Re: [Biofuel] small oil presses, WVO and sustainability

[Michael Redler]

Well, I really appreciate all the responses to my post. However, I'm still at a loss as to what I can do, given only one acre of land and the need for a productive crop rotation from the same piece of land every year.

 

So far, I saw one post that questioned whether you need crop rotation at all (i.e. Are you really taking anything important out of the soil?) and another from Keith that requires me to do a little work (Keith, you're in competition with my Amazon wish list - both providing more material than I have time to read lately!). I think the answer lies in the abundance of information given by Keith and I just have to make the time to go through it.

 

Thanks again!!

 

Mike


Jason& Katie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

ok, take ye auld oversimlification and use the 800 Gal/acre and then
consider taking 5 acres to farm by rotation. one for pasture, one for fuel
and the other three for restructuring (nitrogen, compost, hay, etc.) you
could have the four year rotation, and never have a dry year as far as fuel
is concerned. if you were really, really, ambitious you could plant red
clover as hay stock and use the blossoms for a small sugar supply for
ethanol as well. there are just too many ways to go about this, my
grandfather is a jerk but he knows his farming, and i pay more attention
than most people think.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] small oil presses, WVO and sustainability


> >Michael Redler wrote:
>> > Thanks Jason, Katie and Keith.
>> >
>> > The reason for my post had mostly to do with soil degradation. I was
>> > researching what crops gave the best yield for ethanol production and
>> > began looking at sugar beets as a possibility. However, the research
>> > suggests that root crops can't be planted every year because of what
>> > it takes out of the soil and that you should rotate three other crops
>> > in between (four year rotation). My interpretation was that if I never
>> > wanted to step foot in a gas station again, I would need an acre of
>> > land to produce (roughly) 800 gallons of ethanol. If I kept my driving
>> > local, this would work - except I could only do this once every four
>> > years (assuming I had the time and energy to process the crop - agh!).
>> > So, I started looking at alternating my source of biofuel and
>> > considered the possibility of alternating fuels (biodiesel, ethanol,
>> > etc.). By the way, besides biodiesel and ethanol, the other viable
>> > option I considered was/is producer gas.
>>
>>If you return all the by-product to the soil you'd only be taking out
>>the alcohol itself - hydrogen and carbon fixed by photosynthesis. No
>>nutrients would be removed. Wouldn't this be sustainable?
>
> Hi David
>
> Simply returning it - digging it back in - wouldn't work very well.
> Composting it first with other mixed materials would work much
> better. Feeding it to livestock and composting the livestock waste
> with other mixed material will work much better still and this can be
> sustainable. Also using livestock in grazing rotations followed by
> crop production works the best and is truly sustainable. This is
> called ley farming - the temporary grass pasture is called a "ley".
> See:
> http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html#ley
>
> Best
>
> Keith
>
>
>>I'm curious how you calculate 800 gallons/acre? I'm not doubting it,
>>just thought I'd read about far lower yields of biodiesel feedstocks.
>>
>> > The plan would be that after I developed a sustainable crop rotation
>> > for both ethanol and biodiesel production, I would harvest the crop
>> > and produce the fuel in the fall. In the meantime, I would use last
>> > years crop along with other alternatives PV, wind, etc. to stay off
>> > the grid.
>> >
>> > So, here's the rub; In order to direct a variety of energy sources
>> > toward fueling my car (for example), It's apparent that I'll need a
>> > common denominator - electric storage. That means an electric car and
>> > either flex-fuel of duel generators.
>>
>>If you want to use the wind to produce electricity to run your car with
>>you have a point. Why not just run the car on the alcohol? Cars are
>>very intensive energy users, and liquid fuels provide very dense energy
>>storage.
>>
>>--- David
>>
>> > As you can see, my plan starts to get messy in a hurry. To keep the
>> > number of variables down, I was hoping for the same (best yielding)
>> > crop every year without damaging the soil.
>> >
>> > Mike
>> >
>> > */Jason & Katie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote:
>> >
>> > i was looking through the archives trying to find something about
>> > that
>> > earlier. can you use the cake from an oil press as stock for
>> > ethanol, or has
>> > it been made unusable in this respect? i am fairly sure you can
>> > digest and
>> > subdivide it, but if it could be taken that one step further, it
>> > might be a
>> > more efficient process.
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: Michael Redler
>> > To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>> > Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 10:51 AM
>> > Subject: [Biofuel] small oil presses, WVO and sustainability
>> >
>> >
>> > I'm glad so see discussions about WVO (supply, sustainability and
>> > big
>> > business) and methods for pressing your own oil. I always felt that
>> > increasing competition for WVO in the future will make that supply
>> > unsustainable. That along with the future availability of methanol
>> > caused me
>> > to shift my interest to ethanol as a fuel.
>> >
>> > Now I'm wondering if a scheme can me developed for a crop rotation
>> > that
>> > allows continuous alternations between oil and sugar producing
>> > plants so
>> > that energy independence might take on a hybrid approach. For
>> > example,
>> > safflower/sugar beets/soy/potatoes/etc, etc. This is just an
>> > example - I'm
>> > not a farmer (yet).
>> >
>> > Mike

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