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The RVEnergy Aware is using a 2006 Gulfstream motor home. It's the same vehicle as it was when purchased - the difference is what's in the tank. Our motorhome runs on biodiesel, an environmentally friendly diesel fuel which is made from alcohol (fuel alcohol distilled from plant material), vegetable or animal oil (typically soybean, corn or restaurant grease) and lye. Using biodiesel results in a substantial reduction in pollutants such as unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter. In addition, the exhaust emissions of sulfur oxides and sulfates (major components of acid rain) from biodiesel are essentially eliminated compared to petroleum diesel. Unlike fossil fuels, biodiesel does not introduce new CO2 into the atmosphere, but only reintroduces the CO2 that was previously sequestered by the plants from which it was made. Diesel engines can use many oily fuels. When Rudolf Diesel unveiled his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, it ran on peanut oil. But the rapidly developing American petroleum industry produced a cheap by-product "diesel fuel" that has become the standard.  "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today," said Diesel in 1912, a year before his death. "But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time." Biodiesel is attractive because it lubricates the engine as it burns. Petroleum diesel has usually contained sulfur to lubricate the engines, but sulfur pollutes and regulations are phasing it out.  According to the European Biodiesel Board, Europe produced about 3.2 million tons of biodiesel in 2005, with Germany alone producing about half the total. By comparison, about 350,000 tons of biodiesel was produced in the U.S. in 2005 according the U.S. National Biodiesel Board - a little more than 10 percent of the amount in Europe. American farmers are already supplying us with biodiesel and there's much more potential. We're the most agriculturally productive nation on earth and we could be supplying a lot of our energy needs with it. |
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