TrumpetMaster - View Single Post

Tootsall · 03-15-2007, 10:48 AM

I'll toss a coin in here: I spent almost a month in Germany last summer where they use both ethanol and biodiesel. There's really not a lot of difference since one is essentiall "bio diesel" and one is "bio gasoline". The diesel appears to be more efficient due to the design of diesel engines (which are MUCH more prevalent in Europe than here). There are tiny little 3 cylinder, turbo-charged diesels used in tiny little cars. Friends of ours just purchased a Suzuki "Vitara" SUV. It's the same size as what is sold here in North America (not the 'Grand Vitara') but has a diesel engine (not availble here). It knocks down the equivalent of 40 US mpg; useful when they're paying the equivalent of $7-$8 per gallon and about double what their old Volvo stationwagon was getting (I know... I had to fill the gas tank on that thing about three times... at $120 per tankful!)

There is, however a side-effect of diesel (of any kind) which they are running up against in Europe and that is the particulate pollutants (especially the carbon). They are invisible until you get into large volumes of them and then they become a hazard. In Switzerland especially we observed that there is a HEAVY smog now laying along all of the narrow valleys which have main highways running through. These highways provide for a lot of the heavy truck traffic from Northern Europe down into the south (the Baltics, Greece, Italy etc). Some of the mountain ranges have been perforated with either highway tunnels or rail highways wherein you put your car, bus, or truck on a railway car and they shuttle back and forth through the tunnel. (You can elect to drive over the passes as we did but you wouldn't do that with a truck... you wouldn't make it!) As an indication of traffic density, some of the lineups to get onto these rail shuttles were over 2 miles long!

Is there a big difference between the two fuels? Not really; one is simply diesel and one a "gasoline". They are fuels that are burned in two different types of engine just as "fossil" diesel and "fossil" gasoline.

And let us not forget that only about 10% of the fuel we burn is used for transportation; the rest goes into factories, power plants and commerce.

03-15-2007, 10:48 AM	#5 (permalink)
Tootsall Fortissimo User Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Yee HAW! Posts: 4,641	Re: Fossil Fuel vs Bio Fuel I'll toss a coin in here: I spent almost a month in Germany last summer where they use both ethanol and biodiesel. There's really not a lot of difference since one is essentiall "bio diesel" and one is "bio gasoline". The diesel appears to be more efficient due to the design of diesel engines (which are MUCH more prevalent in Europe than here). There are tiny little 3 cylinder, turbo-charged diesels used in tiny little cars. Friends of ours just purchased a Suzuki "Vitara" SUV. It's the same size as what is sold here in North America (not the 'Grand Vitara') but has a diesel engine (not availble here). It knocks down the equivalent of 40 US mpg; useful when they're paying the equivalent of $7-$8 per gallon and about double what their old Volvo stationwagon was getting (I know... I had to fill the gas tank on that thing about three times... at $120 per tankful!) There is, however a side-effect of diesel (of any kind) which they are running up against in Europe and that is the particulate pollutants (especially the carbon). They are invisible until you get into large volumes of them and then they become a hazard. In Switzerland especially we observed that there is a HEAVY smog now laying along all of the narrow valleys which have main highways running through. These highways provide for a lot of the heavy truck traffic from Northern Europe down into the south (the Baltics, Greece, Italy etc). Some of the mountain ranges have been perforated with either highway tunnels or rail highways wherein you put your car, bus, or truck on a railway car and they shuttle back and forth through the tunnel. (You can elect to drive over the passes as we did but you wouldn't do that with a truck... you wouldn't make it!) As an indication of traffic density, some of the lineups to get onto these rail shuttles were over 2 miles long! Is there a big difference between the two fuels? Not really; one is simply diesel and one a "gasoline". They are fuels that are burned in two different types of engine just as "fossil" diesel and "fossil" gasoline. And let us not forget that only about 10% of the fuel we burn is used for transportation; the rest goes into factories, power plants and commerce.