| In order for all of us to understand what is | | | | affiliation with the oil industries and our |
| going on in the world about the high price of | | | | addiction on foreign oil, hopefully, will |
| gasoline. Let us look at one mans quest to | | | | motivate us to explore options with a more |
| make the engine a better and cheaper running | | | | open mind. The many experiments that have |
| machine, a quick history lesson if you will.A | | | | lately come alive attest to what is possible |
| lot of people think of the diesel engine with | | | | if we are willing to change in a positive |
| the black soot soaring upwards from large | | | | direction or maybe to go back to the primary |
| semi-trucks on the highways and byways of | | | | vision of Rudolph Diesel and his engine.Here |
| America. We have all smelled the odor when | | | | a several of new advances moving full steam |
| they idle in a parking lot. If you have ever | | | | ahead:1. From fat or vegetable oil through a |
| been in the Army you can remember the deuce | | | | chemical process called transesterification |
| and half trucks and their smell.This is how | | | | comes biodiesel an alternative fuel. This |
| the diesel engine has developed but was this | | | | process breaks apart the glycerin from the |
| the way its inventor imaged it, as an engine | | | | fat or vegetable oil, creating two new |
| running on petroleum? The diesel engine was | | | | products, glycerin and biodiesel. The most |
| invented by Rudolf Diesel and ran with | | | | popular source for biodiesel is soybean oil, |
| success on its fuel of choice - PEANUT OIL | | | | but poultry fats can also be used.2. Ethanol, |
| !Diesel also tried out successfully with | | | | another clean-burning fuel has sparked |
| using whale oil but neither fuel was as | | | | interest in biodiesel which is being helped |
| prevailing or as easily available as | | | | by new government standards and rising gas |
| petroleum. At this time petroleum based oils | | | | prices. A number of ethanol projects |
| were the most economically obtainable. | | | | developing from corn, soft wood and other |
| | | | sources also are under way.3. Also, today May |
| So the engine took the route of easy oil and | | | | 20, 2006 in the news, there is research being |
| you now know the rest of the story.Rudolf | | | | done in an early 1900s red brick armory at |
| Diesel had stated "The diesel engine can be | | | | the Kossuth County fairgrounds in Iowa. The |
| fed with vegetable oils and would help | | | | engine can run on a number of fuels including |
| considerably in the development of | | | | hydrogen, ethanol, natural gas, propane or |
| agriculture of the countries which use it"And | | | | digester gas from landfills. The company is |
| later predicted that "The use of vegetable | | | | initially focusing on making more efficient, |
| oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant | | | | environmentally friendlier engines to replace |
| today. But such oils may become in course of | | | | those used in generators and in forklift |
| time as important as petroleum and the coal | | | | trucks, airline ground equipment, irrigation |
| tar products of the present time."You might | | | | pumps, tractors and buses.The Energy Policy |
| be asking why hasn't someone done something | | | | Act of 2005 commands an increase in renewable |
| about this in the past 100 years? Well, it | | | | fuel usage to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 |
| has come full circle and we are now doing | | | | from 4 billion gallons in 2006. The bill also |
| something.Keeping the above mentioned history | | | | supports the alternative fuel industry with |
| in mind and looking to our future, our | | | | production incentives such as tax credits. |