FUELS for the FUTURE
| Date | 01 October 1980 |
| Published date | 01 October 1980 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057149 |
| Pages | 11-12 |
| Author | Mike Hoffman |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
SO supplies of fossil fuel
will soon run dry. No one
can put a date on when it
will happen but
it
will
cer-
tainly be in the foresee-
able future. What then?
Maybe engines running
on peanut, sunflower or
corn oil or on a fuel
derived from soya
beans, eucalyptus trees
or
coal.
All are pos-
sibilities, but no single
one can provide the
uni-
versal answer to the
world's fuel problems.
"Industrial Manage-
ment" invited comments
from Perkins, a world
leader in the design,
development and
man-
ufacture of diesel
engines.
FUELS
for the
FUTURE
By Mike Hoffman,
Chairman,
Perkins
Engines Group
IT is an accepted fact that supplies of
fossil fuels - the generic term given to,
among other fuels, the gasoline and
diesel oil that we use to fuel the inter-
nal combustion engine - will, in the
foreseeable future, dry up. It may
happen by the end of this century -
but on the other hand, discovery of
new supplies may prolong their
availability for a marginally longer
period.
People and machines will still need
to keep moving. We will still need
engines and those engines will still
need fuel. What will we use for fuel?
What type of engine will those fuels
power?
The Perkins Engines Group, the
world's biggest independent specialist
manufacturer of diesel engines, obvi-
ously has a vested interest in the
future. Its researchers, working out of
both its UK research centre and its
operation in Brazil have been study-
ing the many available alternative fuel
sources throughout the 1970s; at the
same time, they have been working on
the development of an engine that will
operate on those fuels.
In September 1979, Perkins pub-
lished its first policy statement on
future alternative fuels, a statement
which was extensively reported worl-
dwide. Nine months later, in
mid-1980, the group published its
findings to date on the advantages and
drawbacks of these alternative fuels.
As a first and urgent step, Perkins
recommends that existing petroleum
based fuels should be conserved by
ensuring that their use is confined to
those applications for which they are
best suited; these are all automotive
applications such as vehicles, agricul-
tural and construction machinery and
marine craft. Wherever possible, all
stationary equipment should be pow-
ered by the traditional forms of
energy such as electricity, gas, goal or
the newer developments of solar
energy or wind,
etc.
Secondly, Perkins recommends
that the use of the compression igni-
tion engine, such as the diesel and its
derivatives, be' encouraged and
extended - not only for petroleum-
based fuels, but also as the engine for
all possible alternative fuels, such as
liquid fuels derived from coal, alcohol
fuels and vegetable oils.
There are two reasons for the diesel
engine being the most efficient and
economical way of using available
petroleum-based fuels. Firstly, it does
more miles per gallon than the
gasoline engine. The second lies in the
refinery. The processes required to
refine gasoline generally consume
more basic energy than the processes
to produce diesel fuel, thus represent-
ing a waste of energy.
These are not, however, the only
advantages of the diesel engine. It can
also be developed to operate effi-
ciently on what is known as 'wide-cut
fuel' - that is the type of fuel that can
be obtained when some of the selec-
tive refining processes applied to the
barrel of crude oil are eliminated.
Since these so-called 'cracking' pro-
cesses are energy intensive, the wide-
cut fuel offers further total energy sav-
ings.
In addition, the diesel can also be
adapted to make the most efficient
use of distillate fuels derived from
DECEMBER 1980 11
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