Volkswagen Chairman: Diesel is the Best Hope for the Future

[midnight armadillo]

Bernd Pischetsrieder opened the LA Auto Show with a stirring plan for diesel
technology

Speaking in front of a crowd in a state where his companyCT diesel products
cannot be sold, the Chairman of Volkswagen argued that diesel technology
remains the most practical means of increasing fuel economy for the automotive
industry.
----
Story: http://www.earthship.com/article.php?story=20050106191619399

[rfkrfk]

1. fuel economy, sadly, not a concern for California

In a state that is effluent enough to pay for gasoline that is
thirty cents a gallon better than other places,
would appear a poor choice to discuss fuel economy.

[hunter]

2. Diesel vehicles might also run on a variety of alternative fuels.

Oil made from waste, biodiesel, "bottled" gas fuels like dimethyl ether, and so on...

Widespread acceptance of diesel vehicles by the American public might make the transition to these sorts of fuels much less troublesome.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Many a slip twixt cup and lip....

Diesels have many advantages over gasoline--- if kept properly tuned and the exhaust is properly handled.

I can see the Germans, Swedes, and Japanese accomplishing it.

But when GM tried it in the 1970's --- really screwed it up (but I don't buy American cars ;) ).

[midnight armadillo]

4. I think it's Peugeot or Citroen that makes the best diesels

It's one of the two, can't remember which.

We'll get better diesels in 2007 when the low sulfur fuel is finally widespread.

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. GM's the reason

VW ended up not being able to sell diesels in the US. They singlehandedly convinced the US consumers that diesel sucks.

[hunter]

6. That's GM's job: To convince Americans that innovation sucks.

They get paid by a secret department of the government to do that.

Remember the Vega? It's purpose was to convince Americans that small cars suck.

When the EV-1 didn't suck as bad as it was supposed to, GM pulled it off the streets.

They are now working on hydrogen powered cars. These cars will suck.

(I might be joking here, I might not...)

[hatrack]

7. Sadly, you may be right

But I wouldn't worry about the coming sucky hydrogen cars. They'll be ready to go in 2020, and in 2020 they'll be ready for mass-market sales in 2030, etc. etc.

In the mean time, they have a sucky hybrid truck in extremely limited release. It gets about 15 MPG instead of 13.5. Ooh.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. 100% agreement

...as a wounded veteran (with post traumatic stress syndrome) of GM's EV-1 and their attempts to kill the markets for ev's and hybrids.

I think GM takes lessons from Alberto Gonzalez on how to "not torture" any techie who works on good ev's or real, good hybrids, or real, good diesels, or realm good passenger diesels.

[rfkrfk]

12. EVs don't pay gas tax

IMO, state tax collectors were
'very thankful' to GM and Honda,
when those two car companies pulled their EVs
off the road and had them crushed.
So thankful, that state enviro laws
were modified. {again, just some speculation}

[Coastie for Truth]

17. Michael Moore's "Roger..."

describes how GM totally messed up Michigan's Industrial Development Authority and local school taxes in Michigan.

The little "mom and pop" theater in Ferndale ran a double feature of Michael's "Roger and Me" and of "Tucker" - sell out and the audience was absolutely wild with cheering (hint: In Michigan GM is either loved or loathed --- no middle ground).

I was on the GM EV1 project for a first tier vendor -- and I was colonoscopied by GM --- kind of a virtual Abu Ghraib -- maybe Alberto Gonzales is a GM consultant on how to deal with alternative fuel engineers and advocates. Illegitami!!

[NNadir]

8. Kind of a self serving statement, but I admit that diesel engines are

growing on me. It is worth noting that a diesel car is the only commercially available vehicle that can run 100% on reasonably priced solar energy, specifically B100 biodiesel.

Biologically derived fuels obtained from agricultural products are certainly not a sustainable option long term, and they do pollute substantially, but even so, they are infinitely preferable to petroleum and coal derived fuels. They are available immediately and that is a compelling argument for using them. On reflection I believe biodiesel type fuels can play a measurable role in mitigating the coming disaster.

I note in passing that Volkswagen, at least nominally if not in a de facto sense, is not helping the cause of biologically derived fuels inasmuch as it officially claims the right to void warranties in automobiles using biodiesel that meets American, as opposed to European, specifications. That sucks. They would be more successful in their marketing diesel engines to environmentalists if they did whatever engineering (or more likely policy making) to reverse this mealy mouthed approach. I suspect that the policy has more to do providing a subsidy to European oil crops than it does with a real threat to engine longevity.

[Coastie for Truth]

10. Depends on your definition of biofuels

If by "Biologically derived fuels obtained from agricultural products are certainly not a sustainable option long term, and they do pollute substantially, but even so, they are infinitely preferable to petroleum and coal derived fuels." you mean just cooking oil or just farm waste or just ethanol - half right but no cigar.

But, as we hit or pass "peak oil" and/or getting tired of murdering Iraqis and American GI's -- even $5.00/gallon for a product manufactured from various bio feedstocks will seem good.

Right now, today - if I was given a choice of sending one of my kids to Iraq or of spending $5/gallon for some fuel manufactured from bio feed stocks -- that's a no brainer.

[NNadir]

11. No, I mean all biofuels, not just cooking oil, farm waste or ethanol.

I spend quite a bit of time surveying the scientific literature and various websites for carbon fixing strategies, including biomass of all types. I often post here on the subject.

People often forget this, but a significant portion of the biomass on earth is now hear because of industrially fixed nitrogen, which of course, an energy related product. This puts restraints and limits on the energy efficiency with which biomass can replace oil.

Even forgetting this, the fossil fuels we now are using represent the accumulation of millions of years of solar flux. The accumulations of biomass that occur in a few years time hardly represent a fraction of this energy. Also if you take a few moments to reflect carefully on the nature of the greenhouse effect and the mass balance ramifications, it is immediately clear that biomass cannot provide energy at a rate sufficient to undo the implications of "peak oil," or for that matter, "peak coal."

Were we forced to rely exclusively on biomass, for energy $5.00 a gallon, or even $20/gallon would seem extraordinarily cheap. It is also safe to say that if we, like the Nepalese who rely on biomass, would quickly ravage and strip our land to the point where the productive parts of the land it would simply wash into the sea, much as they are now doing in Nepal.

[Massacure]

13. Do you know by any chance if the U.S. requires crop rotation?

What about a majority of the EU countries?

[NNadir]

14. No. Crop rotation strategies have been replaced by industrial nitrogen

fixation.

Actually, only a portion of the industrial nitrogen now fixed on earth is fixed deliberately. Much of it is fixed in engines or other industrial operations. Most of the brown component of smog is nitrogen dioxide, which ultimately falls in the rain in the form of nitric acid. While nitric acid is generally thought of as being corrosive and toxic, which it is, it is neutralized by carbonate minerals like marble and limestone, whereupon, it becomes available for incorporation into proteins by plants. In this way nitric acid from pollution ends up as a nutrient.

I am not in any way claiming that this is a good thing. If one looks into the details, this is actually a very unhappy state of affairs. The corrosion of works of art and structural materials is of course a tremendous disaster, lakes are acidified, and/or "eutrophied," i.e. choked off with algae.

Ironically, one of the problems with biodiesel is that in some cases it leads to more production of nitrogen oxides than do petroleum fueled engines. However this does not happen in 100% of cases of the use of these fuels, and the lower production of particulates, the near complete absence of sulfur oxides, and the pure carbon oxide neutral nature of the fuel makes biodiesel a superior fuel on environmental grounds than are petroleum based fuels. It happens though that there is hardly enough capacity available to replace petroleum with biomass, as I pointed out above. Still, biodiesel can mitigate if not solve the problems. In Europe, where a mandate for 5% biodiesel content in diesel fuels is in place, biodiesel is already making an important contribution to slowing the progress of the disaster.

I still contend, and often repeat here, that the most intelligent use of biomass will not be the production of biodiesel, but the production of syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) to make absolutely clean fuels like dimethyl ether.

[Coastie for Truth]

15. Where does petroleum "come from" ...

(as my remember from "Geology for Engineers 101" - 40 years ago) ... it comes from geological processes on biomass; sort of a high pressure anaerobic process catalyzed by anaerobic bacteria.

Why not just cut out the middle man (the above process).

Methane is a product of sewage treatment and sanitary land fills.

As to the alleged difficulty of processing bio fuels -- I have done my share of college dorm home brewmeistering, college dorm home vintnering, and even college dorm moonshining and distilling. Compare these bio-engineering processes (that human kind has practiced for millenia) to the high pressure, high temperature processes in a petroleum refinery, especially cat cracking and high pressure/high temperature distilling.

(I survived McCabe & Smith, Smith & Van Ness, Sherwood & Pigford, and played with Berl Saddles and Raschig Rings and HTU's and NTU's and PFTRs and CSTRs, etc. and have my Tau Beta Pi and Alpha Chi Sigma keys thank you)

I may agree with you about syn gas after I run the $'s (I am a veteran Bruceton National Lab - which moved to Morgantwon WV)

[NNadir]

16. Um, we all know where petroleum comes from. How many years did it

accumulate?

As I said in earlier posts, the energy stored in petroleum and coal represents the solar flux of millions upon millions of years.

Congratulations on your engineering degree, BTW. I'm very impressed with your keys and texts.

[htuttle]

18. Biofuels aren't efficient enough to supply all the energy we 'need'

Nothing but petroleum is. You can't beat a few million years of stored energy.

However, if all you got is an old car and an empty field, biofuels are the only way you are going to be able to drive the car.

Given our near-complete lack of planning for a post-petroleum economy, I'm expecting to be in a situation of having no other portable fuel but biofuel to work with more than I'm expecting a measured, rational transition to another energy base.

[Coastie for Truth]

19. Neither is petroleum

Petroleum does not come out of the ground like on Beverly Hillbillies, nor does it come out of the ground ready for the pump.

Let's get lost in the vastly overstated political rhetoric of exploration and drilling costs that we lefties tend to dismiss. Suffice it to say that they are at least about 20 cents a gallon (including hydrodesulfurization).

Crude is a complex mixture of everything from methane (NG) to tars and asphaltics, and everything from straight chain through complex (and carcinogenic) polycyclics. That stuff has got to "distilled" into cuts useful as a motor fuel (an expensive thermal process - it burns energy to vaporize the petroleum). The light stuff (methane through the C4's either has to be reformed (also an expensive thermal process) or sold as a feed stock for plastics. The heavy stuff and the polycyclics have to be "cracked" - thermally decomposed into feed stocks for motor fuel - an expensive thermal process.

General rule of thumb is that about half of the crude that comes into a refiner (could be 1/2, could be 2/3's -- this stuff is a "trade secret" ) is burned to get the energy to process the rest of the crude into motor fuels (and home heating fuels, and chemical feed stocks).

So petroleum is far from "efficient".

If you take "energy delivered to the rear wheels divided by energy you pumped into your tank" - about 40% efficient. BUT if you take "energy delivered to the rear wheels divided by energy content (heat of formation) of the crude pumped out of the ground" you are talking about 15%-20% efficient.

Remember - what the "righties" and the "oil companies" and the Bushies do is they compare

"energy delivered to the rear wheels divided by energy you pumped into your tank" for gasoline

to

"energy delivered to the rear wheels divided by energy content (heat of formation) of the bio mass harvested in the field" for biomass.