Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 8, 2006 BUILDING REACTORS

No...NOT in Iran...here in Southern Illinois!

No, not "nuclear" reactors, but, vegetable oil reactors...or "biodiesel homebrew" reactors, to be more precise.

For those of you who have been complaining of the high and rising cost of the commute to work...and who have been expecting the Board of Education to vote to give you a raise to ease your pain...this is more in the realm of reality!

From the Southern Illinoisan...

Illinois man's new home brew give high gas prices the slip

By: BOB FALLSTROM
Decatur herald & review

Dayton Keyes has the alternative answer to the high cost of gasoline. It's biodiesel homebrew. The cost: about 70 cents a gallon.

The Maroa man is a Capitol police investigator for the Illinois Secretary of State in Springfield. He drives an average of 600 miles a week round-trip. His cost when using biodiesel homebrew is about $15 a week.

Consulting a book, "Biodiesel Homebrew Guide," Keyes built a reactor in his garage to convert vegetable oil into fuel for his 2002 Golf model Volkswagen. The $18 book, by Maria Alovert, contains comprehensive instructions for making, washing and testing homebrew biodiesel and some plans for building biodiesel-making equipment.

Biodiesel is a natural and renewable domestic fuel alternative for diesel engines that is made from vegetable oils, mostly soy and corn.

Keyes' reactor is based on a 50-gallon electric water heater. Methanol and potassium hydrochloride are added to the vegetable oil. The mixture is then heated to 130 degrees. The brewing takes about 31/2 hours. After a washing process, the fuel, about 28 to 30 gallons in a batch, goes into a 55-gallon drying tank for two days. The fuel is nontoxic and biodegradable.

"This is the Cadillac version of the reactor," Keyes said. "You can make one for $250. My cost was about $1,000. Anyone can do this. It's as easy as baking a cake or pie. I get free vegetable oil from Maroa, from Springfield and from restaurants all around, as far away as Litchfield."

David Wetzel of Decatur advised Keyes about the vegetable oil process. Wetzel has a 1985 Volkswagen Golf diesel car that runs on straight vegetable oil instead of gasoline. His wife, Eileen, calls it the "Veggie Mobile."

"I have enough vegetable oil stocked up so that I won't have to pay a penny for gasoline until next winter," Wetzel said. "I'm also trying to get a Mercedes running. And I have a couple of 1980s Volkswagens waiting in the driveway."

"People are brainwashed into thinking we can't make our own fuel, that we have to depend on the gas station," Keyes said. "I'm writing a book on renewable resources. I'd like to get a biodiesel plant built in this area. I've talked to people who say, 'You'll never succeed.' Somebody has to try.

"One of the problems is finding a diesel car. It will run as fast as a conventional car, no problem. The engine also has fewer emissions." Keyes also has a Jeep Liberty with a diesel engine.

Keyes emphasizes: "I want people to wake up and do something instead of just complaining about the high gasoline prices. You don't need a permit to do this. I want to get the word out to everybody," he said.

Keyes put the finishing touches on his reactor in December and pumped 12 gallons of fuel in his car for the first time Dec. 21.

Last week, Ron Ziegler came to see Keyes' reactor. Ziegler has led a group picketing two central Illinois service stations.

"I'm going to build a reactor, that's for sure," Ziegler said.

$2.73 a Gallon? Not at First Fuel Banks

By GREGG AAMOT, AP

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (May 7) - Most motorists are feeling the pain as gasoline creeps toward, or over, $3 a gallon - but not Art Altrichter.

"This feels pretty good!" Altrichter said as he filled the tank of his Ford F-150 pickup for $2.03 a gallon on Thursday, when the average here was $2.73. "Right now, to be a few pennies over $2, when it's as high as it is? That's a real deal."

A year ago, the retired milk truck driver bought 500 gallons of gas at First Fuel Banks, locking it in at the then-current price of $2.03 a gallon. He taps that reserve whenever gas rises above that mark. If the retail price drops below $2.03, he can leave his reserve alone and buy elsewhere.

First Fuel Banks bills itself as the only retailer in the country where customers can buy gasoline for the future and hedge against rising prices. It advertises no service charge and no storage charge, just a $1 lifetime membership fee.

Altrichter said one of his neighbors got in at First Fuel Banks several years ago and is now withdrawing from a reserve that cost him 99 cents a gallon. "How about that!" he said.

Both people and businesses buy gas from the company, which has six stations in and around this central Minnesota city. The city of St. Cloud fills its fleet of cars at the company's stations.

The program is open to anyone who drives off the street. Customers buy whatever amount they want at the current price - the most ever purchased in advance was $400,000 worth - then swipe a card and key in a PIN number when they draw from their reserve.

Chief executive Jim Feneis, who runs the company with his brother, Dan Feneis, said 300 of its members are still filling up with gas that cost them less than a buck a gallon as recently as 2002. Many more are locked in under $2.

"We're offering a pretty attractive concept to the savvy buyer," Feneis said.

Each station has a 50,000-gallon tank for each grade of gasoline - regular, mid-grade and premium - compared with 6,000 to 8,000 gallons for each product at a typical convenience store, Feneis said.

That's enough capacity to handle short-and medium-term demand, he said. For people holding onto reserves for a year or longer, the company hedges its obligations by buying gasoline futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

First Fuel Banks started with a single station in 1982 and now has about 8,000 members, Feneis said. It makes its money just by selling gasoline, diesel and some specialty fuels since its stations aren't convenience stores. He said it has less than 5 percent of the St. Cloud area market. But he said it's just one part of a larger business, East Side Oil Co., that has other divisions such as oil recycling.

"Our 43-year-old family fuel business is happy, healthy and completely debt-free," Feneis said. "And I think we're definitely the minority."

A few other stations in the country have tried a similar approach, but none have succeeded, he said.

Lance Klatt, executive director of the Minnesota Service Station and Convenience Store Association, can understand why: price volatility and risk.

"There's no margins anyway" in the gasoline business, said Klatt.

It was a new idea to Ron Planting, an economist with the American Petroleum Institute in Washington. "But in the Northeast and maybe elsewhere there are heating oil dealers that do something similar with a customer who wants to lock in a price for the current heating season," he said.

Sheila Hallerman learned about First Fuel Banks when she received a gift card a year ago, and a few months ago she bought 100 gallons at $2.40.

"It still hurts," she said of shelling out more than $2 for a gallon. "But not as much as it could."

Associated Press Writer Steve Karnowski contributed to this story from Minneapolis.