profitable part of the business.

Animal husbandry is not an area that I know much, if anything about. At home we struggle to keep goldfish alive above three months. (Each one a tragedy.)

But I came across a good, if long piece of writing to the next Farmer In Chief in the New York Times Magazine the other day. I’ve been wondering what to do with it, and I guess it was Ensus’ new website that prompted me to look at the effects of feeding protein and phosphorus-rich food to heifers. I am not trying to take a pop at Ensus, they’re just the most recent example of this thinking that I’ve come across.

It turns out that there is no advantage or disadvantage to feeding distillers grains to dairy heifers. According this on eXtension

The primary advantage in feeding distillers grains to dairy heifers iscost. There are no known biological or nutritional advantages ordisadvantages associatedwith feeding distillers grains to dairy heifers. Research trials inwhich distillers grains were fed to heifers observed normal growthrates, normal reproduction, and normal subsequent milk production.

For me one of there is a lot of resonance in Michael Pollan’s article, especially the part about flying over a brown land, which much of the US is for much of the time (based on series of flights at different seasons to random times across the US in the past 10 years). I am also impressed with his quote:

As Wendell Berry has tartly observed, to take animals off farms and putthem on feedlots is to take an elegant solution — animals replenishingthe fertility that crops deplete — and neatly divide it into twoproblems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem onthe feedlot. The former problem is remedied with fossil-fuelfertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all.

I don’t think of my self as particularly a champion of the organic food movement. Cheap food has enabled many in the west to avoid malnutrition, partly through fertiliser use. Organic food is often the preserve of the wealthy, beacuse it has not been possible to produce it on the scale of industrial food.

Maybe we need a middle way between these extremes with smaller farms closer to centres of population and inorganic fertiliser application used to suppliement rather than replace fertilisation using animal waste. At least part of this Polland recomends.

Would benefit farmers to grow a range of crops across their farms rather than being reliant on monocultures of individual crops, if only to spread the risk.

Enough of this, I’m heading right back onto the beam.

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So I will continue to keep a filter on the car before the IP. My system is a one tank using original tank in a 1985 Nissan 720 Ute/Pickup. I feel that the filter blocks too readily with fatty deposits or reduces flow of thicker oil too much. My fuel line is heated and I run a heater hose a couple of times round the fuel filter from the engine block. The only symptoms I get are at speeds of 100kph or about 70mph when I have to accelerate quickly to get on the highway. The engine gets starved of fuel. Does anyone have a suggestion for a more open filter or some other solution. As I must use the highway to and from work.:D

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DSM an international chemicals company based in the Netherlands says it is launching a project funded by the DOE into biofuels through a “multimillion dollar cooperative funding agreement with the US Department of Energy to underwrite a portion of research and development costs aimed at enabling “second generation” biofuels from non-food feedstocks.

This has to be good news in the drive to move the US from ethanol made from edible corn towards potentially more sustainable technologies.

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G’day Lads,

I have decided to split the Ip return line with a three way valve to send the initial purge fuel to the veg tank and not the diesel. Too much oil in my start tank for my liking. Droppping my sub tank after too many start issues got me thinking this way - looked and moved more like oil. Looping the Ip return from what i have read will only delay my long purge time being a 1HZ VE pump. Can someone point me in the direction of a supplier for a three way return solenoid valve? Any one local?

Safe driving

Rich……………………………….

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Ensus new website, for me outlines the paradox at the heart of the biofuel from food processes. If you take food out of the food chain then there’s less to eat. It really is that simple even if you’re using animal grade wheat. Animals cannot surely live on just protein and bran? With a minimum of three stomachs that’s hardly what they evolved to do.

It is good to see the carbon dioxide from the plant will be captured and re used in fizzy drinks, among other areas. How much will eventually find its way back to the atmosphere? Presumably Yara is doing this on a commercial basis and it would be interesting to know what the cost of doing this is compared to capturing the carbon dioxide produced as part of Yara’s fertilizer production.

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We all know Fitian likes a cheap deal on merc’s but I think this time he was taking things a bit far.

Dude! Your Mercedes Is Broken! - FileCabi.net

whats going on with the price of KOH when i started making bio 3 years ago it was $28 for 25 kg now i ordered 4 bags yesterday and its $100 for 25 kg does anybody know where you can get it cheaper in vic

Has anyone heard of new laws coming into place where as fish chip shops etc due to environmental issues of their used product (old oil) that it must be picked up by an approved oil recyclers (old oil collection drums are being picked up and new designed ones being distributed ). This law is being enforced by environmental officials from councils also the council wants to know who is picking up the old oil.

Any news guys????