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What's nice and cheap is the "off road" diesel made for constuction equipment. No highway taxes added. It has a pigment added to it so they can catch you putting it in your "on road" vehicle. I think there is "marine" diesel too that has a different color, but all three are the same stuff.

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Rudolph Diesel, the inventor, committed suicide by drowning from a cross channel ferry: He must have known something?

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The US has had a harder time in forcing the oil industry into supplying the low-sulphur refined deisel fuel needed for the newer common rail diesel engines. Currently the sulphur content in US Diesel is 500ppm. In 2006 15ppm Diesel will be available. There was a good Scientific American article about it (unfortunately they charge $8 for a back issue .pdf) a few years ago. A somewhat informative link is here.

I believe that Europe already has the better fuel, hence the greater prevalence of diesel engines. ISTR reading that the newer, low soot diesels required the better fuel.

-Zeke

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In most European countries, diesel is cheaper because of lower taxes. This is mainly because of the transport sector lobbying.

I know that the UK isn't a European country but in any case our diesel prices are now higher than petrol too. Looks like our governments were quick to realise that diesels return higher MPG and less fuel tax.

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Diesel doesn't solve any ecological, political or financial issues for the world. It's just another way of refining oil.

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Hydrogen is probably the near-term "answer", but you need to make electricity to make hydrogen, which, at least in North America, is over 90% coal generated. If we can ever figure out how to make non-hydrocarbon electricity on a large scale (hyrdo doesn't do this), then hydrogen represents a great way of transporting the engergy.

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Airplanes are a bigger issue. The energy density of hydrogen is quite low, so what do the airplanes run when the oil is gone?

Hydrogen transport and storage is difficult enough for ground vehicles... Saving fuel for airplanes is good reason to try to preserve oil, but its value as raw material for fertilizers and plastics is much more critical. It would also make sense to conserve coal as petrochemical raw material. (Hm, I have a vague feeling of deja vu; we must have discussed this before )

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27 Hydro Plants 495 MW

Hm, you must be using every creek, then.

A relatively tiny river Cetina (less that 100 km of above the ground flow, plus a bit underground through limestone caves) has several power plants on it (including one reversible), the largest having installed power approximatively as all those 27 together (486 MW, nominal flow 220m3/s, hight 250m; actual production is about 1650 GWh/year, that is, about one third of installed capacity). We have power plants with elevation difference of over 400m. I think that that one even uses Pelton turbine, instead of usual Francis. It is interesting that several canyons Cetina flows through are alive and well (ecosystem, rafters and kayakers and all ), as is agriculture and turism on its shores.

On the other side of the spectrum if Djerdap system of power stations on Danube between Serbia and Romania (all of ex-Yugoslavia (especially relatively richer Slovenia and Croatia) used to pay a special excise to finance its construction): 12 Kaplan turbines (almost 200MW each), nominal elevation difference only 27m (34,5m max), but nominal flow of 8700m3/s. Average annual production is over 11TWh, more than half of theoretical maximum. Again, ecological damage is minimal (thanks to terrain and small elevation) and as a side benefit navigability of the Kazan (Cauldron) gorge was greatly improved.

But we have mostly run out of suitable locations like these. So, the future is nuclear, it would seem...

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I suppose that might have something to do with the relative flatness of MInnesota and the failry mountainous Balkans.

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I know that the UK isn't a European country

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- Much more expensive to build (29 or 30:1 compression ratio means a stronger and heavier engine is required).

You're a bit off.. the VW TDI is about 18.5-19.5:1.

- Much less power than an equivalent gasoline engine

Deceptive.. the 1.9L TDI has only 100hp, but it has 177 lb-ft of torque, which makes up for the lack of RPM. Compare this to the 2.0L gas engine which has 115hp, but only 122 lb-ft of torque

- Extremely difficult to start in very low temperatures

Not at all, the fuel system in the VW TDI is heated to prevent problems with gelling. Also, Winterized fuel is used in all of the northern states.

- Fuel non-volitile at very, very low temperatures

again, pre-heating of fuel is done to eliminate this problem.

- Requires a very large oil sump due to combustion contaminants

I guess I have no idea about this one.

- Noiser than gasoline engines

I havn't taken a SPL meter to it, but my friend's TDI is signifigantly quieter than my 2.0L gas. When I hear a TDI drive by, the only thing I can hear is the turbo spooling.

- "Dirtier" than gasoline engines (not only in particulate pollution, they just get physically very dirty)

Yep.. this is the main reason why Diesel cars don't exist here, because of the sulfur content, some emission control devices must be left off (damaged by sulfur). The emissions numbers for Diesel are really bad per same ammount of gas.. After ULSD is out, I'm really looking forward to seeing the better emissions control devices.

They have a couple of nice advantages:

- Much more efficient than gasoline engines (due to the higher comresson ratio. There is an upper limit on Rc for gas engines because the fuel detonates. The compression ratio determines a displacement engine's efficiency.)

Yep.. that and y ou don't have to feed a signifigant portion of your energy back into producing sparc.

- Tend to last much longer than gasoline engines because they are more heavily built and run at lower RPMS and lower temperatures
- The energy density of the fuel, per unit volume, is higher for diesel (more range on your fuel tank)

ULSD and BioDiesel addatives will make this even better. (Bio is a better lubricant, and a solovent)

- Generally huge torque at low engine speed, which is great for pulling vehicles

The 1.9L VW TDI has a tow rating of 2000 pounds.

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I guess I don't see many NA diesels these days. Every bus and truck I've seen has a turbo.

But then again, we're talking about personal transportation here.. and not everyone needs an F350 diesel pickup to go a few km down the street to the grocery store. But that's a whole other argument