[97427] in North American Network Operators' Group
Diesel storage (was:RE: 24x7 Support Strategies)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (chuck goolsbee)
Thu Jun 14 12:17:39 2007
In-Reply-To:
<D03E4899F2FB3D4C8464E8C76B3B68B085AA92@E03MVC4-UKBR.domain1.systemhost.ne
t>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:16:12 -0700
To: nanog@merit.edu
From: chuck goolsbee <chucklist@forest.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
>And what about all those diesel generators? How many of them are capable
>of running on vegetable oil rather than diesel oil? I regularly walk
>past a building in London that reeks because of the diesel fuel tanks in
>the basement. You have to wonder about the safety of storing large
>amounts of petroleum oil in the centers of major cities when vegetable
>oil is safer, and more carbon-friendly.
This is something I know about, as I home-brew=20
fuel for my vehicles, and I operate a datacenter=20
with backup power. ;)
The issue with straight vegetable oil is that it=20
must be pre-heated to >55=B0C to efficiently run in=20
a Diesel engine without risk of injector or=20
injector pump clogging. This is not exactly=20
efficient for fail-over power generation as you=20
would either need to build dual-tank and heating=20
systems (still storing SOME petro-Diesel AND=20
losing X% of your power generation facility to=20
heating your fuel in the process... a LOT of=20
electricity as most backup gensets have a LOT of=20
fuel around to heat up... looking outside my=20
office window I see two tanks, one 19000 liters,=20
the other 30,000 liters in capacity.) Or you=20
would need to mix that SVO with petroleum Diesel,=20
to thin it enough to run risk free... negating=20
your desire to rid yourself of petrochemical risk.
This is moot in exceptionally warm climates or=20
exceptionally cloud-free areas as passive solar=20
could be used to store SVO at high temps.=20
VO-based fuels are more likely to gel at lower=20
temps than petro-fuels. Ask me how I know!
=46inally, vegetable oil has long term storage=20
issues of the organic sort, where it can become=20
contaminated with algae, bacteria, etc.
BioDiesel, that is vegetable oil that has been=20
chemically stripped of glycerines through=20
transesterfication is a better suggestion to=20
replace petro-Diesel in generators. It has cold=20
weather and storage issues too, but generally=20
performs better than SVO.
--chuck
