Biodiesel plant planned in North Dakota

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

I disagree, and you’re mixing two arguements.

Acid rain is a naturally occuring event, if you consider the burning of a sulphur containing fuel that creates the inevitable byproduct of one of the various sulphur oxides. Any high school chemistry student can look at sulphur oxides and mix them with water and see that it doesn’t take much juggling to end up with sulphuric acid. This is what happens in the atmosphere. Nature by itself doesn’t put anywhere NEAR as much sulphur into the air as man does. Sure the occasional volcano can spew a lot of sulphur into the air, but when you’re surrounded by fire should you be throwing more gas onto the fire to make it bigger?

Acid rain is real. Lakes have been made sterile by the ph change caused by it. Buildings have been damaged, and people’s health damaged because of it. In the extreme I’ve seen cars damaged by it and the paint peeled off of homes because of it. Out here in the west it has been said that the soil could use a little acid rain, as it’s so alkali. The people and homes how

22

Mark in Utah - what is your source for the man-causde acid rain horror stories?

Bergie - What in the blazes is ****nic?!? Have the Internet Gestapo become so prevalent that we cannot now even discuss an element such as ar-se-nic without being ****'ed to death?

23

I made a few batches of biodiesel from waste grease, and it burned pretty good. Lots around home are doing it too. I’d rather money go to American farmers than to middle east oil barons.

Don’t know where some of ya’ll are driving, but diesel is a heck of a lot more stable price wise and when gas was going up over 3.00, diesel stayed right at 2.80.

Adrianspeeder

24

Good for you, Adrianspeeder.

As we say here in the West Country of England “The Lord helps them 'as helps themselves”.

25

Personal experience.

As a kid we had a CZ paper plant in Camas, Washington which used the sulphur process to make white the paper. They spewed a fair amount of sulphur oxides into the air all the time, and if the wind was blowing the wrong way you could really smell it. They had a free car wash for the entire town to use to help wa***he acid off the cars so they wouldn’t dissolve in their parking lot. There was a community on the hill above the plant. Knew people that lived there. They had to paint their homes every year because of the acid. The paint would peel off within 2 years if they didn’t. Cars would literally disintegrate within 7 years (holes through the doors). The cancer rate was incredible. People were dying left and right.

Outside of Salt Lake we have a magnesium plant that has a similar track record, but they spew chlorine into the air. The chlorine makes hydrochloric acid when mixed with atmospheric water instead of making sulphuric acid. Same results. Ever see a parking lot full of cars with their fenders falling off? NOBODY drives a new car at this plant, not even the plant manager. Their parking lot is almost 1/4 mile from the plant to try and get away from the acid.

As for other experiences, along the eastern seaboard and northeast area state wildlife officials have had to dump lime into lakes to try and neutralize the acid to keep the fish alive with the dropping ph of the water.

In Europe the famous Black Forest is full of dying pine trees because the acid rain is killing them off. It’s screwing up the soil and their slowly dying.

Acid rain is a known fact. It’s killing off ecosystems around the world wherever the soils and waters have a minimal ability to buffer the drop in ph.

Mark in Utah

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[#ditto]

In Illinois, in the 70’s and early 80’s several areas exceeded the national air quality standards for sulfur oxides. There areas were Chicago and smaller cities like Peoria, Decatur, Illinois side of St. Luois, and others. Now with sulfur oxide emission limits, all areas of Illinois meet the standard.

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Mark in Utah,
I lived just up river from Camas in Stevenson for 4 years and spent a bit of time over in Camas. Man does that place stink. I always wondered why it stunk so bad but nobody I knew seemed to know why, now thanks to you I know. And I can attest to what you are saying about the acid rain eating away at cars. I always thought it was just the moisture in that area.

28

Chad,

It’s a small world out there. I’ve worked with a vendor that grew up in Camas. Lives here in Utah. He’s met people from Camas and the surrounding area all over the world. His parents even ran into people from Camas over in China! I still have some friends in the area.

Mark in Utah

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Yea Mark, I could go on and on about the small world thing. I am a cable tech and have had many cable jobs where I would run into people I know and have worked with in the past. One time I even had a former boss in Santa Monica become my boss again for a different company 2 years after he was originaly my boss. Another time I had a contractor working for me in LA that had built one of the first cable systems I ever worked for 20 years before in a town at the other end of the state.

But my favorite small world tale is the one about my truck. I bought a 66 chevy truck from a friend of my dad. He lived in Alturas in the NE corner of Calif. and I lived in Van Nuys(LA). I had to tow it 700 miles when I got it. I spent almost two years doing a frame up restoration on it. When it was 95% complete I took it on it’s first voyage. I went up to Evanston,Wy. to see an old girlfriend. As I was fueling up at a truck stop I look over and see the guy I bought the truck from climbing out of his truck (he drove for North American) just few feet away. So here I am 1000 miles from home and I run into the guy I bought it from who is also 1000 miles from home. What are the odds of that??? By the way he loved what I did with the truck.

Here is another. When I lived in Stevenson I had a girlfriend that had lived in Sacramento. I went down there with her a few times to see her kids. A couple years later I hook up with this girl in Klamath Falls,Or. and she had also lived in Sacramento. So I take her down to see her mother and guess what. They lived almost next door to eachother, and during the same time frame. That was wierd!!!

30

I think you’re ust doomed for seeing everybody you know, wherever you go. You’ll NEVER be able to get away with ANYTHING!!!

Mark in Utah

31

Right, and like REAGAN said …“TREES CAUSE POLLUTION” and “Ketchup is A vegetable”. What you just said in the first paragraph is one of the most ludicrous statements I 've heard in a long time. Acid Rain IS NOT a naturally occurring phenomenon. Without coal burning power plants there would be no other way for such large amounts of sulfur and sulfur dioxide (or mercury for that matter) to consistently be pumped into the atmosphere. Believe what you want, but you’re wrong. I’ll take the scientists word over yours, no offense.

32

No, I am right. The whole acid rain thing was one of the biggest overhyped incidences of ecofraud ever to occur. It should interest you that Northeast politicians are still playing the acid rain card 30 years after SOX emissions were limited. Turns out the Northeast still experiences acid rain even with SOX controls. I guess we’ll have to shut down every single coal fired power plant in the world before you lefties will admit it was all a hoax.

33

Mark in Utah - There’s a big difference with being located within rock throwing distance of a SOX emitter, and being located a nominal distance away. Your Camas WA example would tell you that the SOX concentrations from the paper mill did not even get a chance to get up in the atmosphere to disperse before percipitation brought it back to the surface. What the Northeasterns claim is that Midwest coal fired power plants caused (or are causing) acid rain in the Northeast. This is a fraudulent claim, because we all know that point sources of emissions will disperse a certain distance from the plant, and once the SOX has dispersed it’s concentrations are such that measurements are insignificant.

And no offense, but the urban legend of cars eroding before one’s eyes sounds more like a fish story.

34

Urban legend crap. This is FACT fella. Disbelieve all you want, but when a friends fender falls off, well, that’s plenty of proof for me.

You FAIL to tell me WHY the Black Forest is dying. The ph of the soil is dropping, the needles are falling off, and there are acres and acres of dead trees.

How about lakes in the Northeast? Please try and explain WHY these lakes are becomming more and more acidic? Can’t can you?

As for dispersing in the atmosphere to the point you can’t measure it, I guess you’ve never seen a smoke trail from a power plant from 30 miles away? This was a pretty clean burning plant here in the west, that was virtually smoke-free a the stack, but when viewed from a mountain top you could see a brown haze proceeding from the plant all the way down a valley and off to the east. If such a clean burning plant can leave a visible trail at that distance, an older dirty plant in the east must leave quite the trail!

Haven’t you ever smelled a camp fire out in the hills camping? How about a wild fire? I’ve smelled the smoke and SEEN the smoke from Califor

35

Biodiesel plant moving forward

A proposed biodiesel plant in Minot, ND is moving forward with new investors and a spring 2007 target date to begin production.

A strategic planning committee met Wednesday morning in Minot to iron out details regarding the plant as well as revise the plant’s business plan.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, North Dakota Farmers Union president Robert Carlson, Minot Area Development Corp. president Jerry Chavez, Jeremy Dockter, representing a New York investment group, and Skip Hauth, who has laid the groundwork for North Dakota Biodiesel Inc., all participated in the discussion.

Conrad said European funding that wasn’t transferred to the United States and last week’s announcement of an Archer Daniels Midland plant near Velva prompted Wednesday’s session.

“Since the announcement in Velva, questions came up about the Minot plant,” Conrad said. “ADM is a material fact and we need a revised business plan.”

According to Conrad, part of the delay in Euro monies funding North Dakota Biodiesel was that European investors wouldn’t qualify for U.S. incentives under the new energy bill. Thus the leadership has changed.

“It would make sense for domestic investors,” Conrad said. “It also opens opportunity for local ownership.”

Enter Dockter, a North Dakota native now working as an investment banker in New York City. Dockter said the agency he works for, The Kinetic Group, has been in North Dakota looking at biodiesel opportunities.

He said there is dramatic interest in the investment community regarding biodiesel, primarily because of a federal mandate to phase out sulfur in diesel in the next couple of years.

Dockter addressed the announcement of the Velva plant as well. He said there is no doubt North Dakota - or more specifically north-central North Dakota - could support two processing plants.

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Mark in Utah,

You’re still providing anecdotal evidence. Acid rain is not a problem in Washington State, never has been. The local pulp mill here in Idaho uses the sulphuric acid method of bleaching, yet there has never been a reported incident of acid rain (or acid snow) in North Central Idaho.

The lakes in the Northeast are naturally acidic due to the makeup of the surface and subsurface geology. It should be noted that Florida is out of the alleged paths of acidic percipitation, yet it’s lakes are far more acidic than those elsewhere in the nation. It is a naturally occuring phenomenon.

Power plant smoke does not necessarily translate into clouds of sulfuric and hydrocloric acid. Most of that smoke is dihydrogen monoxide and particulant matter.

In keeping with the topic title, it is of little use for our nation to take on biodiesel projects for the alleged excuse of reducing SOX. It is a huge waste of precious capital, money that should be spent on hydrocarbon exploration and production.

37

Did I mention that the earth was flat ? There’s a lot of theories and controversy over that, too.[:-,]

38

The earth is round, not flat. O.J. did knock off his wife and that other guy. Global climate change is caused by solar activity, not man’s CO2 emissions. Mars is warming, and there are no coal fired power plants and SUV’s on Mars. Acid rain and lake acidicness is a naturally occuring phenomenon. Man-caused acid rain is limited to close proximity to older (e.g. non-bagged) industrial sites, most of which have either been upgraded or shut down.

And the next cheapest alternative after petroleum for producing a diesel-compliant fuel is from coal, not crops. North Dakota has gigatons of lignite that could be converted to transportation fuels, they should focus their scarce investment resources on that instead of these illogical biodiesel plants.

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You said it Murphy Siding.[8D]

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Do you honestly believe that a few dozen biodiesel plants well have any effect on atmospheric SOX levels?