Can someone tell me how many gallons of bio diesel we can get from an acre of farmland?

Question

All the bio diesel web sites say we can use soy, sugar beats, and some kind of grass? Which one can produce the most? How many gallons of bio diesel can we expect to get off an acre of farm land? Anyone know?

Answer 1

speaking strictly on ethanol based bio-diesel, since it appears that is what you are referring to....

Actually, you can use a lot more stuff than you mentioned.

all that needs to be done, is the right microorganism utilized to produce the right enzyme to break down a polysaccharides into a sugar that yeast can ferment.

example:

amylase breaks down corn starch(and other plant starches) to fermentable sugars

cellulase breakes down cellulose(component of plant and photosynthetic bacterial cells) to fermentable sugars

there are serveral other enzymes that act on other saccharides produced by different raw materials than you mentioned.

any ethanol fuel use is doomed in the future, because if it is left in the hands of private sector, they will use what maximizes the product yield vs the fermentation time.

which means plant matter that produces the most starch will be utilized, and fermented using turbo yeast, at optimum temperature, which yields about 1/2 the amount of ethanol per unit of raw material used with a slower fermentation rate at lower temps. this is a highly wasteful process as far as other industries, such as food supply is concerned. This means food material will be used, rather than agricultural and industrial waste.

now to answer your question, yield of raw material from an acre of farm land is highly questionable. first we must decide what the raw material being grown is, because all sources of fermentable sugars yield various amounts of raw materials per acre.

then, we must consider the agriculture practices being used and how they will effect crop yields, which is also highly variable.

after that, we must consider climate variations and how they effect crop yield during a particular crop season.

so i guess what i am trying to say, is that you are asking for an answer without defining the variables involved.

we would need to know:

the expected yield of the crop

the type of crop used as raw material

the fermenation practices used to obtain chemical energy

and the department of agriculture's crop report on estimated yields.

sorry, that is the cold hard truth. We will not find a solution for fuel, until fuel production is quit being viewed as a gold mine.

Answer 2

Depending on what crop are you planning to cultivate as a source of vegetable oil. Different crops yield different amounts of oil.

Also, depending on how efficient your oil extraction methods are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

This is also interesting http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_...

Answer 3

How many people don't get fed? A lot of our excess produce is shipped to hungry people in the third world. Corn products are already rising drastically in price. I think biofuels are going to cost lives in drought stricken countries and places where disasters cause food shortages.  And furthermore, the price of our own food and transportation will skyrocket to the point that low income people and fixed income elderly will not be able to afford to heat their homes, costing more lives right here in the US.

Answer 4

Here is the link to a chart for different fuel plants...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel#Y...

Answer 5

Biodiesel is made from different plants and they all have different yields. Giving a link for Jatropha yields, this should give you a rough idea.

Answer 6

I just saw a presentation from someone extremely knowledgeable on this topic.  The bottom line is that there are hundreds of different types of things that could be grown as inputs, a multitude of different ways to process them, and then many different fuels that they could produce that produce literally thousands of different combinations.  And this doesn’t even begin to address how different growing conditions produce drastically different yields    So the answer would be:  it depends.  . .

But since you asked specifically about a few, here are some averages:

Soy  46 gallons per acre   http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/biodiese...

Switchgrass    1000 gallons per acre (ethanol not biodiesel)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchgrass

Sugar beets    714 gallons per acre (again, this is ethanol not biodiesel)  http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG...

I agree with toptuner in that it is absolutely imperative that we don’t replace crops grown for food with crops grown for fuel energy.  There has already been a crisis in Mexico with the price of corn because of it being used in ethanol.  This means if we are going to use biofuels we either need to find something that produces a lot in a small amount of space, or that can be grown in areas that food crops can’t currently be grown – like in the dessert.   Also, it would be a good idea if it didn’t require a lot of inputs to grow the field (like water and fertilizer) and if it didn’t cross pollinate with other crops.  

There are a lot of people out there working hard to find the right answer on this.  Algae seems promising so far but it hasn’t entirely been worked out on a large scale.  However, I was recently talking with someone who owns a biodiesel plant and he was saying that last year they were thinking of algae as being a viable option in 4-5 years.  Now he thinks it is more like 1-2 years out.  So research is moving fast.   The information found in the source below on algae says it is theoretically possible to achieve 15,000 gallons of biodiesal per acre and depends largely on the available sun.  

I personally believe there isn’t one source that is going to solve all of our problems.  The ultimate solution is going to be local production of power and fuel energy in a way that is appropriate for that community.