Article on Diesel usage

[Stuart]

interesting article on our fuel of choice here. As they say, I think it's far from dead. It's just that everyone bought small petrol cars what with the car scrapage scheme
Some interesting figures on how a barrel of crude breaks down.

Is diesel dead?        - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/gre ... -dead.html

[smokyjoe]

Hi Stuart,

This article is very interesting to me being on the other side of the Big Pond. I always thought that more Diesel was available per unit of crude than Gasoline and that made Diesel cheaper to produce (and lower priced if you don't include the tax). Up until the 1980's here in the US, Diesel was cheaper than gasoline at the pumps. It is interesting to me that the UK seems to have followed the same trend as here in the US in favor of bigger engines and more horsepower. I don't think that here in the US there are many new cars available with under a 2.2L engine and I think our VW Diesel is 2L. There are not any new Diesel cars in the US that would lend themselves to having their engine transplanted into a bike. Our Smart Car has a lousy stinking gas engine, they were selling for $22,000 US when first introduced and people were paying a premium to be among the first to buy one. I talked to them just for fun and they said (as of last year) that they had no plans of selling the Diesel in the US due to marketing issues, whatever that means. So we are stuck with old generator and tractor engines and for the few brave souls willing to build a beast that would probably far outweigh a fully-decked out Harley trike, the venerable old VW 1.6L Diesels.

We had our "Cash for Clunker's" here in the US which I think is basically the same as the UK "scrappage". The "gov'ment" (namely US Taxpayers) gave $4500 (I think) for any gasoline burning car newer than somewhere in the 1980's that got less than 18 MPG (US) (I think). I visited a lot to see the cars that were traded in. Among them were a few nice Volvos 1995 and newer, a VW Passat 2002, a number of newer Mercedes and many cars that were a lot nicer than what my wife and I are driving. There were about 200 cars but I didn't see many "real clunkers" by my definition. I think that as far as reducing pollution this whole thing was a farce as if I could have traded in my wife's 10MPG car for one of those in the lot that got 18MPG the world would have been far better off and so would we. We can't afford a new car, even with the $4500 "tradein".

All of these cars had to have the drivetrains scrapped by law. No part of the engine or drive could be sold, but I guess it was a boon to anyone needing body or interior parts.

[Diesel Dave]

The difference in running costs between petrol and diesel have narrowed greatly.

The advent of fly by wire ECU petrol engines have given the petrol engine huge gains in effeciency, most small town cars will return 60mpg imperial in petrol form and about 4-5mpg more in diesel.

Engine lifespan is comparable (or immaterial as they are both capable of over 100,000 miles which is all a new buyer will consider) but the diesel suffers in weight and manufacturing cost.

From the details regarding crude breakdown, it looks like the petrol/diesel balance was maintained when most cars were petrol and trucks diesel, we bucked the trend when economics made small diesel cars viable but this is now being rebalanced.

We could say that biodiesel, could be the saviour of the engine but there are valid reasons why this is a bad move especially when we (for economic reasons) tip the market to such an extent that countries who cannot feed themselves turn valuable farmland over to oil for export production.

At the end of the day, I ride a dieselbike because it offers fuel effeciency and engine longevity, but I also have a little Honda that tops 70mph and 130mpg, he next generation is known to top 163mpg in fuel injected form. If Honda cotton on to doing this further up the range then the economics of dieselbikes could dissappear quickly.

[andrewaust]

Petrol or LPG gas will not power lorries or heavy machinery including locomotives.

If it is a conspiracy to rid the Diesel out of existence it most likely has a sinister reason. We know the Diesel engine can run on any light oil, fair enough some piston crowns need to be modified with a stainless steel swirl chamber and top to raise the heat to burn off deposits "mostly in direct injected engines" and more likely to occur in diesels running at light loads such as a motor car.

I won't go to heavily into it, but my B.S meter is going off the scale, another global elite scam? I'll let others decide.

In the article it says injection pumps etc are failing, that's because the D**kheads have taken the Sulphur out of the diesel directly or indirectly purposely knowing it would kill old engines to herald in the common rail engine. How many brain cells would be needed to come to the conclusion that taking a main lubricant out of a fuel that needs a lubricant would case premature failure of parts.

I'll say I am truly sick of mainstream media bureaucratic B.S putting forward for a reason other then what they really need to say.

I say "Andrew English" spit out the real reason for the article. I don't brainwash that easily.





A = NOT HAPPY !!!!

[Snave]

It's nothing compared to the failures of marine engines caused by the Californian unilateral legislation to ban Heavy Fuel Oil vessels from their terrritorial waters unless they are running on low-Sulphur fuel, for which the engines and injection systems were not designed. There will be an ecological disater caused by such shortsighted `green` measures. And that is one of the merits of the Diesel that doesn't get the press it deserves - the torque advantage means lower rpm for a given torque level - and fewer `bangs` between the lamp-posts translates directly into greater fuel efficiency per cycle, as well as lower stresses on reiprocating parts increasing longevity. Aside from the fuel choice, it's inherently a `greener` engine choice for the long-haul (time, and distance)...

Also it's far cheaper to bring a diesel motor `back to life` than the equivalent petrol engine so while initial costs might be higher, lifecycle costs can be lower. We deal in marine diesel systems that have run 20 hours a day for up to three years between services. Largely, it's the contamination in the fuel and the environment that causes most failures and fall-off in performance. That, and ill-advised meddling. The same is not true of petrol engines, except for the meddling..!

[sbrumby]

I will just add a bit to this post. I find the figures hard to believe. As I travel the motorways daily, I would estimate 1/3 of all the traffic are trucks, most of these are doing about 7mpg compared to the cars 40mpg. Add to this most of the railway trains, they wont do a fantastic mpg, all tractors,all plant, the list goes on and on. So if the breakdown of crude is correct there must be a lot of petrol being stored. What people are buying at the moment, the whole industry is mostly based on fads. The motorcycle world is the worst. If Ducati bring out a new model thats 5bhp better than the current one there will be a rush to buy, most will never be able to use this power but it looks the part. People who buy a BMW 5 series will probably be pleased with their buy but will have a shock when the headlight blows, £959 just for one side, thats not including the controler £161. When that car is 10years old it will get scraped purely because it will be too costly to repair.