I heard from the environmental health and safety officer at my college that the EPA (USA) is not pleased about people making their own biodiesel with methanol because it is a regulated chemical by the EPA, as an atmospheric pollutant. Uh oh. She said the EPA would go after biodiesel home-brewers because of this violation of EPA regulations, but doesn't have enough money or time.
Now, it seems to be that most biodiesel home-brewers aren't too worried about this. I'm setting up a biodiesel processor for my college (closed and sealed and as safe as we can possibly be, thanks to comments from Todd and Keith and the rest), but we have to comply with every EPA and OSHA regulation. This is a pain in the butt, for sure, but we're working through the details. It sounds like one thing we CANNOT do is have an open container of methanol evaporating into the atmosphere at any time. This makes some things kind of tricky, but manageable for sure. We certainly can't let the by-product sit out in the sun to evaporate off the methanol. To deal with this, we're looking at moving the methanol around by positive air pressure in the container and gravity, and doing methanol recovery on the fuel before the biodiesel and glycerine are separated, in addition to having a condenser on a fume loop at the top of the reactor vessel. Another student with whom I am working has been speaking with EPA representatives, and has found contradictory information on legal treatment of wastes. I learned from him that there are three types of regulations we have to deal with: Hazardous waste management, air emissions, and water run off. He was told that we have to test the glycerine and methoxide byproduct of the process to see if it is flammable at 140 F degrees. If it is flammable we can not dump it or let it evaporate, it has to be in sealed containers labeled hazardous flammable waste, its contents has to be labeled, and it has to be stored in a secure area away from the elements. Also it will have to be disposed of by collection with other hazardous wastes on campus. If it is not flammable at 140 F we can let it evaporate into the air at up one ton per year. The federal regulation is up to 1000 lbs a day. Does this sound about right to you? Does anyone have experience dealing with regulations in the USA, or is the trend to ignore the EPA because making biodiesel is so much better than the alternative (using dinodiesel)? Also, I want to say that this list is amazing, and thanks. Happy Day. -Aaron ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
