Small biodiesel facility burns down

farmyid · Oct 22, 2003

My brother ,who makes a few thousand gallons of biodiesel a year from waste cooking oil, had his biodiesel barn in Ashfield Mass burn down last Saturday. The thermostat on the cooking vessel malfunctioned and the extra heat caused the methanol that was being stirred in to vaporize enough to become ignited by a spark from the stirring motor causing an instant ignition. He was slightly injured but escaped. If you know someone that makes this fuel please tell them to check the temperature of the oil before adding the alcohol EVERY time. Mark

Gomez · Oct 23, 2003

Mark,

Glad to hear your brother is OK.

Just wondering if the equipment is something homemade or a purchased system. Usually, systems that can create a dangerous situation if a heat control malfunctions, have a separate Overtemperature Controller.

ejb · Oct 23, 2003

Small world...I was on my way home from picking up a "CountryPie "pizza and was forced to detour around that fire...it was quite a fireball thats for sure. I live just a few miles down the road from your brother I guess....(I do know him, he has done some backhoe work for me)

Also glad to hear he is OK. Didn't his house also burn down about 10-12 years ago? Maybe I am remebering wrong...

_RaT_ · Oct 23, 2003

Electrical code would require any flammable or volatile liquid/vapor sources to have explosion proof componets. I found the story interesting and would like to learn more about manufactured biodiesel. Rat...

farmyid · Oct 23, 2003

Yes there was a fire in his home a number of years ago after he had moved into the new house I built for him and a careless renter had a grease fire. Luckily the 200 year old part of the house was saved and the whole rebuilt. Not so with the biodiesel which has no insurance. Mark

farmerpsv · Oct 23, 2003

Rat,
there's was an article a few years ago in Mother Earth on biodiesel. most of what i hear today about biodiesel involves mixing veg. oil with diesel. this was about using strictly veg. oil and waste veg. oil at that. pretty cool. there is a book, sited in the article, that you can get that explains how to make your own refinery. i would love to set up a co-op in my area where we could do this as a group. anyway, check it out. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
paul
www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/goto.asp?article=175/175-018-01&Id=1658&num=84