A question about Diesel

WeberFan wrote:...You could distill a bucket of crude and just draw off the "diesel" cuts, then use the rest (the heavier hydrocarbons that didn't vaporize in your distillation column) for road making ...

Charis (and eventually all of Safehold,) are going to have a fairly high demand for "Bunker Fuel," which IIRC is some of those "heavier hydrocarbons" or just straight crude.

Safehold also has Firevine Oil as a source for Diesel fuel -- since Diesel engines don't need just modern Diesel Fuel to run.

Weird Harold wrote:

WeberFan wrote:...You could distill a bucket of crude and just draw off the "diesel" cuts, then use the rest (the heavier hydrocarbons that didn't vaporize in your distillation column) for road making ...

Charis (and eventually all of Safehold,) are going to have a fairly high demand for "Bunker Fuel," which IIRC is some of those "heavier hydrocarbons" or just straight crude.

Safehold also has Firevine Oil as a source for Diesel fuel -- since Diesel engines don't need just modern Diesel Fuel to run.

You can run a diesel engine off just about anything that can burn, I've heard of experiments using used French fry oil.

saber964 wrote:You can run a diesel engine off just about anything that can burn, I've heard of experiments using used French fry oil.

Biodiesel from used cooking oil isn't experimental, it is a proven technology that just doesn't scale up very well. It works fine for the hard-core eco-freak who is willing to spend the time and effort to collect and purify used fry oil, but the entire McDonald's empire can only provide enough fry oil for about 1% of the non-commercial Diesel engines already on the road.

The US Army has "multi-fuel" capability on most of its heavy trucks and equipment; with preset adjustments for 80 Octane gasoline, E80 or E90 alcohol, JP4 through JP8 jet(tank) fuels, and various grades of Diesel fuel. Safehold probably can't manage that level of Multi-fuel capability because the preset tuning is computer(electrical) based, Safehold is going to have to settle for a narrow range of fuels for any internal combustion engines and tune each engine for a specific fuel source.

saber964 wrote:You can run a diesel engine off just about anything that can burn, I've heard of experiments using used French fry oil.

I read of people in England, where diesel engines are more common in autos, that people have been fined for using cooking oil in their vehicles, easily identifiable by odour, as they had not paid the fuel tax on the cooking oil. I suppose that there will be some adjustments in fuel taxes made for electric vehicles, in the UK as there will be everywhere else as well.

Firevine smoke is toxic, and I wouldn't count on the conditions in an IC engine making it less so.

Weird Harold wrote:

WeberFan wrote:...You could distill a bucket of crude and just draw off the "diesel" cuts, then use the rest (the heavier hydrocarbons that didn't vaporize in your distillation column) for road making ...

Charis (and eventually all of Safehold,) are going to have a fairly high demand for "Bunker Fuel," which IIRC is some of those "heavier hydrocarbons" or just straight crude.

Safehold also has Firevine Oil as a source for Diesel fuel -- since Diesel engines don't need just modern Diesel Fuel to run.

Louis R wrote:Firevine smoke is toxic, and I wouldn't count on the conditions in an IC engine making it less so.

So is the smoke from just about any hydrocarbon fuel to one degree or another. De-toxifying the emissions is just a matter of engineering the side-effects down to "acceptable" levels.

saber964 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
Charis (and eventually all of Safehold,) are going to have a fairly high demand for "Bunker Fuel," which IIRC is some of those "heavier hydrocarbons" or just straight crude.

Safehold also has Firevine Oil as a source for Diesel fuel -- since Diesel engines don't need just modern Diesel Fuel to run.

You can run a diesel engine off just about anything that can burn, I've heard of experiments using used French fry oil.

With liquid hydrocarbons I agree with you to a large extent, true. But there are some reservoirs that produce crude that is so heavy and viscous, it barely flows. There's one reservoir in Venezuela that produces crude that's so viscous (even at the high ambient temperatures there) that they have to dilute it with a petroleum distillate to "thin it out" enough to flow through the pipeline. When the crude gets to its destination, they do a quick distillation to separate out the "thinning agent" and pump that back to the wellhead location so it can be reused again, over and over. Somehow I think this crud would be too heavy to realistically use as diesel fuel. You could probably do it, but you'd have to do some truly weird things to your engine (and especially your injection system) to get it to work...

WeberFan wrote:With liquid hydrocarbons I agree with you to a large extent, true. But there are some reservoirs that produce crude that is so heavy and viscous, it barely flows. There's one reservoir in Venezuela that produces crude that's so viscous (even at the high ambient temperatures there) that they have to dilute it with a petroleum distillate to "thin it out" enough to flow through the pipeline. ...

I doubt anyone would design a Diesel engine to use the La Brea Tar Pits as fuel although the pits are technically "crude oil" deposits.

The remainders from fractional distillation are often very thick and viscous, barely liquid. IIRC, ships that use "Bunker Fuel" use steam heat to make the fuel pumpable. Again, just an engineering challenge to design an engine that will work on the fuel available -- as long as the fuel is technically liquid or can be liquified.

Weird Harold wrote:

WeberFan wrote:With liquid hydrocarbons I agree with you to a large extent, true. But there are some reservoirs that produce crude that is so heavy and viscous, it barely flows. There's one reservoir in Venezuela that produces crude that's so viscous (even at the high ambient temperatures there) that they have to dilute it with a petroleum distillate to "thin it out" enough to flow through the pipeline. ...

I doubt anyone would design a Diesel engine to use the La Brea Tar Pits as fuel although the pits are technically "crude oil" deposits.

The remainders from fractional distillation are often very thick and viscous, barely liquid. IIRC, ships that use "Bunker Fuel" use steam heat to make the fuel pumpable. Again, just an engineering challenge to design an engine that will work on the fuel available -- as long as the fuel is technically liquid or can be liquified.

Not really liquefied but atomized into a fine spray or vaporize the liquid. FYI when Yamato made her final voyage her fuel tanks were filled with various combustible simi-fuels IIRC they were vegetable oil, soybean oil and seasme oil. When she set sail she had about 50% of the last bunker fuel left in Japan.

saber964 wrote:Not really liquefied but atomized into a fine spray or vaporize the liquid. FYI when Yamato made her final voyage her fuel tanks were filled with various combustible simi-fuels IIRC they were vegetable oil, soybean oil and seasme oil. When she set sail she had about 50% of the last bunker fuel left in Japan.

Tar is too thick to atomize and too sticky to powder (like coal dust fired power plants) It would have to be liquefied either by extreme heat or dilution before it could be atomized.

Theoretically, a Diesel engine could be designed to run on coal dust, but coal dust is abrasive so injectors wouldn't last very long and cylinder walls would get scoured excessively.

Luckily, Safehold has better fuel options than tar pits and powdered coal even with the problems of toxic exhaust gasses.