Fuels | Global Foundation

Hemp Fuels

One important use for industrial hemp as far as KM sees it is turning it into ethanol. Hemp fuel could change the landscape of the automotive industry.

The most important aspect of industrial hemp farming, the most compelling thing hemp offers us, is fuel. Right now we are depleting our reserves of petroleum and buying it up from other countries. It would be nice if we could have a fuel source which was reusable and which we could grow right here, making us completely energy independent.

Petroleum fuel increases carbon monoxide in the atmosphere and contributes heavily to global warming and the greenhouse effect, which could lead to global catastrophe in the next 50 years if these trends continue. Do you want to find out if they are right, or do you want to grow the most cost-effective and environmentally safe fuel source on the planet?

Using hemp as an energy and rotation crop would be a great step in the right direction.

Gasoline fits into two categories: regular gasoline, and diesel. Diesel (a less refined version of crude oil) is another way to power motor vehicles, with ethanol being more standard for regular cars, and diesel being more common for use with larger motor vehicles like trucks, buses, and ships. The most common kind of diesel is made by a particular fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil. Diesel can also be made synthetically from carbon materials, or as biodiesel using vegetable oils and animals fats.

Hemp oil can be used as it is in bio-diesel engines. Methyl esters, or bio-diesel, can be made from any oil or fat including hemp seed oil. The reaction requires the oil, alcohol (usually methanol), and a catalyst, which produces bio-diesel and a small amount of glycerol or glycerin. When co-fired with 15% methanol, bio-diesel fuel produces energy less than 1/3 as pollution as petroleum diesel. Biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur emissions.

It is important to understand that hemp provides two types of fuel; hemp biodiesel – made from the oil of the hemp seed, and hemp ethanol/methanol – made from the fermented stalk. To clarify further, ethanol is made from such things as grains, sugars, starches, waste paper & forest products, and methanol is made from woody matter. Through processes such as gasification, acid hydrolysis and enzymes, hemp can be used to make both ethanol and methanol. In the US, Hemp ethanol could be produced for 1.37 per gallon plus the cost of the feedstock, with technological improvements and tax credits reducing the price another dollar or so per gallon.

Ethanol, methanol, methane gas, and gasoline can be derived from biomass at a fraction of the cost of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy, especially when environmental costs are factored in. Each acre of hemp could yield about 1000 gallons of methanol.

Hemp Ethanol is a very viable solution and should be used to augment our dependence on fossil fuels and in many ways provide for a cleaner more sustainable solution.

“At one-time hemp seemed to have a promising future as a cornerstone of industry. When Rudolph Diesel produced his famous engine in 1896, he assumed that the diesel engine would be powered by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils. Rudolph Diesel, like most engineers then, believed vegetable fuels were superior to petroleum. Hemp is the most efficient vegetable. In the 1930s the Ford Motor Company also saw a future in biomass fuels. Ford operated a successful biomass conversion plant, that included hemp, at their Iron Mountain facility in Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch, ethyl-acetate and creosote. All fundamental ingredients for modern industry and now supplied by oil-related industries.” Hugh Downs, 1990

The basics: Hemp can provide two types of fuel.
1. Hemp biodiesel – made from the oil of the (pressed) hemp seed.
2. Hemp ethanol/methanol – made from the fermented stalk.

To clarify further, By definition, ethanol is a type of alcohol fuel that is distilled from plant material, such as corn. Hemp ethanol is made from such things as grains, sugars, starches, waste paper and forest products, and methanol is made from woody/pulp matter. Using processes such as gasification, acid hydrolysis and enzymes, hemp can be used to make both ethanol and methanol.

In this day of oil wars, peak oil (and the accompanying soaring prices), climate change and oil spills such as the one in the gulf by BP, it’s more important than ever to promote sustainable alternatives such as hemp ethanol.

Hemp Ethanol

Ethanol is an organic compound known as a simple alcohol. It’s also known as ethyl alcohol, and grain alcohol, and is the same kind of alcohol we ingest with alcoholic drinks. Ethanol is made by the fermentation of sugars with yeasts or with petrochemical processes like ethylene hydration. It is a component of most gasoline sold in the US.

Hemp ethanol is an alternative ethanol product. Regular ethanol can be made from the fermentation of grains, sugars, starches, corn, sorghum, barley, sugar cane, or sugar beets. To do this, hemp stalks are shredded and then heated chemically to get the cellulose out of the plant. This cellulose is in turn converted to sugar with enzymes, which is then fermented to ethanol, which is then distilled and purified to become a biofuel usable in automobiles. While cars aren’t designed right now to run on pure ethanol (as that would disrupt the Big Oil industry), they can be made to, which would invalidate the need for crude oil.

Hemp turns out to be the most cost-efficient and valuable of all the fuel crops we could grow on a scale that could fuel the world. And as it turns out, the whole reason for hemp prohibition – and alcohol prohibition – may have been a fuel the realization that OIL production is threatened by any competing fuel source, especially one that requires no modifications to your car!

Hemp Biodiesel

What is Hemp Biodiesel? ‘Biodiesel’ is an alternative fuel that’s made of a mixture of regular diesel and vegetable oils, or used on its own. It serves as both a renewable and biodegradable gasoline option. Vegetable oils generally used to make it, are soybean oil (the general choice), or animals fats, cooking oil, algae, and hemp.

Hemp biodiesel is the name for a variety of ester based oxygenated fuels made from hemp oil. The concept of using vegetable oil as an engine fuel dates back to 1895 when Dr. Rudolf Diesel developed the first diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. Diesel demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 using peanut oil as fuel.

Hemp biodiesel come from the pressing of the hemp seeds to extract the oil. Through a process explained here , Hemp biodiesel is created by extracting the oil from hemp seeds via pressing them, and then mixing this with standard diesel oil, or simply using it alone. Hemp biofuel is usable for any engine that takes diesel oil. When vehicles runs on hemp biodiesel, they no longer give off heavy smells of soot, but instead give off the smell of hemp.

Hemp biodiesel can be made from domestically produced, renewable oilseed crops such as hemp. With over 30 million successful U.S. road miles hemp biodiesel could be the answer to our cry for renewable fuel sources. Learning more about renewable fuels does not mean we should not cut back on consumption but does help address the environmental affects of our choices. There is more to hemp as a renewable fuel source than you know

Why Hemp Biodiesel?

Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel that runs in any conventional, unmodified diesel engine.
It can be stored anywhere that petroleum diesel fuel is stored. Biodiesel is safe to handle and transport because it is as biodegradable as sugar, 10 times less toxic than table salt, and has a high flashpoint of about 300 F compared to petroleum diesel fuel, which has a flash point of 125 F.
Biodiesel can be made from domestically produced, renewable oilseed crops such as hemp.
Biodiesel is a proven fuel with over 30 million successful US road miles, and over 20 years of use in Europe.
When burned in a diesel engine, biodiesel replaces the exhaust odor of petroleum diesel with the pleasant smell of hemp, popcorn or french fries.
Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel in the US to complete EPA Tier I Health Effects Testing under section 211(b) of the Clean Air Act, which provide the most thorough inventory of environmental and human health effects attributes that current technology will allow.
Biodiesel is 11% oxygen by weight and contains no sulfur.
The use of biodiesel can extend the life of diesel engines because it is more lubricating than petroleum diesel fuel, while fuel consumption, auto ignition, power output, and engine torque are relatively unaffected by biodiesel.
The Congressional Budget Office, Department of Defense, US Department of Agriculture, and others have determined that biodiesel is the low cost alternative fuel option for fleets to meet requirements of the Energy Policy Act.

Enviornmental Benefits

When an energy crop is growing, it takes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, and releases an equal amount when it is burned, creating a balanced system, unlike petroleum fuels, which only release CO2. While most currently made biofuel use soybeans, hemp is much more practical, producing 207 gallons per hectare which is almost four times higher than soybeans.

First and foremost, hemp biofuel is carbon neutral – as in, it emits the same amount as it absorbs therefore not adding to the problem of promoting green house gases. Rather than emitting carbon dioxide, hemp plants absorbs it, at an even higher rate than trees. Not only that, the CO2 which is emitted from burning hemp biofuel, is reabsorbed through photosynthesis by the plants. Growing it also enables crop rotation, as the growing cycle is rather short, and hemp plants can both absorb toxins in the soil, as well as add nutrients to it.

Gasoline is both a highly toxic and flammable liquid. It produces many byproducts from vapors or when burned which contribute to the pollution in the air. These include: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, unburned hydrocarbons, as well as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

According to the US Energy Information Administration again, one gallon of burned gasoline (which does not contain ethanol) produces approximately 19 pounds of CO2 emissions.

When an energy crop like hemp is grown on a massive scale, it will initially lower the CO2 in the air, and then stabilize it at a level lower than before the planting of the energy crop.

In America alone, about 12.6 million people are unwittingly exposed to toxic pollutants in the air from oil wells, oil transportation, and from processing and waste. These include chemicals like benzene which has been linked to childhood leukemia and blood disorders, as well as formaldehyde which causes cancer.

Use of biomass would end acid rain, end sulfer-based smog, and reverse the greenhouse effect.