March 22, 2006

Biodiesel...? Jom Kelapa Sawit...!

As launched yesterday, Envo diesel has been launched by the Prime Minister. So guys. Plant the OIL PALM TREE now as they're not only be able to produce the cooking oil, now even the Diesel!

According to the Star, the Envo Diesel is a mixture of 5 percent palm oil and 95 percent diesel, but it was told that eventually bio-diesel will be made of 20 percent palm oil and 80 percent diesel. So tuners and car manufacturers, it's time to develop new technology on diesel. Proton should have developed diesel-engine powered cars!

Diesel engine by nature is very efficient, plus the nature of it's low price, compared to the petrol. We're so lucky as in the US, the Diesel price is higher than the regular petrol. The regular petrol in the USA is of the 91-92 RON rating, if i am not mistaken.

NGV? A full tank can goes up only to 180 km the farthest, per tank. It's not that suitable/recommended for some reasons:
  1. Limited gas station with NGV
  2. Reduction of power
  3. Limited tank capacity, which has already used up most of the car boot's area
  4. Cars with higher RON rating is not suitable.
You must be wondering why do I have to mention about the RON thingy.

RON stands for Research Octane Number, the number which we can always see at the gas station. Petronas would normally sell the higher grade of RON 97 only, while for Esso/Mobil, I could still see they were selling the regular grade of RON 92.

I'm going to be a lil bit techie here.

The straight run Gasoline, which rating is of RON 70, has the same knocking properties as a mixture of 70% isooctane and 30% heptane. Cracking, isomerization, and other processes can be used to increase the octane rating of gasoline to about RON 90. The Shell V-Power is told to be rated at RON 98 and in Japan, they even have the RON 100, which is meant for cars with high compression engines or those performance cars with high compression engine or highly turbocharged, it I'm not mistaken again. Correct me if I'm wrong. One of the way to increase the RON rating is to add the anti-knock agent.

Before the introduction of non-leaded petrol, Tetraethyl lead, was one of such anti-knock agent, which was added to gas at the rate of up to 2.4 grams per gallon of gasoline. The switch to unleaded gasoline has required the addition of more expensive compounds, such as aromatics and highly branched alkanes, to maintain high octane numbers.

Done with that.

Actually the hike of the petrol price in the US is just RM1.80 per litre is not true. The current diesel price in the USA is $2.618 a gallon, which is about RM2.1912 a litre. The regular petrol is $2.546 a gallon which is about RM2.131 a litre, without any subsidizing scheme, which is at the rating of 87-92 RON. Malaysia's price is RM1.88.

Well, remember, US people are paid in the US Dollar, which for them is about $0.56 a litre. Very cheap! For a normal graduate engineer, being paid US$3.5k a month, 400 litre of petrol a month would cause him only USD224 a month, which is just 6.4% of his total earnings a month.

Ours? 400 litres of petrol a month would cause an engineer RM768 a month, which is 21.9% of his earnings, if considered at RM3.5k a month of salary.

OK or NOT OK?

The govt. should have let the usage of hybrid cars. European countries has started with the commercialization of the hydrogen-powered cars. Japanese with the hybrid petrol-electric and diesel-electric engines. Proton itself should have started with the development of the hybrid cars.

We should wait and see the latest development of this biodiesel. There are 3 refineries that is going to be built for the biodiesel thingy. Well, the govt should not only concentrate on the oil palm biodiesel, they should also eye on the sugar cane's ability to produce methane and other plants to produce hidro-carbon bonds that can be used for fuels.

What about people's waste? When we talk about people's waste then we'll think about Indah Water. Indah Water should have changed their mode of operation.

Imagine the wonders they can do...!

Good articles for your reading :
  1. Elsbett Technology
  2. Fiat Marea with Elsbett Diesel Technology
  3. Enjin diesel dicipta guna minyak nabati
  4. Merdekakan Alam Sekitar dengan menggunakan minyak sayuran sebagi panggantui diesel.
  5. Syed Syahrul's Entry with Pictures

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