Gas (Petrol) too expensive? Get a diesel car.
17th Sep 2005, 03:31 GMT
Currently the price of Oil is $65~70 per barrel. Now I know what you're thinking - "If oil is expensive and diesel is made from it then how will I save money?!" - right, it makes absolutely no sense. Now I would like to introduce you to something; it is called synthetic diesel, it is made from coal and it costs around $40 per barrel. Let me guess, now your question is - "If it is cheaper than oil then why are we still using oil to produce diesel?" - right; why indeed? The reason are two fold, firstly due to China's growth and the shortening supply of oil the price has risen very dramatically to its current high. You go back just five years and it wouldn't be very cost efficient to buy synthetic diesel. The second reason is that governments, companies and in general the people that would supply this fuel have an invested interest in oil. Today the cost of oil is only going in one direction; and because synthetic fuel will work fine in today's diesel car that might be something to take into account for tomorrow when you buy. Wait a second, did you see something on the news about this wonderful hydrogen fuel? Well sure, it is a nice fuel, it has three times as much energy as has petrol per cubic ton. But what you don't hear on the news is this -- petrol is far more dense compared to liquid hydrogen... That means per volume (the area the fuel is stored in) hydrogen is three times less efficient than petrol. Let me explain that again -- If you had a solid block of hydrogen and a solid block of petrol the hydrogen would have three times more energy... But if you put *liquid* hydrogen in a gas tank to the top, and *liquid* petrol in the same sized tank you would be able to drive your car three times the distance with the petrol as with the hydrogen. Which translates into either having three times the fuel tank size in your car or re-fueling three times as much.
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