Ever feel like you're playing musical chairs? Just when automakers thought they had an answer for fuel costs with higher-efficiency diesels, turns out the maritime industry is considering a switch to diesel as well. It's cleaner to be sure... so good for ozone layers and baby seals, but potential consumption for such a change is estimated to be 1.5 times that of diesel-happy Europe. For those who didn't take Business 101, ridonculous additional demand + current supply = you're screwed. Of course, nothing's been finalized yet for the cargo ship types. However, the probability is there and we've been warned. More after the jump.

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Quote, originally posted by patrikman »

A restoration to me is some sort of exorcism/brainwash for a car. /rant.

Reactor fuel is becoming a significant issue.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

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Seriously. It's not even me or other motorists I'm concerned about -- it's the trucking and shipping industry in general. I can always use/buy less fuel for my TDI, but I can't cut food from my budget. As it is, a gallon of milk is already at $3.90/$4 for a gallon.

BTW diesel is $4.09/gal at the station where I usually buy it from.

Ships run on heavy fuel oil, which is the dirtiest of the dirty fuels. It cannot be cleaned up, you simply must run on a more refined fuel. To be honest though, I've seen L.A., I've seen the pictures of China, and I can certainly understand the need for clean air. If requiring ships to run on diesel is what it takes to clean the air, then that's what it's going to have to be.

Indeed. The port and cruise ships on Elliot Bay here in Seattle are the single largest contributors to poor air quality in the downtown area.

The Washington State Ferry network is a major contributor to poor air quality in Puget Sound, consuming 17 million gallons of fuel a year.

WSF is currently phasing in Biodiesel, with a legislative mandate to have the ferry system using a minimum of 20% Bio-D by 2009.

Bio-D isn't really an answer either though sadly. The more you make an economy based on Ethanol or Bio Diesel, the more motivation there is to change rainforests into farms for corn, soy or the like and the more this pressures food prices up.

Yeah. Bunker fuel is like burning tar. And tires.

Quote, originally posted by felixthecat, on why his genitalia are important to him »

Good god, I do have a wang and I just couldn't trade it in for a Prius.

it smells so wonderful too....in my diesel simulator class the instructor had a cup of it upside-down on his desk.....it never moved from the top of the glass!

compounding its pollution potential is the amount of heavy metals and nasty elements like sulfur contained in the fuel due to it being residual from other fuels, which are refined in order to remove that stuff. the use of SCR or pretty much any other pollution abatement is out of the question because the contaminants would ruin the catalyst, etc.

I hear that, George--I know a number of cattle producers that agree wholeheartedly RE: the cost to them of sharply increased ethanol and Bio-D production. It's fascinating--and troubling--just how quickly we are all being made aware of the interdependency of our needs (fuel for our transportation vs. fuel for ourselves), and what a delicate balancing act it all is.

In the near-term, though, this will help our regional air quality a not insignificant amount, as well as reducing pollutants in our marine waterways--which are currently at serious risk due to a host of pollution sources.

Modified by Numbersix at 12:51 PM 3-28-2008

thats straight out of the text book, right next to a chart.

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Isn't bunker fuel the stuff leftover during gasoline & fuel refining? Anyway, that's not my question, my question is....what happens to all the bunker fuel production that won't be utilized anymore?

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This depends on how it is made.

However I will agree that in the short term this is not the solution as we don't have the infastructure in place to make biodiesel with algae yet. However ( would like to here Turbiodiesel!'s point of view) I did see an article about a verticle growing system that looked like it could really expand quickly.

This is what I was thinking of Valcent and their vertigro system.

Yeah the stuff is pretty nasty, it has to be heated up before it will even flow, its basically burning sludge.

Someone mentioned before part of the issue here in America is that refineries ares designed to produce mainly gasoline, in Europe a different technique is used where you get closer to 50/50 gas and diesel.

This one?

It's true about bunker oil, very raw, disgusting fuel. We have a sample here at the shop and it's amazing how an engine can even run on this stuff. Imagine a tar black substance with the consistency of silly putty (it does not transfer newspaper ink so much as make a mess of your newspaper, nor does it bounce)
It's up to 40 cents a liter, which is half the diesel rack price. Unless the large cargo ships are forced to switch to diesel, don't expect them to run on anything but the cheapest fuels.

I agree on the bunker oil problems - next to refineries one of the prime polluters of the Bay Area, as well. Still, in this case I can't take no for an answer.

Given the economic implications of changing to Diesel fuel, there got to be an overall less expensive way to (1) remove the sulfur from the heavy fuel oil, (2) improve the engines and clean up the exhaust, while (3) still making use of the heavy stuff (which, otherwise, probably would be burned in uncontrolled stoves in Africa and India, not reducing the environmental impact at all).

VW EV, plug-in Hybrid, and/or 1.4-2.0 VVT&VVL T/dual-charged FSI engines for the US would be useful...

Exactly, it still must be put to good use, otherwise the pollution simply shifts elsewhere in the world, just like it moved our pollution to China when we gave them all our manufacturing jobs.

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If you own a diesel car, investigate homebrewing biofuels, or if there are commercial biofuels available in your area.

If you own a gasoline car and are considering a diesel... stop?

Does anyone know about ways to clean up the way bunker oil burns?

I don't have a green thumb. I tried recycling by fertilizing with old motor oil....it didn't work.

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And yes, no need to refine much for Diesel - it is basically a by-product of gasoline production. In the US, this process is biased towards the lighter distillates, but there is no reason (other than greed) to do so if Diesel demand increases.

Anyway, it's no a bad idea per se to use the heavy stuff in the monstrous shipping engines, but like anything else, both the fuel and the engines need to be cleaned up, ASAP.

As to the buy local mantra, it has been shown numerous times that it has extremely limited impact. Still a good idea in general, but don't get out of your way to drive 15 miles to the nearest farmers market for your bi-weekly shopping. Chances are, you will use way more resources to do that than the relative impact of shipping your desired fruit from Chile to your on-the-way-home supermarket.

VW EV, plug-in Hybrid, and/or 1.4-2.0 VVT&VVL T/dual-charged FSI engines for the US would be useful...

Just kidding.

Demand is going to skyrocket, as are prices of diesel!

Hrvatska