Okay, I’ll start out with a confession. I am a huge dieslhead. I own a VW Jetta TDI. I get 49 MPG. I am happy. When the apocolypse comes, I’ll make fuel from any kind of oil available :D. Okay, that is just a joke, but its nice to know I have an engine that can run other alternative fuels with little modification and little work. But that’s besides the point.
The point is Biodiesel. Lets start out with a fact. Tons of cars sold in Europe today are diesels. Half of new cars sold in Germany are diesels. The modern diesel engine is efficient and is powerful.
Diesels are also known as dirty. That is true, but diesels are only high in NOx and particulate emissions while gasoline engines are particuarly high in CO2 emissions, which are worse for the greenhouse. This might be why Diesels are permitted in Europe more, because the climate is more forgiving towards smog.
But lets put all of that aside. What is wrong with Biodiesel? Biodiesel, where available costs around 2 dollars a gallon. Back when I was first interested in BioD that was expensive, but by today’s gas prices that isn’t that bad. Plus you also get the added benefit of helping the environment. In terms of carbon it all makes sense. Our atmosphere has a certain amount of carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2. But we keep on pumping carbon (in the form of oil and other fossil fuels) out of the earth into the atmosphere. In some way the amount of carbon on earth is still the same, but the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is rising. Peak oil is a debatable concept, so lets leave that aside, but the thing about biodiesel that is very amazing is the fact that it is a closed carbon system. For a plant to grow it needs CO2 (and sunlight and other things, but this is the important part). Cars emit CO2 gases. If a car runs only on plant matter, it is impossible for it to emit more carbon than the plants absorbed. And thus you get your closed system.
Combine that with the fact that we have farm subsidies out the ying yang here in America and Western Europe. I figure that as long as we are paying farmers to grow stuff for no reason, we might as well get them to grow things that can be converted into fuel. At the very least we can stop paying farmers to grow tons of food that will floos various markets and instead have them grow renewable fuel sources. Soybeans are a good source of oil for this purpose. Its not necessarily a solution to our energy problems, but hell, its a start.
What really baffles me, though is all of this hype about fuel cells and hybrids. Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines by nature. Why are there no diesel hybrids? Secondly, why do people see fuel cells as the answer? To me they are no better than a sophistocated, albiet dangerous battery. There is no readily available souce of H2, so we would have to produce it through electrolysis which requires lots of energy… Where should that energy come from?
Okay maybe I am a little zealous when it comes to the prospects of BioD, but it seems to me that people attach such a stigma to diesel that it is immediately out of the running for a “futuristic” source of renewable fuel. People don’t want to have a solutiont that relies on old tech. Because of this, I believe that people are overlooking the potential benefit of a diesel electric hybrid and Biodiesel.
For those of you who don’t know, Biodiesel is made by combining NaOH with oil and alcohol (can be ethanol or methanol). The result is biodiesel and glycerine. Its a very simple process than anyone can do themselves. And yes, it works with almost any diesel. If anything a couple of modifications have to be made for the effects of biodiesel on the fuel lines.
I’m not saying that this is a solution to all of out fuel problems, but I think it is really something that isn’t given the proper attention, at least in the national media. How many Prius drivers would consider driving a diesel although I am getting the same gas mileage and emitting less CO2?