The City of Brandon is saying goodbye to its biodiesel processor.
Getting the proper licensing from Manitoba Labour to run the processor proved too expensive and time-consuming, said Rod Sage, Brandon’s director of operational services.
The city hopes to sell the equipment and recoup its $50,000 investment.
Wait! It gets better.
Another problem the city has run into is that there is no immediate use for the refined fuel.
Do read the whole thing – there’s even a mad cow moment.
h/t Mike
( Previous Keystone krazy.)
How many businesses would survive having a business plan to make a product that no one wants or needs?
The first sentence tells it all, that provincial labor legislation is what’s at the root of making this uneconomical. Good to see that it isn’t just private industry bleeding from their idiocy.
and I’m overlooking the idea that city government has no business in the production of goods, whether for themselves or others.
equal opportunity idiocy?
In the previous “Keystone Krazy”, I had linked to a property for sale by a commercial real estate company, I believe it’s still for sale at about $100,000. less than the government has set its heart on building, … “for the people” and all that.
Municipalities have no business in business and the incompetence of this venture is simply more proof. Local politicians are bombarded daily with propaganda from greens and rent seeking businesses who have incorporated green narratives into their marketing. The other driver is greenmail from higher levels of government, enticing local governments into foolish but PC green ventures.
A government can’t set up a worthless waste of taxpayer money green project because another layer of the same government won’t process the paperwork?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
Oh, that is priceless!
All accomplished with borrowed money, just great. Every greenie and their willing stooges in govt., need to be shunned like lepers, they are breaking the western societys with this madness. This is non eco echo. Idiots.
I have pictures of Illinois biodiesel blend (10% maybe?) crystallizing at a mere -7 C. You cannot see the bottom of the tank, or even 1″ of the pickup tube below the top of the fuel level. I also have pictures of winter #1 crystal clear at -33 C.
Any idiot can tell you we shouldn’t have biodiesel in Manitoba. Yet the government mandates 5%. I just hope we run 10% in the summer and 0% in the winter.
Ah here it is, I was wrong it is actually 2%:
http://www.gov.mb.ca/stem/energy/biofuels/biodiesel/files/faq_biodiesel_sales_mandate.pdf
Government is too big and just wastes our money! Just more proof.
If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.
Or, if it wasn’t so crazy it would be criminal.
Marc in Calgary said:
The first sentence tells it all, that provincial labor legislation is what’s at the root of making this uneconomical. Good to see that it isn’t just private industry bleeding from their idiocy.
Over the years I have worked in provincial, federal, and municipal government jobs (and lots of private sector work). I can guarantee you that, bizarre as it may sound, government agencies have just as much trouble with government regulation and other governments as anybody else does. BTW I was particularly amused by this line in the story:
With Brandon’s only “french fry” bus written off in an electrical fire last summer…
I recall suffering the dillusion that I understood how to navugate a diesel from BanTario to Vancouver in mid-winter.
Those were the days when transfer bonds were still possible to cut through the US rather than brave the wonder of Northern Ontario in Winter.
I had a new unit with dual tanks…the ability to select tanks for pickup and return.
I started from the GTA with Canadian winter diesel and topped up in Sarnia with Canadian fuel.
Canadian winter diesel is usually a 50/50 blend of #1 diesel and stove oil.
I proceeded and added enough US #1 + conditioner in Bessemer Mich, tanks clear to the bottom. At Deer River I visually inspected the tanks—they were cloudy. I sellected the Starboard tank for pickup and return. At War-road/Sprague it was still running but the port tank had turned to green slush and the starboard tank was still cloudy.
At the Winterpeg support facility, they added Canadian fuel + lots of conditioner and heated the green tank by means of hot water in their wash rack. They kept the sucker running in doors while I recharged MY batteries(sleep).
I refueled at Strathmore Alta with enough to get to Burnaby and proceeded on with no difficulty.
My founded opinion is that ANY biofuel % in Manitoba winter fuel is not just assine but criminal. Having a dead engine at -40 is potentially lethal.
I am amazed anything diesel moves in the US in winter.
of course CJ, I think it’s hilarious that one government entity, is saying another government entity is the reason it can’t do its work.
wait it gets even BETTER ! Canada now produces 34 million gal of biodiesel per year. BUT they are going to be producing even more. Lots more. So looks like those green guys win again.
A government entity, spending thousands of dollars to create a product for which there is no need, runs into such substantial regulatory obstacles from another government entity, and calls the whole thing off.
Stranger than fiction.
Two lessons here:
1. Governments are too large, and straying into areas for which they have neither reason, nor expertise, to stray. If there was a need for the stuff, private enterprise would step in and fill it, assuming there’s profit to be made.
2. Government regulation continues to be an unreasonable hurdle to start up industrial concerns, both small and large. Over-regulation can easily make achieving the profitability referenced above difficult to impossible.
3. This can then create a vicious cycle, where assuming product need, yet inability for private enterprise to profitably produce it, government then gets involved and bollixes the whole thing up.
Of course, to clear-thinking people, neither lesson is news.
Edit: three lessons here
Not enough information to know who’s at fault. What were the additional approvals? Were they necessary or not, and why didn’t the Brandon people know about them before they bought the processor? As far as the “no immediate use for the refined fuel” part goes, I’m quite sure that there are quite a few vehicles in Brandon and the surrounding area that run on diesel, so I’m sure someone would have been interested in buying the fuel. I think this is a case of a good idea but bad execution.
Where going to need the food.
I figure the good folks of Manitoba, especially its dippers, ought to read this & apply it to themselves. They have boughten into a false premise. That means your trying to fly with an anvil. Green has become white.
The Abiding Faith Of Warm-ongers
Unfortunately, the prophets of climate doom violate this idea. No matter what happens, it always confirms their basic premise that the world is getting hotter. The weather turns cold and wet? It’s global warming, they say. Weather turns hot? Global warming. No change? Global warming. More hurricanes? Global warming. No hurricanes? You guessed it.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/557597/201012221907/The-Abiding-Faith-Of-Warm-ongers.htm
“Sage doesn’t look at Brandon’s aborted attempt to produce its own biofuel as a failure. He said the city still hopes to use biodiesel somewhere.” The mind reels.
I share your sentiments The Phantom and your follow up, Ken (Kulak). Sometimes dipper/liberano guments ‘create’ jobs for their pals in the contrating business (former lefties who like the big bucks in contracting from their pals who got elected and ‘owe’ them. Lots of cost overruns in this type of gument contracting).
What a nice Christmas surprise for Manitoba taxpayers!
this has scant to do with the biofuels concept and everything to do with empire building within the civil ‘service’.
but naturally the saskatchewan led right wing blog chooses to put an anti-enviro spin on it.
I just watched ‘the yes men fix the world’; what a hoot watching the friedman led (quoting now) *greed* questors trip over themselves to acquire the fix-it devices and systems.
Good grief. Are CC and the dog done playing with their Xmas toys all ready??
doggie and cc can’t admit that this is just another example of big government doing what it does best. Squared.
” this is just another example of big government doing what it does best.”
time to reread my post mr/ms phantom. because that’s EXACTLY what I said, you’re just too blinded to see it.
Politicians tend to jump on “popular’ issues because they think it is cool.
Witness Gordon Campbell, Premier of BC, pushing forward, with Aaaarnold of California, the “hydrogen highway” initiative a few years ago.
Apparentltly someone, finally, read my correspondence that it takes four times more energy to produce hydrogen than hydrogen produces. And given that our hydrogen is manufactured in the US, that means it is produced by means of coal-fired power plants.
The word “hydrogen” has not passed thru Gordo’s lips in the last two years. Heh.
There’s nothing wrong with investing in a good idea. That’s what good businesses, and good governments, do. The problems start when governments make investments for the wrong reasons, or they don’t do their research properly before making them.
The government of Alberta recently invested $2 billion into carbon capture and storage projects, for example, and that’s a good thing. The global warming issue is obviously very real and it poses a significant threat to the Alberta oil and gas industry, and Alberta is taking steps to deal with that risk. That’s good government. The Alberta government’s investment isn’t wrong simply because it’s big, and the Brandon government’s investment isn’t less wrong just because it’s small. All this hooey about “big government” is just simple minded rhetoric. It’s meaningless. The real issue is *good* government. Is the money being spent wisely?
With respect to the Brandon issue, we don’t know enough to know who’s at fault, although it does seem that the City of Brandon didn’t do their homework with respect to the approval process they had to go through. We don’t have any information about whether the approvals themselves were reasonable, but given that the equipment was going to make a flammable and potentially explosive product there were obviously going to be some fairly strict regulations.
@ Bruce
I think everyone expected hydrogen fuel cell technology to keep advancing, but for reasons I’m not familiar with it seemed to hit a wall about 10 years ago. I think the hydrogen highway may have been a good idea at the time, but things have changed and it’s not such a good idea anymore.
CC@3:48 AM…you are a watermelon.Carbon capture only put AB in debt.The worst deficit EVER.Do you work kissing Red Ed’s ass everyday? You should change your nick to Brown nose,or extremely stupid ecotard.Or do you want to reduce the population by removing the MOST essential element from the food chain?Sorta like the bitch who got DDT banned and killed millions of Africans? Go back to your basement and let Mommy fix your lunch.
(Sorry for feeding the timbit troll,Kate)
What’s wrong with turning used cooking oil into diesel fuel, albeit thick? Even on the prairies there’s at least three or four months a year above freezing. (except maybe last year)
Toodumbtothink@9:09 AM
Red Ed?? You think the government of Alberta is left wing? What does that make you, some kind of two digit IQ Nazi?
Serious question now, if you can handle it. What government is more in line with your beliefs? I’m new here and I’m just trying to get a handle on what your beliefs are.
Biodiesel is a great warm weather fuel much cleaner then diesel fuel and many times more practical than ethanol. I am planning on adding a second fuel tank with a heater to my 1990 Cummings to run straight filtered cooking oil. Do not try this with the new Fords or GM’s but the new Cummings are suppose to be OK with it.
Biodiesel is like summer and winter diesel, you do not use summer diesel in the winter (I found this out the hard way when a station in the S interior BC sold me summer diesel in the middle of Dec.)
“What government is more in line with your beliefs?”
One that is very much smaller than what we are presently stuck with and does very little. This thread (obviously) is about two separate layers of government doing things they are not supposed to be doing.
More particularly, one that does not attempt to start up questionable projects for their greenie optics, and also one that does not attempt to regulate every damn thing people want to do.
Like start up a biodeisel plant. Since when is it reasonable that the paperwork for a small installation like that should cost $50,000+? Since when is it reasonable that such a thing should require a license in the first place?
Are we getting it yet cc?
CC
Most people who frequent this site are frustrated fiscal and or social conservatives and libertarians. This site has produced significant linkage to science which puts the significance of AGW well into the category of (profitable to some)hysteria. Many who visit this site have science, engineering, business and technology backgrounds therefore don’t expect anything more than ridicule when you parrot mainstream group-think as above. Red Ed represents the Red Tories of old and does indeed offer nothing but a lighter version of mercantilism and the nanny, welfare, bankrupt state than say the NDP or Liberals. Fascism is a variant of statism with more similarities to socialism and communism than the opposite of statism which is liberty. Left and Right are one dimensional, meaningless, group-think constructs. Here endeth the first lesson.
It appears that CC is very young.
It is very clear that CC has never been involved with the purchase of a family vehicle (from the Queensland cop thread) … how many guys really want a minivan? … why are there so many of them around? It appears that there is more thought given for purchase of a family vehicle around the kitchen table, than a fleet cars for the Queensland police … could it be because in one case they are using their own money?
Believe and do what you want to Alan and CC – but use your own money … I don’t want to pay for it upfront, operating or when it fails.
Sorry CC…you just used the typical leftie,leech,meme…NAZI.Funny how you use your own to ad homimen others. How’s that Che poster in your bedroom working out?
John@11:56
I had a response to Phantom, but I’ll have to amend it now that I’ve read this good and informative post by John.
I do have some issues with some things John said, however, so I’ll start there. After having just read Justthinkin’s post I’m having some trouble believing that, “many who visit this site have science, engineering, business and technology backgrounds.” You seem quite intelligent so I’m sure you can understand my scepticism, but I’m prepared to wait and see.
On AGW, I agree that much of what has appeared in the main stream media has been ill-founded hysteria. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a political issue for governments to deal with, however, and it also doesn’t mean that there is no issue with AGM. What the best science has shown is that there *might be* an issue, and in response to that certain groups tried to jump on the issue and take it over for their own political purposes. That’s bad, but when you strip that away you still have an issue to deal with. Whether or not we’re 100% sure it’s happening isn’t the issue. You don’t put your seatbelt on in the morning because you know you’re going to get into an accident. You put it on because you *might* get into an accident. Because of this possibility the government of Alberta’s responses are very prudent, and we should also be putting more money into geoengineering research as well, just in case. Think of it as a form of insurance.
On liberty, lesson 101 is that you can’t have liberty without good, effective, government. And even without liberty you’re always going to be under the authority of a government of some sort. And no matter what the form of government you will always have to pay taxes of some sort. Whether it’s paying protection money to a warlord, or taxes to various governments in Canada, this will essentially always be the case. People who say that all governments are bad, and that all taxes are bad, are, therefore, idiots. They are essentially the same as the ideal communists who say “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need”. Both of these groups, at best, live in some kind of fantasy world that denies human nature.
Since governments and taxes are always necessary the real questions are about what good government is and what good taxes are. This is where the real differences of opinion come in.
“There’s nothing wrong with investing in a good idea. That’s what good businesses, and good governments, do”
That’s what good businesses do, as they invest for economic return. Governments invest for political return, hence the PC investment stupidity unearthed in this thread.
As for CC’s embracing the “precautionary principle”, hey, why not p1ss away $billions for the sake of a hoax? It’s only taxpayer money after all, eh? There’s lots more where that came from.
And while we’re at it, why not go for broke and usher in those business-killing carbon credits and fatten algore’s wallet? Bringing the economy to its knees is the right precautionary thing to do, because there “might” be some incredibly remote chance AGW is “real”, and if just one polar bear is saved…
Feh. Get a grip, man. And read a bit beyond the usual leftish boilerplate and lies.
mhb23re at gmail d0t cam
And as for “Liberty Lesson 101”, there are only 2 fundamental requirements that an effective government need fill:
1. Protection of its citizens (including enforcing criminal and tort law, as well as establishing the military)
2. Enforcing contract law
Everything else – from education to healthcare and trash pickup – can be done more efficiently and cost effectively by the private sector, and indeed should be done by the private sector. The government cannot run any enterprise without wasting taxpayer dollars or making moronic decisions like this ome regarding biodiesel. It’s about as predictable as the law of gravity.
mhb
CC
Modern environmentalism has incorporated logic fallacies such as the precautionary principle, which taken as a justification for not proceeding is equally as invalid as it is for proceeding. AGW, like many enviro-causes de jour incorporate a corruption of science which essentially eliminates the part of the scientific method of testing to disproving hypotheses making the jump directly to conclusion and implementation of “mitigating” actions all within a fog of hysteria. In the case of AGW, only the totally innumerate would attempt mitigation.
As to liberty requiring “good, effective, government”, I would only agree if by good and effective you mean constitutionally constrained and effectively limiting its actions to maintaining the rule of law whereby property rights are enshrined and protected to allow the development of capital.
Rather than me lecturing you on Libertarianism 101 on Kate’s Broadband expense, I recommend the linked five clips of Milton Friedman being interviewed by Peter Robinson: http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/
As I read recently:
All great mistakes begin with having the money to start them.
And with governments of course, it’s always hard earned tax dollars that are squandered.
cc said: “Since governments and taxes are always necessary the real questions are about what good government is and what good taxes are. This is where the real differences of opinion come in.”
Except that in most of the ancient world’s great books there is a thread that is captured by the saying “He who governs best, governs least.” Read what Lao Tsu and the I Ching have to say about less-is-more in governance, that stuff is pre-Christian. There’s the same notion in ancient Greece, Rome, the Bible, and etc.
Not a new idea, and AMPLY illustrated by Western experience in the 20th Century. The more centralized governance, the greater the chaos and the bigger the body count. Russia, China, Korea, Japan, etc.
Government was created to arrange the defense of the nation, to uphold the rule of Law, and to enforce contracts. That’s it. Everything else they do they’ve got no business doing, because they -suck- at it.
A city government venturing into the bio-fuel business on the taxpayer’s dime? Somebody should be going to JAIL for that.
“… I’m having some trouble believing that, “many who visit this site have science, engineering, business and technology backgrounds.”
Yes, we know. However, John understated the situation somewhat. He missed the doctors, lawyers, master tradesmen and the self-made types. You are in exalted company, my friend.
And we disagree with you for the above listed reasons.
So before doing the knee-jerk thing, you might want to think about what John and I and others have said here. Possibly, maybe, could be somebody in the world knows something you don’t.
Now NASCAR is getting on the green ethanol bandwagon.
15% fuel coming to a racetrack near you. Good Grief…
http://dalyplanet.blogspot.com/2010/12/ethanol-time-bomb.html
Ed the red, approved the spending of 2 Billion Dollars to bury CO2, a known plant fertilizer, in the ground, while Don Getty the former premier of Alberta most responsible for the giant debt incurred that Ralph Klein managed to pay down, is “managing” this project. It seems that there are very few conservatives left in the P.C. Party of Alberta, and I hope they get their asses handed to them in the next general election.
They’ve started to micro manage lives here, everywhere they look, they see a tax source, or something to be regulated. Yes CC, they’re not part of the right wing of old, they’re just slightly right of the leftist Liberals and NDP, and that “least of all evils” isn’t working this year.
The recent rise of the Wildrose Alliance has made this apparent. That the Conservatives are no longer the only choice available to the right.
Precautionary principal? We should walk around all day with helmets on in case we slip and fall?
Alberta government debt this year is 6 Billion Dollars. 1/3 for the CO2 in the ground, 1/3 for the teachers union pension fund, 1/3 for the nurses union pension fund.
It’s all being spent, on the squeaky wheel.
My vote will go to the party that promises to spend less, control less, tax less, pass fewer laws, takes more time in recess, and promises fewer MLA’s in the legislative assembly.
All the other options, especially including the always full of shit promise “to spend your money more wisely” are for the idiots.
It would be especially delightful if we could have an amendment to our constitution limiting taxation, and limiting the regulation of everything. But that’s probably an American idea, so it can’t be good… uff.
Nascar burning 15% ethanol for racing? Nothing wrong with that, other than the sheer symbolic futility of it. The cars are all virtually identical; they all burn the same fuel. The race would remain competitive if they burned Southern Comfort or Chanel #5. What it would not do is advance the use of either product as a motor fuel in real-world automobiles.
For that matter, the cars in the Indy 500 race have burned straight methanol for many, many years, if I remember right.
What bugs me about biodiesel is the costly and potentially dangerous transesterification process using potassium hydroxide to turn waste oils and fats into a fluid fuel that can be burned in unmodified Diesel engines. It’s not a very “green” process, and you have to dispose of the resulting glycerin and spent caustic.
If the waste (i.e. post-food) fats and oils are simply heated and filtered, they can be burned directly in mnay Diesel engines, with no risk to their longevity. The logical way to do this would be to gather the waste oils at a site, filter and heat them, and use them on site to run a stationary Diesel engine doing some sort of useful work.
But the biggest flaw in the whole biodiesel scheme is the notion that waste fats and oils are actually “wastes”, and that they would be dumped in landfills were it not for intrepid biodiesel pioneers. They are not wastes; they are scrap. Big difference: scrap gets recycled. Scrap oil and grease from restaurants get collected, and sent to “reducing” plants where they are made into products like soap and pet food. During times of war, they are made into glycerin, a precursor for explosives.
So the biodiesel racket is really a solution in search of a problem: there’s really not enough “waste oils” produced to make a real dent in the nation’s fuel demands, and the stuff declared to be “waste” has, in fact been effectively recycled for decades, anyway.
Socialists eating eachother. Wow, there’s a surprise. Welcome to Commietobia.
mhb
Precautionary principle?? Risk assessment and mitigation are standard business practices, even for small businesses. Businesses and governments hedge and mitigate their risks in various ways all the time. It would have been very bad business practice if the government of Alberta hadn’t done some risk management around the AGM issue. In this situation there are actually different kinds of risks that require different approaches, including PR risks and the actual risk of AGM, but if you don’t understand the concept of risk management then there’s no point in getting into details.
Here are a few other basics you should know. The role of a democratically elected government and the role of a board of directors of a company are very similar in many ways. The BOD is accountable to the company’s shareholders, and the government is accountable to its electorate. They both deal not only with risk but also with issues of profit and politics. Governments most certainly invest for economic return. In fact it’s hard to think of anything they do that isn’t related to money management or increasing the productivity of its citizens in some way. It’s how they do it, and whether they’re doing it well, that’s is the topic of serious political debate.
You know, I don’t think this place is what I thought it was. I guess I was fooled by the awards listed on the top left had side of the front page, but maybe I just overlooked the fact that the most recent one is from 2008. It would appear that things have gone steeply down hill here since then.
I think I’ll take my leave, then, and wish you all better days in the future.
Haha, CC. Thanks so much for the lecture on “risk mitigation”; wish I’d had you nearby in the past when I had to prepare a few of them. That’s ’cause I only added contingencies for “real-world” risks like, I dunno, fire or flood or bomb threats. I could have used your paranoia to include, er, asteroid impacts or 747 engines falling from the sky. Oddly enough, including those in an emergency plan would make more sense than purposefully self-destructing your economy to suit the AGW whackjobs, but drink the koolaid however you please.
“Governments most certainly invest for economic return. In fact it’s hard to think of anything they do that isn’t related to money management or increasing the productivity of its citizens in some way.”
Good Grief. Are you twelve, CC? Or a lifetime public sector employee? Get real.
What government runs balanced budgets without imposing confiscatory taxes on its citizens? When was the last time you heard of a government running a surplus while giving back tax rebates? Have you spent more than two minutes lookimg at the pork-laden $trillion-dollar obama “stimulus” south of the 49th? Is that your idea of “money management”, CC?
As for “increasing the productivity of its citizens”, CC, you have no idea of what you’re talking about. Apart from reducing the incentives for investment via punitive taxation, governments at every level impose idiotic regulations upon business that do nothing BUT reduce productivity, and I’ve had too much maddening firsthand experience to attest to that.
You’re either a troll, CC, or are self-righteously ignorant, and when you flutter here and presume to lecture the regulars thus, best to suck it up and expect what you get. Either way, try thinking before posting, or bon voyage.
mhb