Let’s take a look at diesel fuel, which many people don’t immediately associate with being alternative fuels. Diesel has long been the only alternative source of fuel, but has generally suffered from a bad reputation.

Diesel in its’ most prevalent form is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, and would generally not be considered “green.”

But diesel is the starting point for several fuel alternatives that not derived from petroleum, but can power diesel engines.

These synthetic diesel fuels fall into the following categories:

1. Biodiesel
2. Biomass to liquid (BTL)
3. Gas to liquid (GTL)

In order to keep these new fuels separate in our minds, folks have started calling old fashioned “diesel” fuel “petrodiesel”, in order to indicate it’s a petroleum derivative.

One of the big problems with these diesel fuels is always related to availability. So far, no one has been able to present a plan that will be scalable enough to stop the current reliance on oil. The German government has been a strong supporter of such research, but the country has found several initiatives they were bullish on have fallen short of their expectations.

So far synthetic diesel looks promising, but is no where near ready for mass consumption. The trouble is, synthetic diesel has a ton of disadvantages, including poor combustion performance and high cost. Most consumers won’t pay more for weaker performance, no matter how good it might be for the environment.

We’ll take a look at each of the synthetic diesel fuel types in more detail in coming articles.

Continued from: Alternative Fuel Sources – Part One – Overview