All good points re stopping one tonne.
As for towing, Aint Diesels grand.

The pallecon idea sounds good if you have a forklift and...solid ground to drive a forklif on. Not practical and forklifts are dear to hire, but hey, yes, luxury if you have it. Imagine have the pallet on a 2 meters high tower, attach a hose with nozzel (from an abandoned service station ) and voila you have your own servo at home.

It would be cheaper to hire a trailer with dual wheels and brakes that can take 6 drums me thinks.

As for the OH&S stuff and drums, I don't see the problem. To offload full drums from the back of a truck is child's play. All you need is a few old car tyres. One to tip the drum over on the truck. You just let the drum drop on the side onto the tyre. Then you roll the drum to the back and place carefully two or three tyres (depend how soft or hard they are), one on top of the other below on the ground, (a smaller on top of a large one works better) and making sure you let the drum drop nice and flat and not one end before the other, the tyres brake the drum's fall beatifully. Then it is a matter of rolling it to the appropriate place and lifting it up, (two people needed).
Loading it onto someone elses trailer after offloading it from the truck is a bummer but can be done in a few different ways. Best is not to lift it at all and pump the content into friends drum using electric/ hand pump, compressed air, buckets you name it.
Rolling on two planks whilst pulling like mad from a rope rolled around the drum (then slip on the wet grass let go of the rope, and watch the drum roll back on you).
Lifting with chain pack and appropriate harness to hook onto drum from nearby tree (harness is home made and lets go at the highest point just over the trailer... )
Or... why not, using a fork lift, Bobcat, Crane, crane bridge, helicopter and other methods.

Hi Robert,
I'm Miguel and I've been trying to buy BD for some time but I don't know how does it look like ( what coulor it should be), as I haven't seen any BD just jet, can you please let me know what I should be looking for ( when it comes to coulor) . Thank You very much for your time.
Miguel

Hi Miguel,

I posted up some pictures of some biodiesel samples a while ago here. That might give you an idea. If you are talking about the stuff that you would get from Volume Plus, you should see a nice yellow colour. As to what percentage of biodiesel it actually is, we still don't know.

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Robert.
Site Admin.

Filled up my Rodeo this afternoon from VP at ingleburn and it was stong smell of Veggie Oil so who knows what blend it is

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Dave

News just in from a reliable source (who has asked to remain nameless). VP are selling blends of biodiesel between B80 and B100. It is vegetable based biodiesel and is supplied by Future Fuels in Moama. The Australian Standard testing of it is done offshore.
I've still not heard this direct from VP and it would be really nice if they would just be honest with us, but at least it is some news.
Personally, I'd still rather find other options for biodiesel supply until Volume Plus can start being honest with their consumers.

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Robert.
Site Admin.

Robert
Mate if the testing is done offshore.We probably need to do a bit more research.As some of the labs in India which are doing the stuff for european market needs a lot of quality issues to be addressed.Firstly the quality of chemicals used,secondaly the gear itself,thirdly the competence.I for one know it first hand that many labs here in India are doing a lot of testing and are more or less producing a certificate indiacting what the supplier wants.
The source companies are happy as they have a certificate to protect themselves should **** hit the fan.And these companies are not opting for proper testing labs but small time test houses.The same thing is happening in the medical testing business.
Yes mate a horrible scam.

Yes this is Fair Dinkum.

We need to lobby ,do something to atleast keep the testing in Oz or if tested overseas done from labs with proper international certification like ISO17025:2005 or GLP.Now small labs who do it for one tenth of the cost and again the Biggies are laffing all the way to the bank.

This is a big wrought mate.
That is why I had reacted very strongly when I said earlier in one of my posts .Do we really know the BD grade that we are buying?.

To sight an example of how big the wrought is.A mate of mine here in India wanted to test BD that his pilot plant is producing.He approached the guys that I am giving consultancy to(An ISO17025:2005) .He was quouted A$1480 for all the 28 tests that EN requires.
He went to a small lab who are doing work for a few dristributors and BD dealers /exporters.He was quoted a price of A$175 .
He visited the lab just out of curio

A quick calculation of the chemical required,utilty etc without factoring in labour (which is cheap in India...we all know) comes to A$675.

Now folks you work out what is going on.

This must stop.The dristributors and exporters are making a motza giving an eyewash to the public.

This is serious scam the whole offshore testing .I wish I could get m

Folks get on the radio and let the people know.

We can only do it together.

Cheers
Sauman

One of the professors here at the Uni and his researchers are keen to do testing on bio and they have the serious gear to do it. They collected a few samples from me a while back so they would have something to get started with. Analysis of oils is one of his big interests - he used to do a lot of food oils but there is not a lot of call for that so he was pretty keen on the idea of being able to test biofuels.

Excellent work Cameron,
Please ask him that if he needs any adivice etc. to feel free to get in touch with me.I am an Oil Technologists and would be more then happy to share my knowledge.
Cheers
Sauman

Yay, independent testing! We really need this. I'd be happy to go and collect samples for this professor if he is serious about it. (As long as he is happy for me to also publicise the results.)

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Robert.
Site Admin.