BiodieselJeep.com wrote:
chadhargis wrote:
The sad thing is, oil companies keep making record profits as we all stand by and watch. Not much we can do about it I guess.
Dare I say it: Biodiesel?
Is that another cue for Reflex to chime in about the evils of Biodiesel?
Actually, I've just about lost count of the number of ways they've tested now to make either bio (organic source) or synthetic (nonorganic source) diesel.
BTL - Biomass to Liquid - Tested by DC of all people
, the diesel equivalent of celluosic ethanol. For the test plant, they used dead windfall trees and other scrap biomass to produce a high grade biodiesel. Had all the same advantages of normal biodiesel, plus the NOX emissions were a fraction of normal biodiesel.
GTL - Gas to Liquid - Converts natural gas into synthetic diesel. A couple of Middle East countries are building sizeable plants to do this, basically because it's a lot easier and cheaper to transport diesel fuel than LNG. From reading the specs, this stuff comes out at over 70 cetane. At work, we were able to access a weblink where Daimler ran a test engine on this stuff. They were able to lower the compression ratio down to 15:1 (almost gas engine territory) and using specially designed injectors, the engine ran so clean that it would have met current emissions specs WITHOUT any type of emissions control hardware.
From what I've read, this process can be downsized to the point that the processing plant can be made portable, such that it's now economically feasible to recover smaller natural gas fields and pockets, that previously wouldn't justify the expense of building a pipeline or LNG facility. Bring in the portable plant, convert the natural gas to diesel, load it in a tanker truck, and send it to market.
CTL - Coal to Liquid - Basically the same process Germany used to fuel it's military in WWII, updated with current technology. A few months back, the governors of Montana and one other western state were in the news. They had been working with a German company, researching the feasibility of setting up such plants in their states. With the updated process, they estimated they could produce synthetic diesel for the equivalent price of producing it from oil at $35/barrel, with many of the same advantages of the GTL synthetic diesel listed above.
But for now, guess we're stuck with buying what comes out of the pump. Right now, ULSD and RUG are dead even at 2.89 at the closest station.
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...Just making an observation of the names writtten on the fuel pumps.
