hydrotreated vegetable oil for boiler

Have found out that HVO costs more than double the price of Kerosene, so no hope for us to change to a more environmentally fiendly heating source unless I can convince my retired tenant to double his heating costs on a fixed pension.
 

rogeriko

Member
HVO is made from Vegetable oil just like Biodiesel so lets chop down the rest of the Amazon Rainforest to grow Palm Oil so we can heat our houses!!!! HVO is not environmentally friendly in any way or form.
 
I also thought that HVO could have an element of Palm Oil in it, but am assurred by one of the UK suppliers of HVO that this is not the case for their product.
Although how they know it is Palm Oil free is also not completely clear to me as their product is imported from Finland and produced from mixed recycled vegetable oils.
They do claim that HVO produces lower levels of CO2 compared to Kerosene, so in that respect it is more environmentally friendly.

I also read that the price is higher for HVO as the airlines are looking at it as a replacement for their current fuel and could potentially present themselves as a cleaner industry.

Either way, unless the price of HVO is much nearer to that of Kerosene I do not see how I could ask my tenants to double their heating cost by making the move to HVO.

I am just looking for ways to convert rural (off grid gas) tenanted properties to cleaner fuel, without massive capital costs
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Atlantic boilers did this 20 years ago.
Just needed different nozzles and pre heat warm in winter.
Screenshot_20211230-181202_Samsung Internet.jpg
 

renewablejohn

Member
Location
lancs
Has anyone converted their heating boiler from keosene to HVO, am looking for ways to reduce pollution without massive cost increase.
Why on earth would I want to do that. As UK farmers we could easily convert to using home grown wood pellets. All you need to do is replace the kerosene burner with a woodpellet burner. You could even produce your own wood pellets from your own timber or if you grow grain use grain instead. The easiest as suggested is using rape seed oil.
 
I guess that I did not explain my request clearly enough.

I would like to convert current tenanted (off gas grid) properties using Kerosene heating to a more environmatally friendly alternative.

I do not have the finances for GSHP or ASHP and cannot pass the high capital cost of these systems on to tenants.

Saw HVO, hydrogen treated veg oil and at the time of initial request did not know the bulk cost compared to Kerosene.

I now understand that HVO fuel is being used in road transport, and due to special government tax rates the price of HVO is favorable compared to Road Diesel. Those special road fuel tax rates do not apply to heating fuel so the HVO is more than double the cost of heating Kerosene.

Any known National supplier of bulk rapeseed oil, and how does this perform in cost / litre compared to Kerosene? Also do not know if Rapeseed presents the same CO2 reduction as HVO compared to Kero. Also not sure of the ethics in using food stuff as heating, HVO is made from recyled used veg oil.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Similar position here. I looked into HVO as a drop in for burning oil, but hit the barrier of both higher price and concerns about its keeping quality. A domestic storage tank is different to a tank at a filling station.
Wouldn't mind a mixture containing tallows ~ HVO contains small amounts of tallows because it's waste from cooking ~ but there doesn't appear to be one (although I haven't looked overly hard).

Rejected rapeseed makes more sense used as livestock feed than fuel, so it's all ground to a halt.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Depends entirely on the source of vegetable oil. Would you say soya, rape or sunflower oil is not environmentally friendly to produce?
Absolutely.

On the office PC I've a copy of the EU report which found the EU requirement for 10% biodiesel in road fuel has driven global used cooking oil prices so high that in Indonesia native forest is being cleared to grow palm. The curtin palm oil is then being used to "dilute" genuine used cooking oil as the used price exceeds the virgin price. The EU is importing "used cooking oil" from around the world to meet demand and that's only at 10% biodiesel inclusion.

As for your question regarding oilseed rape and soya oil; I would say they are definitely not environment friendly. I don't know much about sunflower production methods.
 
Absolutely.

On the office PC I've a copy of the EU report which found the EU requirement for 10% biodiesel in road fuel has driven global used cooking oil prices so high that in Indonesia native forest is being cleared to grow palm. The curtin palm oil is then being used to "dilute" genuine used cooking oil as the used price exceeds the virgin price. The EU is importing "used cooking oil" from around the world to meet demand and that's only at 10% biodiesel inclusion.

As for your question regarding oilseed rape and soya oil; I would say they are definitely not environment friendly. I don't know much about sunflower production methods.

Those guys in Indonesia are going to clear those forests anyway because growing stuff makes money?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Seriously now, there is much legitimate complaint about rewilding in the UK and in parties forcing landowners into doing something they do not want to do. Please tell me on what authority you are hoping to prevent land owners in Indonesia from clearing their land?
We can't clear forest either without a licence......

Anyway,my point was that the EU biofuels directive has been proved to be driving climate change (via deforestation), directly opposite to what it was meant to achieve.
 
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primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Seriously now, there is much legitimate complaint about rewilding in the UK and in parties forcing landowners into doing something they do not want to do. Please tell me on what authority you are hoping to prevent land owners in Indonesia from clearing their land?

I wouldn't want those farmers to feel forced into anything because they're already being forced out of their traditional ways by political climates manufactured by their governments and multinational corporations through poverty that we cannot imagine. Deforestation for palm oil plantations in Indonesia, due to the first world's insatiable appetites is shocking, even though the acreage destroyed has reduced a little ~

 
I guess that I did not explain my request clearly enough.

I would like to convert current tenanted (off gas grid) properties using Kerosene heating to a more environmatally friendly alternative.

I do not have the finances for GSHP or ASHP and cannot pass the high capital cost of these systems on to tenants.

Saw HVO, hydrogen treated veg oil and at the time of initial request did not know the bulk cost compared to Kerosene.

I now understand that HVO fuel is being used in road transport, and due to special government tax rates the price of HVO is favorable compared to Road Diesel. Those special road fuel tax rates do not apply to heating fuel so the HVO is more than double the cost of heating Kerosene.

Any known National supplier of bulk rapeseed oil, and how does this perform in cost / litre compared to Kerosene? Also do not know if Rapeseed presents the same CO2 reduction as HVO compared to Kero. Also not sure of the ethics in using food stuff as heating, HVO is made from recyled used veg oil.

The version of kerosene that will be the HVO parallel will get cheaper in time as more people switch to it. It will be from vegetable based sources and so largely renewable.

I would not get involved with using straight vegetable oil in an engine or a boiler

Stick with kerosene for now and the HVO version of it will be more sensible in time. I was under the impression that HVO is a direct replacement for diesel and so very high quality compared to mineral diesel and more designed for engines than oil fired boilers so it is no surprise it is more costly than kerosene as there is more tax added to it.
 

Raumer

Member
HVO and other forms of bio-diesel in the UK should not have palm oil. Palm oil works in warm countries but causes a lot of problems in colder countries (like the UK). Issues like blocking filters.
 

Frankzy

Member
Location
Jamtland, Sweden
HVO and other forms of bio-diesel in the UK should not have palm oil.
The HVO we have in Sweden is made out of roughly half forestry byproducts and half palm oil so I would be extremely surprised if your HVO doesn't contain even more than 50% palm oil since you don't really have any pulp industry.

Palm oil works in warm countries but causes a lot of problems in colder countries (like the UK). Issues like blocking filters.
This however does not apply to HVO, no matter what the feedstock for HVO was you end up with chemically pure diesel that is even better than the best "old school" blank fossil diesel we used to have.

You are probably thinking of RME or FAME which is the older type of biodiesel...
 

Raumer

Member
That is interesting. We were keeping palm oil out of first generation UK bio-diesel as it was shown to cause a lot of issues. In 2019 there were a lot of issues in the field that were probably related to palm oil making it's way through in the bio part of normal diesel. As well as avoiding it due to the potential environmental issues related to it's production. There is also a filter blocking issue with some of the aftermarket additives - but I can't remember which type it is.

Agree on HVO should not have these issues. HVO was just coming in when I stopped working on the diesel side so my experience is on the first generation bio-diesels. But I do know that they are still trying to avoid palm oil in HVO in the UK due to the environmental production issues.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
That is interesting. We were keeping palm oil out of first generation UK bio-diesel as it was shown to cause a lot of issues. In 2019 there were a lot of issues in the field that were probably related to palm oil making it's way through in the bio part of normal diesel. As well as avoiding it due to the potential environmental issues related to it's production. There is also a filter blocking issue with some of the aftermarket additives - but I can't remember which type it is.

Agree on HVO should not have these issues. HVO was just coming in when I stopped working on the diesel side so my experience is on the first generation bio-diesels. But I do know that they are still trying to avoid palm oil in HVO in the UK due to the environmental production issues.
Hard to totally avoid it though when it is fraudulently being added to other oils due to unintended price incentives.
 

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