In L.A., the hybrid is, like, so last year

Which would tend to suggest that people with biodiesel vehicles wouldn't want to use used vegetable oil. They'd want pure, clean stuff that would be less inclined to gum up the works. Still, it's an important step, learning how to keep fuel lines from clogging up. Once they get past that problem, sooner or later we'll have cars that can take any old biofuel. Then maybe we'll really have Mr Fusion, eh?

 

Crap, my car has high cholesterol levels.

 

The claims for biodiesel having lower emissions are complex. Studies have shown that blends with fossil diesel proportionately produce few of most emissions, based on how much biodeisel is added to the mix. But some of the claim comes by subtracting the "reclamation" of CO2 from renewable crops pulling it back out of the air again. Maybe... but that's a stretch.

Biodiesel doesn't require any changes to pumping infrastructure. It can be blended in any ratio desired, or even burned 100% pure. In it's pure state it's about 50-75% cleaner than fossil fuel, although some pollutants are the same or maybe even higher... it also depends on what plant was the source of the oil. no matter what, I haven't heard of a pure biodiesel that does well at low temperatures. It starts to gel into a solid in the 20's or 30's deg F, I believe.

Ethanol will have a hard time competing with biodiesel, long term. It takes a great deal of energy to distill alcohol from grain. The amount of heat required in biodiesel processing is comparatively low. Ethanol's main advantage is that it works in the otto (and atkinson cycle engines preferred by most Americans.

The US finally has some better regulations on the quality of diesel fuel, starting this year. Maybe with better fuel, we can start getting some of the superior diesel engines companies like BMW, Honda, and Toyota already have overseas.

I'd be very interested in combining an HSD driveline with a diesel like the BMW 2.0l common rail high-pressure turbo 4-cyl that gets 40-50mpg without hybrid technology to manage it. Wow, that could really save!

Gary

 

Yeah, I read about that on GreenCarCongress. The Canadians and Europeans don't seem to have these issues. I think part of the issue is the poor quality of American diesel fuel. Biodiesel is a proven commodity and it's been in use here and abroad for a while. These problems will be fixed.

The trucking industry needs relief from the high cost of diesel. Right now they have two options: Increase fuel economy or use bio-petro blends. There are some pretty low tech, but none-the-less effective fuel economy inovations in the works that'll help get trucking costs down a bit. Biofuel blends are also needed though.

Biodiesel practically eliminates SOx emmisions. NOx are a little higher. Particulates and uncombusted hydrocarbons are down. There are no benzene emmissions either.

The CO2 arguments are legit but not necessarily intuitive. The soy beans remove CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow. This CO2 is then released when the biodiesel is burned. Yes, there is some petro emmisions involved in the production of the fuel but this is also true of petro diesel. A fair amount of the CO2 produced by biodiesel and ethanol was taken out of the atmosphere by the crops from which the fuel was made. Petro diesel release CO2 that has been geologically sequestered for millions of years so it's net addition to atmosphereic CO2.

The ethanol distilling process has been improving by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years. According to the lastest DOE papers that I've read it's now a net positive energy fuel. Biodiesel is appearently the most positive of the biofuels.