Girl Mark,
This about what it takes to produce gasoline or diesel is a bit elusive, since you start with a certain amount of energy. I do not remember the numbers, but I think that it takes much more oil to make diesel than biodiesel. It is basically arguments and some acrobatic mathematics, all to support a particular interest and use the short memory of people who actually learned more in the basic school curriculum, but not remember it. The question should not be how much oil it takes to produce, but how much do you get from a given amount. If you get something out of a given amount, the process is positive. To say the it take 1.5 kg crude oil to get 1 kg of diesel or 1.2 kg of veg oil to get 1 kg of biodiesel, are both very efficient processes. Compare it with hydrogen, where you need 500 kg of water to get 1 kg of hydrogen (not really right on measurements, only done for the purpose of description). As long as you get something, the process is positive and then it comes down to availability of feedstock, cost and feasibility. Crude oil is a limited amount available, but both veg oil and water is renewable. Imagine the size of production equipment, investment, energy to make the plant, etc., biodiesel is very feasible and hydrogen very questionable. I think that the philosophy of efficiency of "from well to wheel" say a lot more. It include the feedstock and the end use. It is closer to reality, but give very low efficiency numbers as such and is less usable in the marketing of a specific technology. Hakan At 11:53 PM 4/17/2003 -0700, you wrote: >I've been looking for some data on how much energy goes into making >gasoline, and how much into other fuels. The general public always asks the >life cycle analysis question about biodiesel: is it sustainable to grow and >harvest all those plants and transport them soewhere to make fuel... to >which the answer is of coiurse that it's been extensively studied and comes >out looking quite good in the life cycle analysis. But I seem to remember >having heard somewhere that gasoline and diesel require quite a bit of >energy in the refining process, and that the numbers on that (how much >energy goes into produding a certain unit of energy of gasoline or diesel) >were a good statistic to compare biodiesel's lifecycle analysis to. It >takes more "energy in" to make biodiesel than it does to refine gasoline, >but I'd like to know if anyone has the exact information handy somewhere. > >mark ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get a FREE REFINANCE QUOTE - click here! http://us.click.yahoo.com/2CXtTB/ca0FAA/i5gGAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
