Hey guys,when your through rolling all over the floor killing yourselves in laughter.I’m serious. we are talking alternative sources for fuel.Deisels arn’t high octane stuff anyhow. This kind of stuff, corn,sugar cane & grass can all be broken down into synthetic fuels. If they work as substitutes for gas,engines, could it work on the big boys. Easter
I dont know about diesels but Porta developed a steam locomotive that ran on biomass or sugar cane discard in Cuba. Go to The Ultimate Steam Page on the web-Click on Steam Designers and go to Porta.
Probably. Isn’t this what’s called biodiesel? They’re using a lot of it in Brazil, IIRC from entries in a thread a week or two ago.
No, Bio Diesel is made from used cooking oil, or organic oils such as canola,corn,or soy specially grown for fuel.
Biodiesel seems to be the direction that it’s moving in, for diesel engines. Gasoline has a lower BTU count per unit of measure which on a diesel would result in lower economy, given a fuel that is compatible with a diesel but with the energy of gasoline.
There was an episode of “Dirty Jobs” on DSC where the creation of biodiesel was showcased - the fuel started out as oil in a burrito fryer. Most widescale biodiesel (well most biodiesel, anyway) is created from corn and soy crops specifically grown for it as posted above. Biodiesel has almost identical properties to petroleum diesel, except the burned exhaust smells like french fries.
TRAINS had a story a few years back about the Phillipine sugar cane industry, and the steamers that operate there. Almost all the engines ran on bagasse, or sugar cane stalks. Very low BTU’s, and hard to keep steam up on it unless they really stuff the firebox full. But it’s cheap.[;)]
A diesel? Not likely.[xx(]
Actually a diesel engine will run on anything as long as it will burn. Of course it may not run long but it will run til it explodes. A diesel engine is a compression igniton engine as long as you lowered the compression ratio to the point were the fuel air mixture would not just blow the heads off it would run fine on about anything out there.
Well, you could do it but the engine would have to be shopped weekly to pop the zits . . .
Old Timer
The US Army developed a diesel engine for the M1A1 Abrams tank that can pretty much run on anything that will burn. I don’t know how well, but I know a guy who was a tank commander in Kossivo and he says they ran it on vodka for a day just to see what would happen, and it ran passibly actually.
Something tells me that train diesels aren’t designed that way but I don’t know of any reason why they could not be modified to run on biodiesel. It would be quite expensive to run even a single engine on it though.
Cheers!
~METRO
I was under the impression, and well informed I thought, that the M1A1 Abrams runs on a turbine engine not a diesel.
Why the Abrams is such a good tank but a fuel hog at teh same time is the turbine engine. The sucker will run on anything that will burn. When it was devolped they knew that they needed 1500 HP due to the weight of it and the only thing was a turbine engine. Now if they could just downsize it to a car.
Shades of the Chrysler experiments back in the 60’s.
The Boone & Scenic Valley was, and maybe still is, using biodiesel made from soy beans. There is a biodiesel plant at Ralston, Iowa, about 45 or so miles west of Boone.
Jeff
TRAINS had a well-written article in the mid-1970’s about diesel fuels and the various grades in which they come. A large slow engine like a De La Vergne or a super-size marine or stationary engine can get by with some pretty low-grade diesel while a 645, FDL or truck-size engine is going to need a higher grade. A lot depends on how much additional maintenance you’re willing to put up with to reduce your fuel bill.
Someone told me that Biodiesel exhaust smells like french fries—no kidding !
Better if one just calls it “biofuel” and eliminates the game of semantics.
Here is an interesting link http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5077 that describes how Brazil gets such high efficiency on their sugar cane to ethanol conversion, by using the post extraction cane as fuel to run the distillation process.
No modification of any diesel engine is necessary in order to run biodiesel - just fuel 'er up and go. It smells like fried food - either french fries or burritos depending on whether it’s fresh or recycled restaurant grease. Either way, driving something powered by biodiesel would probably make me hungry!
The problem with sugar based fuels - such as ethanol - is low BTU content. That is why it is used to improve the emissions of gasoline engines - it lowers the burn temperature to reduce NOx formation. Oil based biofuels such as soy or corn oil have much higher BTU content and will behave much better in a diesel cycle engine.
dd
There’s another problem with ethanol based fuels, and sugar based in general: corrosion and attack on plastics. Unless the metal parts are properly protected, and the plastics chosen for compatibility with polar solvents, you will have problems at higher concentrations. Guaranteed.
If the fluid you are trying to burn in your diesel meets the relevant specifications (particularly cetane number and viscosity, but also impurities) and it doesn’t corrode things, your diesel will run just fine. You may have to adjust the injectors if there is a significant difference in BTU content or density, but usually not even that – you’ll just get different mileage numbers.
Not only will ethanol attach rubber and plastics - it will also corrode many metals including copper, lead, and some grades of steel. As the automobile companies have learned in Brazil - an ethanol engine and fuel system need to be designed from the ground up.
dd