thanks everyone

A badly tuned Diesel is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. At lease the carbon in the smoke is fixed and out of circulation. 3rd world should be given carbon credits for this!

I don't not think it makes much difference Litre for Litre you have almost the same number of carbon atoms so you will end up with the same amount of carbon dioxide.

GA for common sense (sometimes seriously missing on CR4!)

There is light at the end of the tunnel! If you give my an email I will send you an article I wrote on the subject.

Already sent to your CR4 mail address.

I would be interested in that too. Could you share it with me and others as well?

Thank you.

(E.g. You could send a personal message.)

I have posted it to my site www.ecochem.co.za

Thanks. I will have a read.

Love your signature. It is so true.

Just be sure that the light at the end of the tunnel is not that of an oncoming train!

The lighter grades of fuel oil have less carbon per gallon, but since they also have fewer BTUs per gallon, this is a wash- carbon output per kwh for your plant would be pretty much the same regardless of grade.

Unless you're talking carbon taxes, I would be more concerned with all the other pollutants from older diesels running heavy fuel oil.

Adding biodiesel to your fuel blend will offset some of your CO2 emissions as well as reducing overall emissions without any major modifications to your plant.

If I were given the job of reducing your plant's CO2 output per KWH, I would consider installing exhaust catalyst units, and an exhaust heat recovery system to generate more power per gallon of fuel, which would reduce CO2 per KWH.

FYI using ultra-low-sulfur fuel (required by catalyst units) in older engines can cause problems due to the low lubricity of ULSD. Adding 5%-10% biodiesel to your blend will restore the lubricity

Assuming fuel is a pure hydrocarbon then it will have the formula of CnH2n+2. If the fuels have the same molecular weight then there will have the same Carbon content. If the difference in the fuels is that the ratio of low molecular weight (short chain) to high molecular weight (long chain molecule) then there is no change as they will balance out. If we look at long chain hydrocarbons to short chain the the only difference will be the no of Hydrogen Atoms in the molecule (the +2H in the formula) which I feel is of no great significance the difference. Lower Mol. weight molecules will ignite more easily and give a more complete combustion as they are more volatile and this I expect could give better performance. I would expect the carbon emissions to be virtually constant. The old diesels must be pushing out more unburnt fuel and carbon mixed.

This thread is turning into a discussion of CO2 emissions in general. For what it is worth, here are the atomic carbon to hydrogen ratios for some different types of fuels

Carbon:Hydrogen ratios

Wood 10:1

Coal a 2:1

Coal b 1:1

Oil 1:2

Gas 1:4

Thank you for your comments Floram, I actually ticked the box labeling my post as "off topic". I was and I offer no apology.

RRV

Hello everybody:

trev1: The Clean Development Method (CDM) gives the Emissions Factor for Diesel Generator Systems of 0,8 kg CO2/kWh (0,8 ton CO2/MWh).

Always in the same subject, you can use 20,2 ton CO2/TJ for Diesel fuel and 21,1 ton CO2/TJ for Residual Fuel Oil.

TJ = tera Jouls = 1 million MJ

For Diesel fuel oil, the LCV (Lower Calorific Value) = 42 MJ/kg, and for residual fuel oil, the LCV is 40 MJ/kg.