The future of diesel and diesel engines
Diesel and diesel engines are changing. Perhaps the most important reason is that diesel engines are more fuel efficient, or to put it simply, they get better miles per gallon than petrol (or “gasoline”) engines. Truckers and offshore mariners have known this for decades. They can go further on a tank of diesel. Truckers waste less time filling their tanks. Mariners get better cruising range than they would from gasoline.
Diesels used to be heavy and smoggy, but modern “clean” diesels are becoming comparable with gasoline engines. The diesel is no longer restricted to heavy-duty applications, and this is helping western nations peg their consumption of third-world petroleum, and their greenhouse gas emissions. Europe is leading the charge. Over 50% of the new cars sold in the EU in 2005 were diesels.
The 2006 Le Mans 24 hours was a spectacular demonstration of what is happening. A diesel-burning Audi R10 came in four laps ahead of the first petrol-burner, while the second Audi R10 took third place after suffering injector trouble.
Because of the R10’s superior fuel efficiency, the Audis required fewer refuelling stops. For 2007, a rule change reduced the diesel cars’ tank capacity by ten percent. In spite of this, the 2007 Le Mans was dominated by the Audis and the diesel-powered Peugeot 908 HDi FAP’s. One of the Audis crashed, but the other finished ten laps ahead of the first Peugeot 908. The first gasoline entry took third place, a lap behind the Peugeot.
These Euro-diesels are brutal, with over 1100 nm (810 ft-lb) of torque, enough to make an American big-block V8 look like a pussy. Peugeot have proved that Audi's R10 was not a fluke, that with the right planning and resources, other car makers will be able to build engines that will satisfy the pickiest petrol-head. But perhaps the best thing about this pug-ugly racecar is the beautiful noise.
Gasoline and conventional diesel (petrodiesel) have near-identical energy content. Diesel engines get better mileage because of their high compression ratios. This fundamental advantage of the diesel cycle means it is very unlikely that gasoline engines will ever challenge the fuel efficiency of diesels.
How diesel is changing
We are seeing indications that world demand for petroleum may be exceeding the supply. This is driving up oil prices and encouraging people to build new diesel manufacturing facilities.
Another factor behind new fuel technologies is climate change. Diesel engines work by turning diesel fuel into water and carbon dioxide. If that fuel comes from fossil sources, then their carbon dioxide emissions increase the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and scientists tell us that this leads to changes that could ruin the world economy. However, when we use diesel made from trees, grass, or agricultural and forestry waste, we release carbon dioxide that was only recently absorbed from the air by photosynthesis. This is far less likely to cause worrying climate change.
There are different kinds of diesel, and there are many ways of making it.
Until recently, almost all diesel fuel was made from refined petroleum. To distinguish it from other kinds of diesel, I’ll call this petrodiesel.
Around the world, a lot of money is going into facilities for manufacturing synthetic diesel or syndiesel. Syndiesel can be made from coal, natural gas, biomass, and trash.
Another important kind of diesel is biodiesel. This is made from various natural oils and fats, including waste frying oil.
Biodiesel, syndiesel, and petrodiesel can be blended together. In future, our diesel will quite likely have some of each. It may even have other components such as ethanol (the alcohol we know as gin or vodka), butanol (an alcohol that’s no good to drink) or sesquiterpines, a natural diesel that quite literally grows on trees.
These web pages are about real fuel you can buy from a proper bowser. I'm not interested in backyard conversion kits for running diesel engines on snake oil.
Click the links at right to find out what I've written about the future of diesel so far.
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