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near horseActually, the chemical and energy (heat) costs are included in the cost per gallon of producing biodiesel. And to make it even close to profit making or break even, the byproducts (oilseed meal as well as glycerin) are considered to have been sold. Chemical cost – the sodium hydroxide is pretty minimal in both amounts and cost; methanol is not so cheap and now uses natural gas as the base so sort of linked back to the petro market. Can use ethanol but from the literature, it’s not as “good” as methanol. AND you need to make ethanol (and not drink it or use it directly).
The flow issues that bioD has are also a problem with WVO (waste veg oil). The other sticker is water. Water can wreak havoc on your lift/injector pump.
The positive thing about some biod production is that seed can be stored until you have the time to process it. Also, both ethanol and biod production yield a useable byproduct — the leftover/spent meal. The cost of the “processing equipment” if purchased, can be a putoff but worth investigation. Here’s a series of pics showing the setup at a local farmer’s shop –he’s running 3 seed presses in the first picture.