[Louie]

Updated the site with more accessible files.

www.cocogas.com

[backstop]

Louie -

thanks for the link - the technical names of the combustible agents in the coconut oil used were news to me, and to most here.

Sadly I can't find any info on the site about the oil's production and supporting ecology, or on its characteristics as a fuel.

Should you come across such info I'd be glad if you'd post it.

That it is a practical prospect as a fuel I learned several years ago having seen a BBC film of its use in normal rural vehicles in the embargoed island of Bouganvillia.

A relatively primitive, highly effective guerrilla force, (starting with archery and developing their own guns to eject a mining corporation backed by foreign forces),
made a coconut-oil fuel to power their transport.

There was certainly enough made without major plantations or refinery to power a decent local transport system as well.

Naturally, being a war zone, little detail was shown, but as one islander remarked, grinning -

"When we get this to the world market - Shell better watch out !"

The island remains embargoed, last I heard.

How many other parts of the world can run motor-transport sustainably on the global coconut palm resource remains an open question.
Given the tonnage of coconuts that are left to rot each year, I suspect the resource is substantial in scale compared to rural communities' needs.

The critical question with this as with most fuels from biomass, is to what level can it be developed to assist, rather than to displace,
the production & transport of local and national food supplies.

regards,

Backstop

[nocar]

We always have to consider how very much energy cars and trucks use. Per gallon or liter, gasoline,diesel and fats (cooking oil, coconut oil or butter) all have about the same energy content. To fill a 50 liter tank ( about 12 gallons) you need 50 liters of oil or butter (or about 50 kilograms or 100 pounds).

Imagine putting 10 gallons or 40 liter gasoline per week into your car. Quite normal, isn't it? Imagine eating 40 kgs or 80 pounds of butter, or about the same amount of cooking oil each week. Seems impossible? It is.

Actually, fat has about 9 food calories per gram, which means that 1 kg (2 pounds) has 9000 food calories, enough to feed 3-4 persons for a day with 2000-3000 calories. (Although we all would like to exchange some of that fat for veggies, bread and perhaps meat).

That means that one car that you fill up with 40 liters (10 gallons) per week takes the food for 17-25 persons each week.

Backstops says that tons of coconuts are left to rot each year. The oil is only in the "meat" part, in just a small part of the coconut, and it has to be extracted, (ground and pressed out, I suppose.)

How much coconut oil is really left to rot?

The real question concerning biofuels is: How many persons must starve in order for some to drive cars?

nocar

[Louie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'L')ouie -

thanks for the link - the technical names of the combustible agents in the coconut oil used were news to me, and to most here.

Sadly I can't find any info on the site about the oil's production and supporting ecology, or on its characteristics as a fuel.

Should you come across such info I'd be glad if you'd post it.


Backstop

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Louie', '
')The link just says that coconut oil can be converted into gasoline by saponification.

[Kez]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caoimhan', 'H')ave you ever stopped to think that coconut -> fuel production might just be considered a local energy source like you claim we need? Particularly on islands where shipping of oil is expensive. Hawaii is one of the leaders in biodiesel production, partially BECAUSE they can use local agricultural sources for the fuel.

[lorenzo]

Yes, coconut is a great feedstock and there's millions of tonnes of unused copra out there.

Besides, did you know that Indonesia has 12,000 uninhabited and unexploited coconut-islands, and the Philippines have 5000? Millions of tons of coconut grow there.

With oil at US$ 73 a barrel it probably even becomes economically viable to sail out and harvest many millions of those unused tonnes in the wild, and to use them locally as a biodiesel feedstock.

As always, with a tropical biodiesel crop of this kind, you use the residues to produce electricity which you feed to the grid. (Coconut shells are even imported by big European power plants to be co-fired with coal, for which the power company gets carbon credits and the marketing advantage of selling "greener" electricity.)



The EROEI of coconut bioenergy is 12 to 1.

[Heineken]

Too bad for all the plant and animal species that will be extinguished by your massive coconut-plantation schemes, huh Lorenzo? But yeah, maybe if we convert every bit of soil to biomass glop farms we can continue to keep our highways crammed with SUVs for a few more decades until climate change finishes us off.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')oo bad for all the plant and animal species that will be extinguished by your massive coconut-plantation schemes, huh Lorenzo? But yeah, maybe if we convert every bit of soil to biomass glop farms we can continue to keep our highways crammed with SUVs for a few more decades until climate change finishes us off.

[Heineken]

I know you mean well, Lorenzo, but I'm not buying it. Humans (AND their trained monkeys and other slaves) leave a trail of wreckage wherever they go.

Drastically reducing the size of the human footprint now is the only faint chance we have left.

[Louie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', '
')
Maybe our friend Louie can tell us more about the unexploited potential...

[azreal60]

I'm truely facinated. Richard Heinburg a dangerous and unreliable person? Have you even ever met the man? I have. He's about as dangerous as my Grandmother and about as unreliable as taxes. I realize you don't like what he says, but it's hardly applicable to call someone dangerous just because he's an unusually facile arguer of a point you don't like to face. That's got to be the funniest thing I've seen on the net in a while, and I've seen quite a bit.

As for what your talking about, coconut oil gas, sure, I'd bet it could be done and will be very useful in the tropics. Doesn't help me a damn bit, but I'm sure south america might be able to use it some. Well, more like the pacific islands, but hey, they drive Loooots of cars.....

Going to piss off the people who use coconut oil for everything it's used for currently, but oh well. Gotta drive.....

This kind of post makes me want to just go off on a person, mostly because it make's such ludicris assumptions about things the person knows nothing about. Louie the orginal poster had a good post, but then people started in their pet peeves.

To all I would like to say, doomers, please, if a person doesn't make stupid statements, try to refrain from cutting off non existant legs. Not everyone is a unfiltered optimist.
Unfiltered optimists, dear god, please please please do a small bit of research that doesn't sound like a reject from the view on fox news. Quoting Heinburgs essays on primitism as a bad point about him is like saying Stephen Hawking is dangerous because he knows things about black holes and the universe and is going to tell us all about it, no my poor brain, oh the humanity!

LOL

[thor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'A')ll you have to do is to pick up a fraction of those coconuts from nearby islands (trained monkeys do the job, easily and happily).

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thor', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'A')ll you have to do is to pick up a fraction of those coconuts from nearby islands (trained monkeys do the job, easily and happily).

[DJ_Mittens]

Still, the human labor required is phenomenal when compared to corn/canola/grain-type crops which can easily be harvested by machine. That adds a huge degree of cost, likely making any significant amount of coconut gas economically impractical.

Unless we want to re-introduce slavery.

[Louie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DJ_Mittens', 'S')till, the human labor required is phenomenal when compared to corn/canola/grain-type crops which can easily be harvested by machine. That adds a huge degree of cost, likely making any significant amount of coconut gas economically impractical.

Unless we want to re-introduce slavery.

[DJ_Mittens]

That's not the only cost.

There's the fact that it would require large amounts of land.

There's the fact that these large amounts of land already have food crops on them.

There's the fact that as the land is converted from food crops to energy crops, food prices will rise.

So, instead of paying for cheap food and cheap fuel, you'll have moderately high priced food and fuel.

The biggest problem with every one of these so-called "solutions" is that they do nothing but take energy away from another industry, which will inevitably result in higher costs for that industry.

[Kez]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caoimhan', '*')drumroll*

And now! Presenting my all-time favorite argument against an alternative energy technology...

"Since it can't replace all our oil usage, we shouldn't be doing it."

Thank you for your input, Heineken!

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kez', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caoimhan', '*')drumroll*

And now! Presenting my all-time favorite argument against an alternative energy technology...

"Since it can't replace all our oil usage, we shouldn't be doing it."

Thank you for your input, Heineken!