Biodiesel part 3 - I'm a moron
I've figured it out.
The car companies can only make cars that run on fuels that are readily available. Currently those include electricity, petrol, diesel, and to a lesser extent, LPG. The people that sell most of these fuels are the filling stations. These in turn rely on fuels from the oil companies, and so can only sell fuels the oil companies can get hold of.
Imagine for a moment you are a small Middle-Eastern country. You have few resources except oil - more than half of your country is desert. Your people live a reasonable lifestyle, but the vast majority of your economy runs on oil. You learn that one of your major customers is about to collaborate with a car company to develop an engine that runs on a fuel that would make the mainstay of your country's economy obsolete. How much oil do you sell them that year?
Back to the drawing board then, I guess...
The car companies can only make cars that run on fuels that are readily available. Currently those include electricity, petrol, diesel, and to a lesser extent, LPG. The people that sell most of these fuels are the filling stations. These in turn rely on fuels from the oil companies, and so can only sell fuels the oil companies can get hold of.
Imagine for a moment you are a small Middle-Eastern country. You have few resources except oil - more than half of your country is desert. Your people live a reasonable lifestyle, but the vast majority of your economy runs on oil. You learn that one of your major customers is about to collaborate with a car company to develop an engine that runs on a fuel that would make the mainstay of your country's economy obsolete. How much oil do you sell them that year?
Back to the drawing board then, I guess...
Interesting point. In that case, how long before these countries that have their entire economy dependant on oil sales are shafted?!? Oil = finite resource.
Are there any car companies that sell LPG vehicles? To my knowledge (which could be flawed) LPG vehicles exist almost entirely as normal vehicles that that undergone a post production conversion, probably by a third party company. This means that car and oil companies have little say in the matter, unless of course they choose to start making engines more difficult to convert.
Could the same model not drive uptake of biodiesel?
Posted by
Anonymous |
Wed May 03, 11:23:00 am
Someoen still has to supply it at the pumps. And you may have noticed, LPG isn't all that popular. Plus it's still a finite resource.
Posted by
Matt |
Thu May 04, 08:53:00 am
Support for LPG is small and limited to a few filling stations but it is out there at least.
The reason that LPG hasn't had a huge uptake is possibly partly down to the cost/hassle of conversion and partly due to the fact that the oil companies don't want to provide too many LPG pumps in their filling stations for fear of causing tensions with countries supplying oil. But the fact remains that some people are taking advantage of LPG. I don't see why biodiesel can't become at least as popular as LPG. Where biodiesel lacks in backing from big gas suppliers and their corporate muscle it has instead a large potential public following among individuals that:
- Are environmentally concisous
- Don't want our economy dependant on a few contries in regions that are well known for being 'turbulant'
- Think fuel is too expensive
- Are farmers wanting something to grow that they can actually sell
- Are in the public domain (celebs, politicians, etc) that want good 'green' PR
Posted by
Anonymous |
Thu May 04, 09:40:00 am
Sure, the market's there, but it won't change the world until everyone is behind it.
Posted by
Matt |
Fri May 05, 01:47:00 pm
But the world won't get behind it until it see it working. It's hard to get too enthusiastic about a technology with no track record.
Posted by
Anonymous |
Fri May 05, 03:40:00 pm
Right - then all we need is a garage. Is there a garage on your new place?
Posted by
Matt |
Mon May 08, 10:35:00 am
At this point of development, with very small supplies of biodiesel, all that we need is a mixed fuel (99% diesel 1% bio). It will run in any diesel motor with no changes. As more supply is added, make that 2% then 3% and so on.
Trying to make pure biodiesel cars and fuel when there is so little supply is silly.
LPG is very popular in some countries, sold by the same oil companies. (incidentally, the biggest suppliers of LPG are Opec members).
Posted by
Serf |
Wed May 17, 10:19:00 am