Xamonas Chegwé wrote:Diesel engines are far easier and cheaper to make than hydrogen fuel cells or electric vehicles (at the moment - that could change). I think that is why this process could prove economical compared to the other two.
Good point. Also, diesel engines are a well-matured technology. They've been around a long time and have largely reached peak capacity. Nowadays it's not power or reliability that is the concern, it's carbon particulate pollution that requires an enormous amount of weight and technology to deal with. My Ford F-450 "regenerates" the catalytic particle converter about every 20 minutes when I'm hauling a load. I'd say it's in regen mode 70 percent of the time when towing, which means that raw diesel fuel is being pumped into the converter where it burns and raises the temp of the converter to more than 1700 degrees f. And the mileage the truck actually gets while in regen mode absolutely sucks, and that's on top of the already lousy mileage it gets just because it's a big diesel engine. I've gotten as little as 2 MPG when hauling max capacity up the approach to the Eisenhower Tunnel on I70, which is a 7+% grade topping out at more than 11,000 ft MSL. Average for the truck, even when new, has never exceeded 14 MPG and that's with the truck completely empty, driving on flat roads at sea level.
A realistic average overall is about 8 MPG.
At least 50 percent of that is attributable to all the smog gear on the engine. I know this because I've owned older diesel trucks that easily averaged 16 MPG overall because they did not have all the pollution controls.
The problem with electric vehicles is that while it's useful in an urban setting for small cars, it's not useful for heavy hauling or long trips. To be useful to the trucking industry or anybody other than urban commuters, it has to have a reliable 250 mile minimum range and it must be fully rechargeable in 10 minutes or less at any fuel station that provides diesel, and the whole system must not weigh more than a current truck with fuel weighs because pounds matter on long-haul trucking.
No battery made today has the energy density/mass of diesel fuel and it's very debatable if it's even possible to get there.
Diesel is going to be with us for a long, long time. So, it's good they can make it this way, but that doesn't mean it's going to be affordable or that the environmental impacts of the infrastructure required to produce the energy needed are going to be acceptable. Just look what happened when somebody proposed putting up an off-shore wind farm within sight of the Kennedy compound. I don't know about you, but I am getting thoroughly sick of the thousands and thousands of acres of wind farms in the west that clutter up the landscape, particularly at night, when the anti-collision beacons all flash in unison and you can see the 15 mile long extent of the farm from the highway. Not to mention all the birds they kill.
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