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