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What kills me if in America, especially in New England, is we still have tons of people, if not a majority a huge percentage, burning #2 heating oil during the winter. It used to be so cheap as to hardly think about filling the tank before winter, but it's almost as much as gasoline now. My thought is "how hard can it be to convert those burners to biofuel, either reclaimed vegetable oil like diesel or with a mix of ethanol from corn to lower the cost." Because if there's one thing America has the capacity to produce a shitload of, it's ethanol.
If somebody with a better grasp of the subject has an answer for that I would be very grateful.
We have just converted from a gas furnace to a heat pump. It took a day. Connected to the existing heating system (water radiators and under floor) and hot water pipes. I know you wanted an ethanol solution, however, the electricity route combined with solar cells (like we have) makes it cheap to run.
Currently on an oil system that uses baseboard radiators throughout the house. Didn't realize a heat pump could potentially tie into the same system but am going to look into it now. Anything to watch out for in your experience?
It's cool that you had liquid based heating a heat pump could tie into, but most of new England is heated by forced hot air systems that don't tie in the same way. Most heat pump installs around here, and there are a lot, are mostly for cooling and supplemental heating. Having to install an interior unit usually winds them up near the ceiling so the more expensive cooling can fall and cool more efficiently, at the decrease of heating efficiency because it rises. Also, until pretty recently a heat pump was basically no good below zero ยฐf, lots of people still have those units and still need heat in the winter. I resolutely think B20 (20% biodiesel mix) is a great solution for current heating prices, and think a state sponsored program to install the necessary upgrades to burn B50 and get production up to scale would be a really good investment. Big changes are great if you can afford them, but those aren't the folks I'm talking about. I'm talking about folks using HEAP benefits, people who scrounge up the $450 for a 100 gallon minimum delivery and keep a couple jugs of off-road diesel on hand in case the tank runs dry on a cold day. People that know how to bleed and reignite their furnace without calling the guy, because they've had to do it 5 times a winter because keeping oil in the tank means not eating and the stove burns propane, which is already paid for and makes heat too.
Sorry, I've had some pretty fucking desperate Maine winters in my years up here.
I'm back from the Internet with knowledge to share!
https://www.northeastbiodiesel.com/heating-with-biodiesel
So it does exist, requires no retrofit up to 20% biodiesel, and with minor retrofit can go to pure BD, but it congeals around 45ยฐf so some amount of petroleum as a stabilizer is required for winter heating. Apparently ethanol from corn does not produce more energy than is required to create it, but biodiesel already being partly made for another purpose and otherwise wasted brings its creation energy down a lot.
Even ethanol critics don't claim ethanol nerds more energy to make than it produces. However the most optimistic supports only give in around 1.7x.
If I remember correctly, the issue with corn ethanol is the scale. It requires a lot of space and a lot of water.
Solar panels are energy wise a much more efficient use of the same area. They also don't require water or any kind of labour to harvest. Finally the consumption of electricity in heaters or cars is more efficient than burning ethanol.
I like your idea of using existing burners instead of replacing entire heat systems. Perhaps biogas produced by household and agricultural waste is a better option than growing corn for this purpose.
Yea, the company page I linked basically says the same. Ethanol from corn has so many more energy inputs, it doesn't wind up being very efficient. But saving fryer oil from the waste steam and mixing it with standard #2 heating oil with no burner modifications seems like a thing we should just do wholesale.
They have a large scale project of that sort in Finland.
Article from Helsinki Times
Since this was written, they've also started running busses on that fuel.