DME - No Soot Fuel for Diesel Engines...

[BigRed6]

I've been on a two-month research spree (slogg?), looking at trucks/engines/reliability, etc... stumbled onto fuels information:

Anybody been studying DME - DiMethyl Ether? It's supposed to function like diesel in the same compression engine, but run without soot production, I'm sure similar to Propane in a gas engine - which I recall didn't have the power that gas has, but was much cleaner. (Now, they're saying it has the same power as diesel) It, like some synthetic oils, comes from natural gas.

It's supposed to be renewable (rDME) from cow manure, etc... (What a dichotomy for the eco-freaks! Kill Cows for farting and ruining the Ozone layer and relying on water-wasting grass feed production, OR Keep them ALIVE to make manure for DME!!!) (the milk, ice cream and steaks aren't too bad, either!) (How do the enviro people sleep at night???)

It appears California is rolling-out these DME liquid fuel stations now in very limited quantities through propane distributors.

Mack/Volvo trucks are supposed to be committing to it full hog! (It's supposed to be a liquid, so, I'm sure T/A, Pilot, Loves, et al will jump on it immediately!)

Is this more snake oil???

Any thoughts? Experiences?

[Waterloo]

Sounds like left wing dreaming to me, like their bullet train...

I would say as long as oil is cheap, we are not going to see any of this on the market any time soon. And I am sure it will be expensive and heavily subsidized if it makes it that far, any of these fuels.

I know when I was out in North Dakota just a few months back working for ChemOil, we were hauling diesel fuel out of Marathon in Dickinson... They were turning off the diesel and propane racks and devoting the plant to 100% bio diesel. Apparently California made them an offer they could not refuse... The entire production is to go on rail cars, 100% for California. I can only imagine the cost per gallon for that stuff.

[hhow55]

https://cdllife.com/2020/for-sale-you-ca...tic-truck/

If the DME doesn't work out, maybe this will.....LOL

[Rawze]

(06-14-2020 )hhow55 Wrote:  https://cdllife.com/2020/for-sale-you-ca...tic-truck/

If the DME doesn't work out, maybe this will.....LOL

Actually it will not. it cannot meet carbs standards for trucks... engine has no emissions DPF etc. system on it so therefore it would not be considered "Environmentally friendly".

ahhh... the irony!

[BigRed6]

So, not quite time to buy stock in these companies?

I think infrastructure rollout would be very costly and time-consuming. It would have to be a real game-changer to overtake diesel, AND now I see that even though they say it's a liquid, you still have to have low-pressure propane type tanks and regulators like any gas conversion, so, that won't be cheap.

Back to my hydrogen fanatasies....

[Rawze]

steam engines have always been by far the most efficient per BTU of the fuel source.
Diesel fired closed-loop dry-steam would be the solution to go from a 40% BTU efficient engine (current modern diesel technology) up into the 80 or 90+ % range.

Multi-cylinder ultra-high-pressure helium diesel-fired sterling engine designs would be the second choice. that would yield up in the 70 - 85% range quite easily.

just my own thought... guess no one wants to further advance well established technologies in the past to improve the future any more. Seems like no one wants to actually work on mining and burning any overall less fuel.. they just want to impose restrictions and taxes on the fuel quantities already being burned.