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Originally Posted by JockoT
There are a couple of Landfill sites near me where it is tapped off. Where it goes after that, I have no idea.
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Is there any CNG-powered bus nearby?
Anyway, bio-gas is still mostly used for stationary applications, mostly for heating. In my country, in some farms that have their own biodigester to process cattle manure, the bio-gas is mostly used as a replacement for LPG and kerosene as a heating and cooking fuel.
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One of the Orkney islands, Eday, has a tidal generator that develops more energy than the island can use. Because Eday is not connected to other islands they have to turn the electricity into H2, which they can ship off to the Orkney mainland. It is used in fuel cells to power the auxiliary systems on the ferries, while they are in port. Once they have suitably accredited crew, trained and certified, they will be able to use it while at sea, as well.
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Even though there would be a lot of water around that could be used to fight a fire on board, I wouldn't want to be on board of a ship in case of a hydrogen-triggered fire
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Read an interesting article on Bio diesel. They use it to run buses, here in the UK, especially in London.
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IIRC there used to be some buses running on vegetable oil, not biodiesel, in Liverpool.
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A lot of it comes from recycled fat and cooking oil, as well as fat waste from meat.
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Due to the widespread popularity of fish and chips there, it seems like recycled fat and cooking oil would become a nearly obvious choice for a biodiesel feedstock. Fat waste from slaughterhouses is also a good option, since it retains a low commercial value, especially nowadays there are so many vegans who would refuse to use a soap made out of beef tallow. Another interesting feedstock is fish liver oil, since white fish usually concentrate most of their body fat content in the liver which would make it easier to extract, and apart from cod liver oil I'm unaware of any other fish which liver oil has a good commercial value.
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However, bio diesel produced from soybean seemingly takes 800,000 gallons of water to produce 60 gallons of fuel, enough to fill the tank on a bus.
In these days of diminishing fresh water, that's rather worrying.
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I'm not so favorable to soybean oil as a feedstock for biodiesel, unless it's some waste cooking oil, and I weren't even considering the amount of water used to irrigate the soybeans. Maybe some good ways to address the freshwater supply concerns could be either some oily seaweeds or halophyte plants that can be irrigated with saltwater such as Salicornia (a.k.a. "sea aspargus") which leftovers from the oil extraction may eventually be also used to feed livestock.