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I've been walking around with the assumption that a myth is true but after some thought I've decided the myth is only true for crude oil based fuel.

The myth goes something like this:

We need both gas and diesel vehicles on the road because crude oil has both gas and diesel componants. You can't turn crude into 100% gas or 100% diesel so we might as well have both types of fuel and both types of vehicles.

Certainly this myth has some truth to it if we are talking about crude oil base fuels.

The myth is busted in the long run because you don't get any gas byproduct when making bio-diesel. I believe that our in our future there will be a lot more diesels than there are now. I wish I could by a mid-sized diesel truck right now but nobody sells em.

Hi Jason:

___You are right about the mix but when the mix becomes unbalanced as in Europe today, they start wholesaling the gasoline at ever decreasing profits and even losses because they have no place to get rid of it!

___With all the talk of Biomass to Ethanol, I still believe an EV running off an electrical production facility burning Bio-mass as the fuel, wind, nuclear or best of all, straight solar will eventually take over given the inherent low to no GHG emission.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi Jason:

___Upon further review … Except for Heavy transport. I don’t think Electric is the answer for that but either Biodiesel or FT-CTL fuels may do the trick. B100 has a problem at temps below 40 degrees F and that brings us right back to either syn diesel or the dirty stuff we have been using for over 100 years during the winter months :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Supposedly there's a bio blend with a cloud point of below freezing on the horizon (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/la_fabril_produ.html). I wish the included the low temperature flow. In terms of current large diesels, retrofitting them to warm the fuel before starting would be the most cost effective way to use bio in cold climates, and unfortunately, most of the passenger diesel fleet needs something that's user friendly.

Lakedude,
You mean a real midsized truck-the current Tacoma,Frontier,Dakota size,right?
I have often wished for a Dodge with a 3 liter straight 6 cyl instead of the 5.9 liter they currently use.It would make 150 hp and 300 lb-ft plenty enough power for a 4500 lb truck.It should be able to tow 5000-6000 lbs also.
Chevy and Ford could just turn their V-8's into straight fours-they would need pretty heavy counterbalance shafts, of course.
A truck like that should get about 25 mpg hy, and maybe an honest 16-17 in the city.The current gasoline V-6's get about 13-14 mpg city and maybe 21 mpg highway. My Titan got 20.9 mpg hy(some at altitude-big FE advantage) at 60-65 mph for a 3000 mile trip. A diesel should beat that by 20%.
I'm waiting for a diesel, but not holding my breath.I occasionally have heard stories of 3/4 ton Cummins with the 6 speed getting 22-25 mpg hy(not towing, of course).I have my doubts, but maybe.
Luck,
Charlie

Lakedude,
You mean a real midsized truck-the current Tacoma,Frontier,Dakota size,right?
Yep exactly, or even a F-150, 1500, Liberty (they quit selling the CRD-Liberty), or a smaller truck like the Ranger or especially the Ridgeline.

B100 has a problem at temps below 40 degrees F and that brings us right back to either syn diesel or the dirty stuff we have been using for over 100 years during the winter months :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne


Better living through chemicals, Wayne! The more popular Biodiesel becomes, the better additives will get. I run B20 through our Chicago winters, only adding a normal size treatment of Power Service antigel. I've never had a problem for 2 years.

ULSD is now here, and I'm seeing a lot of buzz on the diesel boards of a couple of mpg increase. Nice!!!!

Andy

Andy, why aren't you bringing those diesel guys over here!

Hi Tbaleno,

I link to various articles on this site, so cleanmpg should be getting some traffic (lurkers). I think this site has the most interesting articles/news and it's updated frequently so I try to link as often as I can.

You 'da man!

Hi Andy:

___Thank you! Great to hear about you running B20 throughout the winter.

___The Company I work for (Exelon) is the largest public company purchaser and consumer of B20 in the US and they use some of the additives to keep it from clouding in the winter months as well. It appears to be working well or we would be seeing ComEd line trucks stranded on the side of the road all over the Chicagoland area ;)

___As you probably know, there are a ton of us that want to get our hands on Honda’s 2.2L iCDTi in the Accord/TSX/Civic after the new emissions system is in place and I am definitely one of those individuals!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I read an article in 'automotive industry' some years ago about a Dakota with a 4.2L Detriot that was destined for Canada and others. I jsut wish the US got all the good toys

We have had our diesel since 1982 and it has worked well throughtout the years. We, however, have heard about some concerns with the new fuel blend and the shrinkage of rubber seals that may cause leakage.

I think modern agriculture and the whole so-called "green revolution" was a product of the petroleum age and will be unsustainable as fossil fuel production declines. Every commercial fertalizer is made from natural gas. Every commercial pesticide is made from petroleum. We use fossil fuels to pump the water for irrigation, plowing, planting, harvesting, transportation and rendering the biomass into fuel. Is was oil that turned the desert into agricultural land and as oil declines methods of farming that rely on it will become unsustainable. I think biodeisel is at best a local solution to solve local problems, I do not see it as a fuel that will allow us to continue the production of 3,000 mile ceaser salads or the lifetsyle choice of hopping in a car at any time and driving miles and miles to go to work or get our food or buy our stuff.

Hi Renfield:

___This is where the power of the PHEV/EV comes in. It is not only an all-in solution; it is just a matter of time before the world realizes what kind of trouble we truly are in …

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I don't think we'll be able to produce enough electricity to run what we're running now on oil.

Hi Renfield:

___Gasoline and Diesel consumption already uses enough energy including electricity to power an EV/PHEV without the gasoline or diesel getting in the way in the first place. That is how darn efficient these things are and how much fuel it takes to actually fuel our vehicles. Gasoline and Diesel are simply energy carriers. Energy dense as all get out but are only energy carriers vs. the raw electricity needed to make the gasoline and diesel in the first place that can drive an EV/PHEV the same or even greater distance. Sounds like a sham on all of us, doesn’t it … It truly is :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

But Deisel and Gasoline are refined from oil which is a primary energy source, not a carrier. Electricity is always generated using a primary energy source - usually coal or natural gas and sometimes deisel. In order to have electricity you need a primary energy source and you need a dense one if you are going to power an industrial society like the one we have now without just electricity. Solar can't do it because it is not dense enough everywhere 24/7. Nuclear is dependent on oil to power the machines needed to mine, extract, and transport the ore as well as build the facilities necessary for all of that and to generate power with it. Wind is site specific. If we were to transfer all of that energy use and plug it into the grid we'd need a tremendous amount of coal, nat gas and nuclear power plants to generate all that electricty. There's also the question of infrastructure. Four years ago a falling branch in Michigan denied 50 million people light for several days because electricty demand was so close to 100% that the grid finally just popped and there were no electric cars on the road. The entire North American grid is at capacity and teh rapid adoption of an electrical transportation system that relies on individual cars I think is unrealistic.

Hi Renfield:

___You need electricity to pump crude out of the ground, pump it to a local tanker, keep the tankers sub-ssytems up and running to a port for offload to another pumping station or refiner, refine (this is huge), back into another pipeline for distribution by pumping, pumping to fill a tanker truck, driving the tanker truck to the filling stations tanks and then to pump it out of the stations tank into your vehicle. There is more electricity consumed in all of that then filling up an EV with electricity from the coal, nuclear, Hydro or wind generating power station and driving an equivalent distance to begin with. You are using energy (Electricity) to create another less efficient form of energy (gasoline/Diesel) that the electricity would have sufficed to begin with. You cannot burn crude in your car directly so it is not an energy source until processed into an energy carrier like gasoline or diesel. We cannot get around this oil based sham just yet.

___The "tremendous" part comes from all that oil being pumped out, refined and pumped again all over the place. The amount of electricity needed to do this is more then the electricity needed to power an EV/PHEV an equivlant distance. Follow the CO2 Well-to-wheel studies and it will change your outlook. Gasoline and diesel are now energy carriers, not a source given Crude is the source.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi Renfield:

___You need electricity to pump crude out of the ground, pump it to a local tanker, keep the tankers sub-ssytems up and running to a port for offload to another pumping station or refiner, refine (this is huge), back into another pipeline for distribution by pumping, pumping to fill a tanker truck, driving the tanker truck to the filling stations tanks and then to pump it out of the stations tank into your vehicle.How is that electricity currently generated? Also, the oil well heads are run on oil, not electricty. Most of the heavy equipment at any oil field is run either directly on oil or on electricity generated by burning the oil. No matter how you look at it, you cannot pump electricty out of the ground.


There is more electricity consumed in all of that then filling up an EV with electricity from the coal, nuclear, Hydro or wind generating power station and driving an equivalent distance to begin with. You are using energy (Electricity) to create another less efficient form of energy (gasoline/Diesel) that the electricity would have sufficed to begin with. You cannot burn crude in your car directly so it is not an energy source until processed into an energy carrier like gasoline or diesel. We cannot get around this oil based sham just yet.Who perpetrating a sham? Please don't tell me the oil companies because they are not oil companies. They are energy companies and they will sell you any kind of energy they can. Most people don't know, for example, that Shell is the largest generator of solar energy in the world. GE is the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world. Chevron just recently, with the acqusition of an ethanol plant in Texas, became one of the largest producsers of ethanol and, Archer Daniels Midland is the largest producer of ethanol. There is no conspiracy amongst oil companies to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels. Hell, all of the American oil companies together only own about 12% of the world's crude reserves. The rest is mostly owned by governments. The plain truth is that fossil fuels are simply the most compact, easily available energy source the world has ever known and all other energy sources, electricity included, are ultinmately reliant on them - at least if we are going to have them in the abundance we do today.

___The "tremendous" part comes from all that oil being pumped out, refined and pumped again all over the place. The amount of electricity needed to do this is more then the electricity needed to power an EV/PHEV an equivlant distance. Follow the CO2 Well-to-wheel studies and it will change your outlook. Gasoline and diesel are now energy carriers, not a source given Crude is the source.The tremendous part comes from the amount of new energy use the grid would need to support were we to move our transportation needs to it.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

:Banane32:

The tremendous part comes from the amount of new energy use the grid would need to support were we to move our transportation needs to it.


This has already been studied. A 16% gap doesn't seem "tremendous" -- and that would only be if all 198M vehicles switched overnight to PHEVs.

If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of these 198 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics. (Note: an earlier version of this release contained the number 220 million for these types of vehicles. The 220 million figure included vans, the 198 million excludes vans).

"We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets," said PNNL scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer. "The estimates didn't include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn't include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don't operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity."

http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=204

I was speaking specifically about full electric vehicles, but I digress. My initial point is that I think we're going to have problems continuing to generate the amount of electricity we use now, much less increasing our capacity.

Hi Renfield:

How is that electricity currently generated? Also, the oil well heads are run on oil, not electricity. Most of the heavy equipment at any oil field is run either directly on oil or on electricity generated by burning the oil. No matter how you look at it, you cannot pump electricity out of the ground.
___It is not Crude that the equipment runs on, it is refined that has already been through the process using electricity to do the work.
Who perpetrating a sham?___You are.
Please don't tell me the oil companies because they are not oil companies. They are energy companies and they will sell you any kind of energy they can. Most people don't know, for example, that Shell is the largest generator of solar energy in the world. GE is the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world. Chevron just recently, with the acquisition of an ethanol plant in Texas, became one of the largest producers of ethanol and, Archer Daniels Midland is the largest producer of ethanol. There is no conspiracy amongst oil companies to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels. Hell, all of the American oil companies together only own about 12% of the world's crude reserves. The rest is mostly owned by governments. The plain truth is that fossil fuels are simply the most compact, easily available energy source the world has ever known and all other energy sources, electricity included, are ultimately reliant on them - at least if we are going to have them in the abundance we do today.
___The Sham is in the fact that the grid already supplies the power to create the gallon of gasoline, diesel and ethanol you and I consume daily. That same amount of power needed to convert Crude to a single gallon of gasoline or diesel to drive the average car 20 miles is the same amount of electricity that it takes to drive a PHEV or EV 20 miles without having to get the oil industry involved in the first place.
The tremendous part comes from the amount of new energy use the grid would need to support were we to move our transportation needs to it.___We already use the power on the grid for all of this. What do you think the refinery consumes? NG and Electricity to refine crude to gasoline, diesel and any number of other byproducts. The grid can supply the same power to an EV/PHEV without pushing a single electron to a refinery today. This is the sham. We are using as much electricity to get the crude out of the ground and to our tanks as can be placed in a battery directly bypassing the oil industry in total. It is an almost even swap other then the NG used for cracking which could go into electrical production.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi Renfield:
___We already use the power on the grid for all of this. What do you think the refinery consumes? NG and Electricity to refine crude to gasoline, diesel and any number of other byproducts. The grid can supply the same power to an EV/PHEV without pushing a single electron to a refinery today. This is the sham. We are using as much electricity to get the crude out of the ground and to our tanks as can be placed in a battery directly bypassing the oil industry in total. It is an almost even swap other then the NG used for cracking which could go into electrical production.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

The reason gas/diesel is more valuable per kwh than other forms of energy "storage" is that its higher energy density is good for portable power generation, as in diesel/electric locomotives. If batteries improve to match the energy density charcteristics of petro based fuels, then I expect the mobile IC engine would be in trouble.

Hi ILAveo:

___Yes, we all know about the energy density of liquid fuel. What very few seem to realize is that it is running out and a viable solution is only an outlet away.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I think Wayne is the guy who works in the electric industry, so he knows more about this than I do. It turns out that since the 1970's petroleum's share of America's total energy pie has shrunk a great deal. Only in mobile power applications such as transportation is it the dominant source. For the largest pieces of the American energy market, home heating and electric power generation, it has largely been replaced by other power sources such as natural gas, coal and to some extent renewables. Some people view the arrival of hybrid vehicles and biofuels as natural extensions of this trend into the transportation market.