Hemp Diesel - The Forgotten Crop

Horus
Horus Registered Users Posts: 24 ✭
in Solar Skeptics, Hype, & Scams Corner #1
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/
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  • mike95490
    mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭
    #2
    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.
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
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  • mike95490
    mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭
    #3
    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 ?
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,

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  • russ
    russ Solar Expert Posts: 593 ✭✭
    #4
    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!
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  • blackswan555
    blackswan555 Solar Expert Posts: 246 ✭✭
    #5
    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
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  • dak664
    dak664 Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭✭
    #6
    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
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  • monoloco
    monoloco Solar Expert Posts: 103 ✭✭
    #7
    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.
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