veg oil news

just thought I'd share the news that theres a new range of condensing combi-boilers coming out that are designed to run on rapeseed oil - and heating oil suppliers will start delivering bulk rapeseed oil to accommodate them...

The roll out will be some time later this year and the boilers will be recommended inthe new building standards part L - where new builds will HAVE to have green measures, this being an easy way to comply.

Anyway, long and short of it is nice big oil tank that heats yer house and that you can take oil out of for yer car. Non-food-grade SVO approx 45-55ppl, 2500litre tank, happy days!!

5% vat on it as a heating oil but shoite it beats fannying about with one litre bottles of Pura.

exellent..real happy days , thanks for the info..

woohoo!

aye, happy days. just one query. how much are these boilers gonna cost?????

was thinking the same thing.

would nae worry aboot the price of boilers , you know whats going to happen to the price of rape seed oil. its all ready £400 per tonne for the seed its self on the open market , so maybe no swo cheep in the commin months.

aye but non-food rapeseed is all the manky tasting stuff that even Pura wouldn't put in their wee bottles. Burns fine though.

The heating grade SVO will have to be similar to heating kerosene in price to make the boilers sell (1200 notes versus 600 for a standard combi) and to make it worth folks time to swap. Kerosene 49.9ppl yesterday.

Apparently the boilers will also burn on filtered WVO, so maybe they have better tolerances to crud than certain landy injectors.

Anyway even if rapeseed goes up, it's not exactly going to match diesel £1.15 per litre at my local ASDA. There should still be a sufficient price differential to make it a valid fuel. Mineral oil is running out. You can rent an acre of farmland for £250, plant yer own field of rape and bob is eventually your uncle.

muddythelandy said:

Mineral oil is running out. You can rent an acre of farmland for £250, plant yer own field of rape and bob is eventually your uncle.

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"high-yield rapeseed fields produce about 1,356 L/ha (145 US gal/acre)" from Wikipedia...I've gotta assume it's accurate enough.

So 145*3.79= 550 litres of rapeseed oil per acre. Cost of land, cost of farming, pressing, processing........

Sheeeeit.

I wonder if we could terrace the land???

But don't forget you'll also get 20 tonnes of straw substitute for each acre as well, at £20/tonne there's another £400 back - bet the farmers won't tell you that while they're justifying the massive price hike!

odenne said:

But don't forget you'll also get 20 tonnes of straw substitute for each acre as well, at £20/tonne there's another £400 back - bet the farmers won't tell you that while they're justifying the massive price hike!

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And if you have the livestock...there's the fertiliser...assuming you don't use it all back on the field of course.

Coooo.....this just gets better and better.

does this mean that you don't have to be corgi registered gas fitter to install one of these boilers, i've seen diesel fired boilers on narrow boats, and they take up about 1/4 the space of a combi boiler, maybe less, i could fit one even in my tiny house, might not have space for the tank of oil though, no garden just a little yard

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had a go at producing their own home grown rapeseed oil. My guess is that it'll be cheaper to buy it from yer local supermarket. Consider the cost of cultivation, planting, maintenance of the crop while it grows, harvesting, then converting the plant into oil and storing the stuff in bulk. I've got 8 and a half acres so if it was viable I'd be up for it but I reckon economy of scale will come into play.

yerl one of these to get yer oil out of the seed.

Mini Presses

Starting at 8 grand you'd need to be producing a fair bit of oil to make that affordable and never mind all the other costs.

FOOK'N BASTIDS!

Tesco have just put up the price of their 3 litres of Veg oil from £2.21 to £2.98 - that's a fookin quid a litre the thievin bazzards!

Think i can see how this is going...

I did try to warn you the base product was going up in price

Hmmm...what d'ya reckon the chances of plod & HMRC setting up a few more tank-dipping exercises.

More people will be thinking of turning to the RED side...and it's gotta be easier than catching crooks.

hughesy said:

Starting at 8 grand you'd need to be producing a fair bit of oil to make that affordable and never mind all the other costs.

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It's either one of them or you spend all weekend squashing yer seeds in a coffee mill so you can get to work on monday.

timberjock said:

I did try to warn you the base product was going up in price

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S'right, but we really can't point our fingers at the farmers.

Sure, oilseed rapeseed prices are extremely volotile at present, todays price around £370/tonne, assuming 40% oil content. This market is being driven globally by Chinese demand for food-oils, mineral oil at around $107/barrel, in the EU by reduced supply and the political will behind biofuels, and in the UK by poor yields in the 2007 harvest.

So why don't we grow our own? Time for some maths and (educated) guesswork.

UK farmers last year averaged around 3.5 tonnes per hectare, say 1.5 tonnes per acre. YOU WILL NOT GET ANYTHING LIKE THIS YIELD; these people are (contrary to popular belief) professionals and use certified seed, managed land and quality sprays and fertilisers. I reckon we amateurs would do well to get half these yields.

So we can grow 750kgs of rapeseed per acre, assuming you can combine it without losing any (you can't). If you want to extract your own oil, 40% oilseed will yield 300kgs of oil per acre, only it won't cos you'll never extract it all without investing in one of these £8000 presses.

Assuming you do well and get 250kgs of oil (I'm guessing this equates to 225 litres). From an acre of land. How long will that keep us going???

I have seriously looked at the economics of this from a co-operative farming group point of view, and it don't stack up. The economies of scale kill it dead.


Still, don't let me put you off......