Posted on 11/02/2005 2:05:01 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
A moped -- or hoofing it -- are not the only answers to the energy crunch. If you own a diesel-powered car, truck or SUV, salvation may be as close as your local greasy spoon.
It's possible to run a diesel engine on used -- albeit filtered and otherwise prepared for internal combustion -- fry oil, also known as Waste Vegetable Oil (W.Va.). There's also Straight Vegetable Oil (aka "SO" and a bit less stinky), a mix of grease and diesel -- or "biodiesel," which is also sourced from vegetable oil or animal fat.
The upside to "going greasy" is liberation from the tyranny of OPEC and $3 per gallon fuel; theoretically, you may never have to visit a gas station again.
The downside -- well, downsides -- are that fry vat fuels only work in compression-ignition (i.e., diesel) engines -- and that there's "some assembly required." You can't just pour "Mickey D High-test" into your tank and motor on.
But it can be done -- and it does, indeed, work.
The fact is that the inventor of the diesel engine -- Rudolf Diesel -- intended his design to run on vegetable oils. But vegetable-based fuels were supplanted by petroleum-based diesel fuel, principally because it was (at the time) a more effective fuel. And of course, at the dawn of the automobile age some 100 years ago, fossil fuels were both incredibly cheap and incredibly abundant. The United States produced more than enough to provide for its own needs; there was no OPEC -- and no worry about Middle Eastern oil barons, terrorism or dwindling supplies.
(Excerpt) Read more at site.aol.com ...
"That would be true in the past but thanks to common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection for extremely precise fuel delivery, a new generation of catalytic converters for diesel exhaust that also double as particulate traps and computerized engine controls, today's diesel engines aren't the smokey, clattering engines of the past. If you've driven the Mercedes-Benz E320CDI you know what I mean..."
Thank you.
Thanks. For nothing.
You get what you pay for.
Biodiesel is currently intended to be blended at the pipeline terminal. The biodiesel tank and piping does need to be heat traced, however when blended to up to 20% biodiesel, waxing at cold temperatures so far does not seem to be a problem.
Another upside with biodiesel (including blends) is better lubricity than straight petro-diesel.
>>>You get what you pay for.
And you've given almost as much as your original comment is worth.
Yeah, that's it! The "Dirty Jobs" show!!! Well, you can't really find fault with someone ingenious and industrious enough to make this type of thing work for them.
>Another upside with biodiesel (including blends) is better lubricity than straight petro-diesel.<
Yes, I've heard that. If I'm not mistaken, I've heard it really cleans better than petrodiesel.
>theres a lot of by-products, and I was thinking "lye"<
Lye is used in the manufacturing process, to rid the oil of saponins, the soapy elements that are in vegetable oil. I think the glycerin can be caustic, and so it's neutralized with an acid. This makes it pretty harmless, and once neutralized it's biodegradable. In addition, it can be sold for use in industry.
The manufacture of biodiesel does use some rather harsh chemicals, 2 of which are the above mentioned lye, and wood alcohol, which has toxic fumes. However, the finished biodiesel is nowhere near as toxic as the chemicals used in its formation.
That is interesting. In my Freshman college chemistry class we learned that the result of perfect and complete combustion of a hydrocarbon was two components: H2O and CO2. It was the less than perfect combustion of a hydrocarbon, combined with impurities in the hydrocarbon, that produced pollutants such as hydrogen suflides and carbon monoxide.
You're saying that veggie diesel produces less CO2, so then it also produces less energy. Am I wrong?
Just ask any owner of a 1980's vingage GM diesel car. Back then GM tried to convert their basic gasoline V8 block into a diesel, and the resulting GM just couldn't handle the stress of diesel operation.
Just my $2/100.
Thanks for proving my point.
The person I posted to is griping about technology 30 years old. Look at the 2006 Volkswagon TDI. 50+ MPG and the engines last for 300,000 miles.
You CAN have a lightweight TD engine that is reliable.
Your post is full of lies.
Diesel engines, because they use less fuel per mile than equivalent gasoline engines, emit less CO2. That's why they get tax breaks in Europe.
Because biodiesel is made from plant matter, the overall CO2 emissions are even less, because most of the CO2 that gets emitted will be absorbed in the grow cycle.
Diesels also put out less HC and CO.
The only pollutants they put out more of are "local" pollutants: NOx and PM, which can be cleaned up with catalysis and urea injection.
Biodiesel has about 8% less BTUs per gallon than petroleum diesel.
But I think what he was talking about was that the CO2 that is emitted is absorbed by the plant matter that is grown to produce the biodiesel.
Now we know were the food smells, in the middle of nowhere, are coming from!
There is no sulfer in biodiesel.
Biodiesel burns much much cleaner than petrodiesel. Very little soot. I have been using it for three years. I've been burning B100 for the past year. You can never see any smoke soot coming out of my tailpipe, even on start up.
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