Biodiesel beats ethanol as alternate fuel
The following is a Counterpoint column:
By Bruce McCreedy
More than 50 percent of the fuel used in the world is fuel oil. Aircraft, ships, locomotives, construction equipment, farm machinery, trucks and, in many modern industrialized economies, automobiles are powered by fuel oils that are formulated for specific tasks. Diesel engines are 40 percent more fuel efficient than comparable gas engines and 65 percent more efficient than ethanol-fueled engines.
Since diesel engines are the most efficient use of crude oil for powering most of the machines listed above, industrialized economies that import energy have spent billions of dollars in R&D to clean up diesel fuels and improve the efficiency of Rudolph Diesel's 120- year-old invention.
Today, ultra-low sulfur B20 biodiesel fuel (20 percent bio oil) is available in most modern industrialized economies. The new technology diesel engines include injection systems, catalytic converters, turbo chargers and particulate filters, which make them more efficient and as environmentally clean as our standard gas engines. Unfortunately, B20 biodiesel fuel is not available in most of the United States.
We are spending billions of dollars to build new ethanol refineries. Environmentally, ethanol is very clean; unfortunately, it is not a very efficient fuel when used in a modern engine.
Unless your cash crop is sugar (Brazil), ethanol made from corn takes much more energy to produce than bio oil made from rape seed or soybeans. Presently, cultivating and harvesting one acre of corn costs the farmer $11 in fuel while harvesting an acre of soybeans costs $7.
Ethanol is cultivated and harvested by diesel-powered farm machinery and transported by diesel-powered trucks and trains, since it cannot be shipped through conventional fuel pipelines.
Most experts on the subject agree that it takes two-thirds of a gallon of oil to product one gallon of corn-based ethanol. Biomass ethanol can be produced more efficiently, but it still must be transported by truck and train for distribution.
Naturally, the petroleum industry is not too anxious to have its No. 1 customer include B20 biodiesel as an "alternative fuel." Light-duty diesel (automobile) engines powered by B20 biodiesel fuels require about 50 percent less crude oil than our present gas engines. That would definitely put a knot in "big oil's" knickers.
The writer lives in Greensboro.
Comments (4)
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This makes way too much sense.
Posted on June 7, 2006 8:52 AM
I can make ethanol in my back yard but unfortunately the government frowns on my doing that. I don't know that I can make bio-diesel.
Now I did read an article today in the local fishwrap pages of the Asheville CT that claimed that in Sweden they were running a train on Cow Manure. They found that it worked right well, now they have decided to use the whole cow and they have found that it works right well also. According to the states they get about 2.5 miles to the cow.
That alone should make some of the Vegans happy but look out for the PETA rioters.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/COLUMNISTS02/60606040/1194
Posted on June 7, 2006 10:13 AM
My engine runs on baby oil.
Posted on June 8, 2006 4:48 PM
Surely not yellowdog!
Tell you what. That stuff they made up in the mountains were I grew up sure burned hot but boy did it save on spark plugs. Old spark plugs if you remember were good for maybe 10-20K and then you replaced them. With cornsqueezin's in the tank occassionaly they stay clean as a whistle. Closest we came to running the straight stuff was the night we ran out of gas out on a back road(farther back than the one we lived on,if that was possible) and dumped a whole gallon in the tank. Man it blew the blue flames out the exhaust pipes and the tail pipe extensions (those big ole things that looked like cannons) were as white on the inside as could be.
So three cheers for corn squeezin's to run cars on. Make it yourself and take a nip and adjust your attitude before filling up the tank. Look out Rockingham!
Posted on June 9, 2006 3:24 PM