Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Horus

When the first engines were created, hemp oil was the fuel of choice by their creators. So why was it forgotten so quickly?

Here is a great article highlighting Rudolph Diesel' creation of the diesel engine, it's refinements over the past 100 years and his push for the fuel to be derived from hemp before delving into the large petro-chemical companies war on hemp.

A good example on how in America sometimes innovation and efficiency take a back seat to economic and political will.

http://environauts.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/hemp-diesel/

mike95490

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Diesel Nut (Jatropha) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha_oil is already in use in India, and large plantings are coming on line currently.

It's also not prone to pilfering by hippies.

mike95490

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Horus wrote: »

When the first engines were created, hemp oil was the fuel of choice by their creators.

And I always thought it was peanut oil ?

russ

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Jatophra oil is more or less dead today as all the advantages turned out to be BS:
1) Marginal land - OK then marginal output
2) No water - OK then not much production
3) No pests - OK not until there is a large planting and then all the little buggers come out
4) No fertilizer required - OK that is correct but only if not much product is required

Hemp - don't know the oil output per acre.

There are many oil seeds - many are being worked with and improvements are being made - camellina for one.

İ do get a kick out of the great conspiracy though!

blackswan555

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Where I used to live in UK was big into rape seed oil for a while, Talking to the farmer one day, The tractor`s used more fuel to cultivate the stuff per Sq km than it gave, but the subsidies made it a good cash crop, :-), remind me again why the UK is in so much poo ?
Have a good one
Tim

dak664

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Actually that article is bang on. Cheap hemp fiber would have threatened Du Pont's newly-introduced nylon and a PR campaign was started to equate industrial hemp with "dangerous marijuana" http://www.jug-or-not.com/can/facts/facts.htm. This campaign ran for 32 years under the auspices of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger who was appointed in 1930 by the Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon (his wife's uncle, and a major investor in Du Pont) as the commissioner of the newly-created Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

Any danger to the crop from hippies would be that of eradication since it would cross-pollinate real marijuana and reduce its potency. Industrial hemp contains THC inhibitors and smoking it would be an effective antidote to a marijuana high.

The reason foundation has balanced articles on the subject, e.g. http://reason.org/news/show/1002980.html

monoloco

Re: Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

If California legalizes marijuana, industrial hemp and the products produced from it have the potential to create a huge new industry.