Wow, sarcasm: not just for breakfast anymore.
Anyway, I'm extremely pleased to see biodiesel gaining greater acceptance. Sadly, California hasn't gotten on board with the newer, greater efficiency of diesel car engines. But at least we can have DL's trains using it.
Are they making it onsite with their own oils or are they getting it from elsewhere?
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe...
Good point.Originally Posted by Morrigoon
We need to know whether when we're polluting our arteries eating oil-cooked foods at DLR we're also contributing to the environment.
Ah, so the biodiesel is why it smells different near the Main Street Train Station. Once I thought the smell was from something in a parade float burning up...
Lack of interest in the subject matter on the writers part. If you know anything about Disney, that name makes no sense at all.
-Awesome thread! I now have a better understanding of the benefits of bio-diesel fuel, a more meaningful view concerning "chugga chugga...and a profound ldisgust for the name, Ward Tinkerbell as a locomotive name.
Last edited by Ride Warrior; 05-03-2007 at 03:23 PM.
To Boldly Go Where No MiceChatter Has Gone Before!
Biodiesels is bogus.
One of the side effects is already being felt - in your grocer's dairy section ...
"Dairy-cow feed costs - especially corn and soybean meal prices - have risen rapidly as a result of increasing demand for these feedstocks for ethanol and biodiesel fuel production." - http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=591726
Why we waste time on "efficient" energy sources that aren't really efficient is beyond me. Although biodiesel isn't as bad as my real pet peeve - plug in hybrids! Now THERE is a huge waste and a big dead end road towards fixing anything.
Viva dark matter power via dark energy transducers!
Bzzzzt!!Wrong.
The dual fuel part is correct, but they are running primarily on Compressed Natural Gas, with the fuel tanks under the cars. They use a little squirt of diesel at TDC to light off the NG, and can run on all-diesel if the NG runs out.
Caterpillar 3208T engines, IIRC.
--<< Bruce >>--
There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1
Point 1 - Biodiesel:
There are more kinds of biodiesel fuels than just ethanol. In fact, there are BETTER biofuels than ethanol. I believe I read that linseed and soy oils are much for efficient in terms of energy TO produce versus energy actually produced. Now, on the bright side, we produce a whole heck of a lot of corn, so it's easy for us to use that, but we could definitely use other fuels. Also, one of the better types of biofuels is used cooking oil - something Disney has in abundance. Something our fast food-loving society has in abundance.
Point 2 - Electric vehicles:
Oh man, no kidding about the plug in vehicles! Electrical power to our homes comes, more often than not, from coal.
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe...
And another take on the subject, posted by a gentleman in different discussion board. That "main stream media" often only tells half the story, as usual:I live out here in ethanol land, own a farm, and have been writing an article on the subject. This is something I have some first hand knowledge about. You are making several mistakes.
1. Only the sugars are taken from the corn to produce ethanol. The solids (proteins) are left and are a very high quality cattle feed. Called "DDG", it's also fed to poultry. Most of the grain remains "in the food chain."
2. Relatively little corn is used for human food, especially in this country. Most is used for animal feed, or "ingredient" products such as corn syrup (high fructose syrup) as used in soft drinks.
3. It is relatively expensive to ship corn across the ocean, and where the people are really as poor as you are talking about they can't afford it anyway. I once worked in a very large IBP beef plant (as a hand therapist) and know first hand that all exported beef went to relatively wealthy countries such as Japan. I don't ever recall them shipping beef/pork to really poor countries.
4. The $$ amount of grain in most food products is actually pretty small. Did you know that a loaf of bread that sells for ~$1.89 has about 4 cents worth of wheat in it? Wouldn't it be a GOOD thing if farmers, who often live near the poverty line, get more $$ for their crops?
5. Half of all corn grown in my state (and I believe Iowa also) now goes to ethanol. Despite this, there has only been a modest rise in corn prices. Are you aware of the HUGE piles of corn still sitting out here on the ground since last Fall because the elevators are packed full?
6. Soy and corn are just the first step. New strains of grasses are being researched and ways to process them that will provide considerably higher yield of ethanol by breaking down cellulose (instead of sugar) into ethanol. Remember that both sugar cane and corn are types of grass.
7. Ethanol plants are springing up everywhere in my region. Most of these are owned by locals rather than large corporations. They provide real, solid jobs with benefits in rural areas that have long been in decline. This is the real effect of ethanol--turning around the declining economies of small town America. I'm the type that worries about the poor/near poor in this country first. I think the idea that ethanol/biofuels will somehow hurt the poor is largely propaganda. I have yet to hear anyone who understands the complicated ag industry mention it--only urban people who are not familiar with agriculture.
Out here in my neck of the tracks, ethanol has had a MAJOR effect on railroading. Lines that once lay dormant are now coming back into service. Crews and MoW workers are bein hired right and left. DME often runs out of train crews and long grain & ethanol tanker trains sit on sidings. All of this just adds to the vitality of our local economies.
Anything we can do to decrease the money sent to the often messed-up parts of the world that produce oil is a very good thing, it seems to me. I personally would rather see the small town folks of Iowa get the money that now goes to that goofy Chavez guy in Venezuala or the sheiks.
Kent in SD
Psst! BioDiesel is NOT Ethanol (corn based) or Methanol (wood based) - those alcohol fuels are used for extending gasoline stocks and cutting emissions by adding an oxygenate. And when they use Ethanol in gasoline now it's primarily as an oxygenate, it actually raises the cost per finished gallon of fuel quite a bit - especially when you factor in the lower overall BTU content which leads to lower fuel mileage.
Bio-Diesel is vegetable oil based - either pure or used/recycled soybean (rapeseed) oils with the glycerine and stearols stripped out chemically. If they develop a strain of rapeseed specifically for high oil content and easy conversion into Bio-Diesel (and don't have to worry about sanitation for human consumption), they could drop the costs to be competetive with petroleum Diesel.
You can use 100% fresh food-grade soybean oils (properly stripped of the glycerine), but it's more expensive than real Diesel.
Right - Electric vehicles are NOT pollution-free, they just shift the location of the pollution. If the energy starts out as coal or oil, there is some pollution involved.
Hydroelectric, wind farms or geothermal wouldn't have that pollution problem, but when you flip a light switch you can't choose where the electrons come from...
Thing is, one big coal-fired power plant is a whole lot easier to apply effective low-pollution combustion systems and pollution controls to (and monitor their proper operation) than many millions of small coal-fired automobiles would be. The end results are a lot cleaner.
--<< Bruce >>--
There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1
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