Frank, one other point regarding supply & demand. According to the Dept. of Energy, actual and estimated use of diesel (all grades) for the past two years and next two years centers around 3.5 million barrels per day in the U.S. The largest processor GRNO can make at the moment, the 600-gallon-per-hour size, will produce about 350 barrels per day. So if we wind up with 100 of these things (or the equivalent capacity in larger units) spotted around the country, all running at full tilt, GRNO will have about a 1% share of the diesel market. GRNO would also then need about 600 million gallons of waste oil per year, or about half of what's produced in this country. I note that Lubrizol (and other makers of oil and fuel additives) waxes enthusiastic about their contributions to the rapidly increasing life of vehicle oils--when I was a kid, the recommended oil change interval was 1000 miles. So the size of the feedstock pool may not be growing rapidly. On the other hand, the emphasis on doing something environmentally healthy with what there is has been growing rapidly.
Wholesale diesel prices have varied a lot lately (as high as $0.72 at one point this winter), but figure about $20-25 per barrel. At the midpoint, for 100 processors, the gross revenue would run about $750,000 to $800,000 per day. My calculator won't handle what that comes to on an annual basis.
I thought of one other point. Also since October, 1993, it has been mandatory that all highway vehicle oil-derived fuels include detergents designed to reduce the formation and emission of particulate matter (and some other things). I've already noted that the missing lubricant qualities of sulphur have to be replaced by other additives, at least in older vehicles not redesigned to comply with the new rules. Since a given grade of fuel oil always has similar combustion characteristics (flashpoint, boiling temperature, etc.), I'm sure that using any #2 diesel should in theory work in different circumstances--on-road, off-road, home heating equipment, etc. But there may well be significant differences in the types of chemical additives for these different uses (engine lubrication being obviously unnecessary in a oil-fired furnace, for example) which could cause significant differences in performance. It's well known that altitude and temperature affect performance. Finally, since a vehicle engine may be built (or tuned??) for one subgrade of fuel (say low-sulpher #2), it may not run as well on another subgrade. I think you can probably parallel the changes in autos when leaded gasoline was gradually outlawed (fully and finally only in the 1996 EPA legislation, by the way). I think I'm beginning to understand better why different people are, at least superficially, using the "same" diesel but getting different kinds of results.
=+=+=Norm |
