Could vegetable oil be an alternative to petroleum ?

Question

How energy-full is it in comparison with "gas"/petrol ?

As the plants take in CO2 in growing, and that gets freed
when the oil is burnt, there is no net gain in atmospheric
CO2 which would mean no greenhouse issues

Is this a feasible possibility for mass transport ?

Answer 1

It is definately one of the solutions to petroleum use. Diesel engines do not require a lot of changes to work with vegetable oil as you may know. The Castor Bean Plant (Ricinus communis) is being planted as a commercial crop in many countries: Brasil, India, China and recently some Caribbean Countries with the purposes of producing bio-diesel.

This plant is very easy to cultivate as it doesn't need a lot of water or care and the biomass can be used as a natural fertilizer. This can create a lot of jobs in many poor countries of latin america where this crop is feasable.

Castor bean is also known as "higuereta" in many latin american countries and can be found in just about any place growing naturally (even in Florida you can see it, along side the roads). The seeds are poisonous, beacause of the content of ricin.

Just like some suggested in the comments, using crops to produce energy instead of foods, creates a moral dilema. In the mean time it could be part of a transition until battery technology becomes more efficient to save solar energy. Petroleum should be left for other applications in farmaceutical, chemicals and plastic production and not for energy use.

The ultimate goal should be, not using any type of fuel for our energy needs and instead use the inexhaustible source of our sun.

Answer 2

Yes vegetable oil is packed with energy. It is a hotter burning fuel than gasoline and contains the same amount of energy. It is less volatile than gasoline because it has a higher flash point thus being hotter burning.

As for an alternative fuel it is already in use partly due to many saying it has lower emission but more due to the economics of the whole deal. As a nation we are looking for ways to become independent of foreign oil and this is a very good step in the right direction for that agenda. It will not begin to help the global pollution environment.

Vegetable oil is a hydrocarbon. It emits the same C02 as other petroleum products. Yes, political types are the ones, once again, saying this is better for the environment as you state above. In reality it is worse for the environment for several reasons.

The vegetable oil we get from living plants today require more energy to produce the same amount of consumer fuel. There is planting growing and harvesting involved; don't forget we have to take out the forests to make room for farmland. These items and issues must be considered as well when figuring all these C02 emissions. The oil in the ground needs little work to refine to its needed levels of usefulness therefore requiring very little fuel to produce. Crude oil has a much wider usefulness than vegetable oil as well, including everything from car tires and road assault to cosmetics, food, and don't forget petroleum jelly.

I believe we should study nuclear power for safe ways to bring it right up to John public to use. This fuel has the potentual of maintaining us on this planet another few thousand years and would solve the C02 problem. As for the produced waist. These are some of the hurtles we need to get over to make it safe. We do have all the resources here to make that happen by the end of this year. Are our politicians ready to deal with it? Try them and see.

Best regards,
ĴΩŋ

Answer 3

We cannot grow enough plants to produce enough vegetable oil to replace petroleum at this time. Through genetic engineering it may be possible to create plants with a high oil or sugar/starch content that will grow well on marginal land and not able to cross into food plants. This would allow some replacement of petroleum fuels with vegetable oils and ethanol. No one with any sense expects bio-fuels to be able to replace petroleum completely.

Since we are speaking of fuels for vehicles, let's think of the requirements. It needs to be a liquid or a gas for ease in handling. The fuel tank should be about the same size as in a petrol/diesel fuelled car and the fuel should provide about the same range of travel at about the same cost. The refineries for these fuels could easily be solar powered, but the cars could not. The car should be more efficient and less polluting than one using an internal combustion engine.

Electric vehicles do not have the same range, ease of refuelling [recharging] and cost more than IC cars due to the expensive batteries used to get up to a 300 mile range. Air conditioning and electric heating can quickly drop the range.

To overcome this in an EV you need an engine which can use any liquid or gaseous fuel, one which powers a generator to recharge the batteries, so that you could drive nonstop, except for fuelling, as far as you wanted. A forced draft flame burns clean, turns water to steam which powers a steam engine to turn a generator. Multi-fuelled, more efficient and cleaner than IC cars; better range, reliability and fewer batteries reduces the cost; starts immediately, accelerates quickly and it doesn't freeze like a steam car, because it is a steam-electric hybrid.

Don't just be one of those who says steam is obsolete, when there are auto companies thinking of steam as auxiliary power to their IC engines. Steam cars had drawbacks, but it was the Depression that caused their demise, not their technology. Pierce-Arrow, an IC luxury car builder fell even as it made the beautiful and advanced Silver Arrow. Check the Doble and Stanley steam autos to get an idea of the size of the cars, boilers, engines and safety. A steam-electric hybrid would use a much smaller engine to power the generator.

A steam-electric hybrid would operate as a plug-in EV 80% or more of the time, using no fuel, just electricity from the grid. Sure, you'd have to build more generating facilities, but not as many as if all cars were pure EVs. You would have all the range of an IC car, the lower cost of a hybrid and since most of the time it would run on electricity you would get great mileage. And in an emergency, with the electric power grid not operating, the car could supply power to operate your refrigerator, freezer, water pump and a couple of lights.

Answer 4

I think you mean alternative to diesel which is also an oil.

I doubt the CO2 figures add up that neatly as you are only burning the oil from the seeds of the plants rather than the whole plant.

The increase in use of bio-diesel in the UK has already been used as an excuse for a price increase in other food-stuffs - if farmers are growing that, they aren't growing other crops edible by humans or animals.

Bio-ethanol is a crop-based additive to petrol, but that has exactly the same issues.

Answer 5

Rape seed oil is altready being used as an alternative to diesel. I'd like to see some development work into the use of vegetable oils as heating oil.

There is no reason at all why it should not be used more widely except that there are problems with taxation and the oil companies are very much against it (no need to ask why!). There is a concern that if all the farmers are growing fuel oils they will not be growing food though.

Answer 6

YES! Hemp oil among other natural sources, is a viable source of fuel that is alternative to petrolium. The US was built largely in part because of Cannabis. In fact the Declaration of Independance was drafted on hemp(cannabis) paper, and quite possibly with ink made with hemp (cannibis) oil. Hemp is not the be or do all cure to the petroleum industry, there are many facettes of change which need to be polished, but no matter what I or any other environmentalist will say, there is some educationally challenged individuals who will come out and say, "More power!!!"

Answer 7

It is likely that within the next five years the USA will switch to corn-oil based ethanol fuel.
Many other countries have already done this.
The car companies already make vehicles that will run on this, and the rest can be converted with a software update.

Answer 8

It can help. It's not a complete solution. Because we can't grow enough stuff without using an impossible amount of land.

We'll also need battery or fuel cell powered cars. With electricity or hydrogen made in alternative power plants; nuclear, solar, and wind.

Answer 9

you can definately use vegetable oil as a substitute for Diesel!


My friend did it when he ran out of fuel once. The local garage was shut, so he bought a few litres of veggy oil from Tesco's and put that it in with no probs whatsoever.

He said his car smelled a bit like chips tho!

Answer 10

I don't think there are enough acres of farm land in the world to grow enough plants to supply that much vegetable oil. Other than that though, it is a good idea.