Switched to Renewable Diesel!

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by zstine

Waterman46 and Brewgyver: I will try to stick to facts based on evidence...

First, this is way, way off topic, and no, I don't care who brought it up. It is nonetheless way off topic.

Second, I could provide dozens of scientific counter points from carbon being the lest effective of the so-called greenhouse gases to the sun being the primary driver combined with the Earth's tilt, wobble, and orbit, to all the climate predictions being wrong to one of the IPCC's co-chairs stating that it is not about climate change but it is about wealth redistribution.

You could then start with your counter-counter points, and so on. The point is that there are threads for this never ending debate that will not be resolved in our lifetimes.

Let's get back to the topic which is this new renewable diesel. Particularly, is it as effective as traditional diesel?
Other relevant questions include:
Are there any issues with it such as wear?
Is it cost effective?
For those who choose to believe any cost is worth it, let me rephrase the question as How does the cost compare to traditional diesel?
Is there less, more, or about the same amount of growth in the diesel?

Over the years there have been countless new and "improved" ways of generating power and propulsion. Few of them are ever viable. Will this one work out? Maybe. Maybe not. Let's get away from theory and into facts about this new fuel and then we can get a feel for whether this is worth trying out.

[Brewgyver]

Originally Posted by zstine

Waterman46 and Brewgyver: I will try to stick to facts based on evidence...

Hmmm, not trying TOO hard. You second-hand quote a political statement, and add what you "have seen."

You ignore the basic fact that the human population today is roughly EIGHT TIMES what it was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and that human respiration is the single biggest component of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or at least it was a dozen years ago when Al Gore's team were predicting utter doom in ten.

And by using questionable "per capita" numbers, you duck the fact that China and India pollute more than all the rest of the world combined.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

........, you duck the fact that China and India pollute more than all the rest of the world combined.

Is this a fact or a claim?
Any collaborating reputable source to support the statement?

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by Compass790

In NZ at least the bio-diesel has to pass the same lubricity test as the dino stuff.
The refiners have to add a lubricity additive now to dino diesel AFAIK anyway as the allowable sulphur level is so low.

This is also the case in the US. Any diesel for sale must meet minimum lubricity standards. Propel HPR has additives to meet the spec.

The point, however, is that old high sulphur diesel exceeded the current lubricity spec significantly, while current fuels just meet it.

Therefore, an old engine might not be entirely happy on any modern fuel, whether HPR or ULSD.

Also, please note that when VW was having a rash of high pressure fuel pump failures in the US, they found that just 1 or 2% of gasoline in diesel could lower lubricity enough to cause failures.

VW also found that samples of US ULSD sometimes measured slightly below spec.

I've bought diesel that smells like gasoline. Not much you can do about this except sticking to high traffic filling stations with a good reputation.

HPR might have an advantage in lubricity, as it is additized to meet lubricity specs, while ULSD is not - it has the lubricity it has.

[Brewgyver]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Is this a fact or a claim?
Any collaborating reputable source to support the statement?

Actually, I misspoke, that's what I get for trying to respond during working hours. It should have read:
China and India combine to pollute more than the USA, EU, Russia and Japan combined. In other words more than the rest of the major industrial countries of the world. The graph I was looking at showed China topping "all other countries," but that was in fact excluding the USA, EU, Russia and Japan.
Of course the EU data is pre-Brexit.

Data source: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publicat...es-2018-report

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

Actually, I misspoke, that's what I get for trying to respond during working hours. It should have read:
China and India combine to pollute more than the USA, EU, Russia and Japan combined. In other words more than the rest of the major industrial countries of the world.

China and India combined is also a hell of a lot more people than the rest
PLUS, there is a hell of a lot of manufacturing done there.

But, how do they go per capita?

According to this site
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...2e.pc?view=map
USA produces 16.5 tons per capita
China produces 7.5 tons per capita
India produces 1.7 tons per capita

But hey, its all China and India's fault right?

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

...You ignore the basic fact that the human population today is roughly EIGHT TIMES what it was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and that human respiration is the single biggest component of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or at least it was a dozen years ago when Al Gore's team were predicting utter doom in ten....

Second time I've seen that claim here on CF. Source?

The average human exhales 1kg of CO2/day. That's 7 billion kg/day +/- 7 million tonnes a day, or 2.5Gigatonnes (Gt)/year. Fossil fuel burning produces ~32Gt/year of CO2.

[Open-d]

Originally Posted by bwindrope

I agree there are many other factors, like choosing to sail when you can and how clean your hull might be. But for when we are pumping out exhaust, we may as well use one that is as neutral as possible. Aside from the environmental benefits, which are more concrete than sometimes thought, but not a panacea, it is also simply better for our engines in having higher cetane and being cleaner burning. There is only upside for our engines. Read the fleet reports and reports from Caterpillar for yourselves.

We all know that there is no way we are converting every vehicle on the road to a fuel based from plants and animal fats instead of fossil fuel. It's nearly impossible and certainly undesirable. The future will have to be electric and fuel cell and other less land intensive sources. Eating beef is one of the most carbon impactful things you do in a day, second only to driving long distances, but few are giving up beef yet. So at the scale we are talking, a few boats and diesel trucks here and there, I don't see why we shouldn't do our part to be more carbon neutral. It's a tragedy of the commons thing. We need to do what we can, where we can.

Beefodiesel! How does the cost of your fuel compare to the stuff pulled out of the ground.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

It relies on access to many of the existing 135 refineries in the US, distributed storage and small scale refining on bases.

I remember a US DLA visit to Australia back in the norties where they described this fall back capability.

Australia for example has zero refineries, only about 12 days of supply in country and little storage capacity and very little distributed storage.

So first off, there is no "small scale refining on bases", not only does the equipment not exist but neither does the expertise. What MOS exactly carries out this refining? If there are any government owned refineries on a base they're proof of concept probably for biofuels, which DoD is all about by the way.
Second, you clearly said "The US Army, for example, maintains a vast refining capability around their diesel needs. They do it for strategic reasons." Now apparently the fact that privately owned refineries exist in the U.S. and are contracted to provide fuel via DLA is the same thing as "maintaining a vast refining capability around their diesel needs."? The U.S. Army "maintains" nothing in the way of refining, they contract to buy fuel on the open market, same as Southwest Airlines or Royal Caribbean cruise lines or any other large fuel user! And as pointed out there are several refineries in Australia.
Whatever the source is for your information, you might think about updating it.

[strandte]

Another interesting technology is the "Power to Gas" (P2G) that makes it possible to make diesel from an electrical power source like solar (PV), wind turbine, etc and carbon (C from CO2) from the air and Hydrogen from water (H2 from H2O).

Google terms like "E-diesel" or "Blue Crude" or start by visiting Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel

It would be wonderful to sometime in the future be able to use extra capacity from the solar panels and wind turbine to produce ones own carbon neutral diesel or some other high energy, low risk fuel :-)

It is interesting to use Hydrogen made from solar power and water directly to generate electrical power on demand with a quiet fuelcell, but it is risks and difficulties in storing Hydrogen in a boat. One good ting with Hydrogen is that it is lighter than air and will leak up and out of the boat, and not accumulate like propane.

[RaymondR]

Why bother developing a relatively inefficient method of manufacturing diesel when it's available out of the ground in sufficient quantities?

It would appear to be more practical to expend the developmental effort on advancing battery technology to provide greater electrical energy storage capacity and then electrify.

If the mass market for transportation is electrified and we then only require liquid fuels for remote transportation we could probably get by on biodiesel. Also, plant based biodiesel appears to be a fairly efficient way to extract CO2 from the atmosphere.

On the China, India CO@ production question.

I tend to the opinion that if a nation allows run away population increases why should it not endure restrictions on the standards of living of that population. The majority of developed societies have declining or stable populations, primarily because of the empowerment of it's women and the ready availability of contraception.

[rbk]

I’m in the opinion that governments and industry worldwide are anxiously awaiting the startup of the ITER project (late 2025 but most likely mid 2026) to see if it pans out. If it does then governments worldwide will push electric and we will see large amounts of government subsidies being dumped into fusion startups and battery tech.

If it fails we continue on the same path of feebly trying to replace fossil fuels. While renewables are a nice idea, they are less than a drop in the bucket to meet the world power demands including the one of the largest single consumers of power sitting right in front of you, the internet; and that doesn’t include the power you use to access it.

Not saying that doing your part doesn’t matter and in reality those using renewables will be less affected in future energy crises; Which will be the most likely cause and direct reduction of greenhouse gasses should the above project fail.

[Brewgyver]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

China and India combined is also a hell of a lot more people than the rest
PLUS, there is a hell of a lot of manufacturing done there.

But, how do they go per capita?

According to this site
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...2e.pc?view=map
USA produces 16.5 tons per capita
China produces 7.5 tons per capita
India produces 1.7 tons per capita

But hey, its all China and India's fault right?

Both China and India have done next to nothing to curb their pollution. Not are they moth still very dependent on coal, they haven't even installed scrubber technology that was old in the U.S. twenty years ago. They also produce a LOT more dangerous pollution than the U.S., in oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, again because they don't install controls to reduce them.

Yes, the U.S. per capita production is higher, but over the last 35+ years, that production level has been fairly stable, the total output in 2018 is within a few percentage points of the 1980 level. Over the same time, China's output has increased more than ten-fold, and India's has quadrupled.

It might also be worth mentioning that the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2. And other than natural evaporation, what is the biggest source of water vapor in the atmosphere?

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

Both China and India have done next to nothing to curb their pollution. Not are they moth still very dependent on coal, they haven't even installed scrubber technology that was old in the U.S. twenty years ago. They also produce a LOT more dangerous pollution than the U.S., in oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, again because they don't install controls to reduce them.

Yes, the U.S. per capita production is higher, but over the last 35+ years, that production level has been fairly stable, the total output in 2018 is within a few percentage points of the 1980 level. Over the same time, China's output has increased more than ten-fold, and India's has quadrupled.

It might also be worth mentioning that the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2. And other than natural evaporation, what is the biggest source of water vapor in the atmosphere?

The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere hasn't doubled in the last 250 years. And in fact China is now beating the U.S. I pretty much every metric of renewables production and installation. They have a long way to go, but they're working toward a solution while we have folks saying we should do nothing......because China.

[rbk]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

Both China and India have done next to nothing to curb their pollution. Not are they moth still very dependent on coal, they haven't even installed scrubber technology that was old in the U.S. twenty years ago. They also produce a LOT more dangerous pollution than the U.S., in oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, again because they don't install controls to reduce them.

Yes, the U.S. per capita production is higher, but over the last 35+ years, that production level has been fairly stable, the total output in 2018 is within a few percentage points of the 1980 level. Over the same time, China's output has increased more than ten-fold, and India's has quadrupled.

It might also be worth mentioning that the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2. And other than natural evaporation, what is the biggest source of water vapor in the atmosphere?

Look up desert irrigation and effects to macro scale hydrological systems. Besides the direct effects of mass irrigation (water tables, water logging, salination) think of about the impact of dumping a billion gallons of water into a desert where it cools the immediate area (by quite a bit) and is evaporated and blown into an area that historically does not see these weather patterns.