Keith, Coal dust is the key, because it was the coal industry who paid for the development of the diesel engine. Observing that coal dust is almost explosive, they had they idea that it could be sold and used for an engine, instead of piling up as useless trash mountains.
Diesel did not successfully manage to develop the coal dust engine, but instead it was running on almost anything else. Hakan At 16:14 08/06/2006, you wrote: > > * Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to > > run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp. In fact, when the diesel > > engine was first introduced at the World's Fair in 1900, it ran on > > peanut oil. > >Aarghh!!! Not the old Rudolf and the Peanut Oil fairytale again! > >Facts: > >1893 Rudolf Diesel patents the diesel engine. > >1900 Rudolf Diesel is twice awarded the Grand Prix at both Paris >World Fairs (1900 and 1910) for inventing and developing his engine. > >But no peanut oil. The true story: > >"... excerpts from some of Dr Diesels' work, that he published 1912 >and 1913, where he states that it was the Otto Company that ran one >of his engines on peanut oil at the request of the French government >during the 1900 World Fair. He later conducted some trails where he >determined fuel consumption and assessed operability. He also >mentions similar successful experiments in St. Petersburg using >castor oil and animal oils." - Darren Hill > >"It WASN'T him! I recently borrowed his book "The Development of the >Diesel Engine" -afaik the last one he published until he drowned >himself in the Channel. All kinds of fuels that had been tested are >described there, from coal dust over weird chemical mixtures that had >been sent to Diesel by the industry to all sorts of crude oil and >even tar-oil. Vegoil just got about 4 lines- remarking that it was >the French "Otto-Company" (yes the Otto-engine!) that ran Diesel's >engine on peanut oil: "The engine was built for crude oil and was >used without any modification on vegoil."..."it worked so well that >only a few insiders took notice of this insignificant circumstance." >(Diesel, Rudolf. 1913. Die Entstehung des Dieselmotors" 1st reprint >by Braun, Hans-Joachim (Ed). 1984. Moers: Steiger. Page 115.)." - >Stephan Helbig > >Best > >Keith > > > > * Two decades later, Henry Ford was designing his Model Ts to run on > > ethanol made from hemp. He envisioned the entire mass-produced > > Model T automobile line would run on ethanol derived from crops > > grown in the U.S. > > * Even in the 1920s, the oil industry had massive lobbying power in > > Washington. Lobbyists convinced policymakers to create laws > > favoring petroleum based fuels while disgarding the ethanol option. > > * Nearly a century later, amidst oil wars in the Middle East, Global > > Warming, and a nearly depleted oil supply, the U.S. government is > > finally shifting attention to fuels that are more along the lines > > of Diesel and Ford's original ideas. > > * In an interview with the New York Times in 1925, Henry Ford said: > > "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that > > sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost > > anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can > > be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an > > acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the > > fields for a hundred years." > > > >Whose water is it? *Learn more:* > >http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_658.cfm > ><http://alerts.organicconsumers.org/trk/click?ref=zqtbkk3um_0-ax332 > x3239551&> _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
