The Reason We Can’t Have Cheap Gas or: You Have Clean Diesel in My Gas!

Brought to you by the Auto Transport Source.

In a world full of $3.75/gal costs of gasoline, we are looking to find a way around this. Circumvent the oil companies and find a way to save some cash. Willie Nelson’s tour bus runs on biodiesel – why can’t my car? Well, the truth is, diesel is more expensive than regular gasoline, even though with recent advancements and technologies diesel now burns cleaner, longer, and slower than gasoline, meaning that mile per gallon rates are going up in diesel fueled vehicles, and emissions are going down.

The Ford Motor Company saw that, and they jumped on it. With the Ford ECOnetic soon to come to retailers, it’s a wonder we haven’t seen this sooner.

But Americans are going to have to wait even longer for this new technology.

The Ford Motor Company is manufacturing this vehicle, of all places, in Europe, a continent known for its eco-friendly ways and nice shops and fancy hats. This comes as a major surprise mainly because of the fact that the FMC was founded, developed, and turned into a powerhouse by Henry Ford: an American. Which now begs the question?

Why Europe?

The Ford Motor Company states that it would not be “cost-effective,” to say the least. In order to ship the cars across the Atlantic, we would have to charge American consumers $25,000 per ECOnetic, and apparently that’s something that FMC just isn’t willing to do. They feel that “clean diesel,” as it’s known, won’t be bought by American consumers and will tank in 2009. But what the FMC doesn’t understand – indeed, what a lot of people don’t understand – is that diesel vehicles now hitting the market with pollution-fighting technology are as clean or cleaner than gasoline and at least 30% more fuel-efficient. So why now do we not get this technology? California has just passed legislation that would allow Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz to sell diesel vehicles in their state – thus overturning a four-year ban.

But that still begs the question: why isn’t diesel bigger in America? Last year, half of all cars sold in Europe were diesel-powered vehicles. Compare that to a sharp decrease in diesel-powered vehicle sales in America, and the rise of hybrid technology (a good alternative, to be sure), and it’s no wonder no one is marketing their diesel cars at us. We see hybrid vehicles (proven by the sales of the Toyota Prius last year) as the “wave of the future,” but we haven’t even looked at other options. Hydrogen vehicles are still in the testing phase, but it will be years until they hit the market – and even then, will we want them?

Americans are picky, sure, but are we so stubborn as to look a gift horse in the mouth and deny ourselves this opportunity? We have the chance of stepping into the future, of once again being a world leader in science and industry. But now, the leaders in science and industries may be American, but only Europeans are seeing the fruits of our labors.

The Composition of Diesel

Diesel is a very interesting choice of fuel, to say the least. Its refining process is crude at best – often times described as “pulling the dregs off the bottom of the gas refineries.” This has some truth behind it, because typically (using old technology) diesel is dirtier, smellier, and more polluting than gasoline – but the time for that is long, long gone. What makes diesel so polluting is, mainly, the sulfur that it contains. High-sulfur mixtures of diesel produce that black, acrid smoke that long-haul trucks are known for, but low-sulfur mixtures are becoming much more commonplace, resulting 20, 30, even 40% fewer emissions.

Biodiesel, too, has played a huge part in diesel’s recovery. It’s much cleaner, and can actually be mixed with regular petrodiesel (diesel refined from petroleum) in fractions of 99%, thus resulting in substantially reduced emissions. Carbon monoxide emissions have been known to be cut by 50% or more by mixing biodiesel and petrodiesel, and the mixtures can be made at home using kits. Biodiesel studies have also been known to reduce health effects as opposed to petrodiesel. But biodiesel isn’t the only form of alternate diesel; In fact, diesel can be pulled from just about anything. Wood, hemp, straw, food scraps (think Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future Part II), and (this is cool) sewage can be formed into a synthetic-based diesel fuel that can be used to power cars. Its technical name is biomass-to-liquids (the process of turning biomass into a liquid), and this promising technology could hold more answers than just the one to our energy crisis.

If we can harness the power of biomass-to-liquid technology, we could be able to solve the problem of how we power our cars, but we can also solve the problem of giant landfills, or of human waste going out to sea. Using simple technology, we can have our septic tanks become BTL converters with our garbage cans feeding into these as well. We could control our own future, be completely self-reliant.

The human race is on the verge of a worldwide revolution. The turning point is about to hit its zenith – we are going to be propelled into a new era of cleaner, cheaper fuels, the rise of self-sufficiency, and the decline of giant energy conglomerates. With diesel fuels, coupled with research into hydrogen-powered vehicles and other promising technologies, we are on the precipice of the largest turning point in history. This is going to be a lot of fun.