GDiesel; ultra low sulfur diesel and natural gas mixed

Prior to buying my current diesel, I was looking at the big gassers as a replacement for my former diesel. The negatives were operating range on the same quantity of fuel and engine output passed on fuel. I could get really cheap operation out of a gasser running on LPG, but the derated power and reduced range convinced me that running this cleaner cheaper fuel was not in my best interest. CNG penciled out about the same, but availability was issue for me. In my case even running the gasser on gasoline was not enough, since I frequent mountain passes and my loads are continuing to get heavier. Don't even get me going on the subsidized waste of gasohol and its instability and poor performance...

I have seen propane and water injection systems that help combustion, so this "premix" does not surprise me. I'm just trying to understand what the pros and cons are of running GDiesel.

Bedlam wrote:
I thought CNG had less energy per gallon than diesel, so I'm having a hard time understanding how this reformulated diesel is so much more efficient unless they getting a more complete burn of the stored diesel energy.

You are absolutely correct.

However in this case it isn't a energy thing, it is COST per mile.

Basically put, using CNG or propane dilutes and reduces the amount of expensive diesel used per mile with a lower cost fuel.

The problem is you have to USE MORE of that lower cost fuel to make up for the lost energy.

You can't get something for nothing (IE perpetual machine), there is always some loss but that doesn't stop folks from doing it..

I thought CNG had less energy per gallon than diesel, so I'm having a hard time understanding how this reformulated diesel is so much more efficient unless they getting a more complete burn of the stored diesel energy.

It all comes down to one thing: Price point.

There are lots of fuels on the market right now that are cleaner. Propane being just one. Very clean fuel. Unfortunately gasoline will smoke it in MPG/dollars spent.

Get it at or below #2 price and it will sell. Get it much above #2 and you will end up like Willie Nelson's truck stop that was trying to sell Bio-diesel. His dreams went up in smoke. :B

I posted about GDiesel some time ago. Local station in Gardnerville sold it until they couldnt compete on price. Back then i was driving a Dodge and regens went from every 400 mi to every 600 on Gdiesel. If available i would buy it.

The articles state the natural gas is actually combined with the diesel is some sort of catalyst process, so the two fuels become one.

Found the original article I had seen GDiesel mentioned.

Here's another link to an article from TruckTrend magazine: GDiesel TruckTrend article

There are systems that feed natural gas or propane into the diesel engines, and City Of Long Beach CA has been using natural gas / diesel hybrid trash collection trucks for many years. They work great, and only use 10% diesel while the main fuel is burning natural gas.

Because Long Beach is a utility, they can buy gas at 42 PSI, compress it to 4,000 PSI, and buy at a great rate. I think that 115,000 Btu's only cost about $1.85 last time I checked. That is like buying gasoline for $1,85 per gallon!

If the natural gas tank runs out, they will burn the normal mix of 100% diesel. They burn much cleaner on Natural gas.

The systems for propane injection into the diesel engines I have not worked with them. But they say that by adding a small amount of propane, they can reduce the amount of diesel burned, and the exhaust gas is much cleaner. While very easy to clean up a 2000 diesel engine, the 2007 and later ones are much more difficult to get 'cleaned up' as they started out from the factory very clean. By 2011, they where so clean, the joke is that the inside of the exhaust system is not covered with soot, but actually is rusty due to lack of soot.

I was thinking that for the emergency generators at my work, natural gas put into the fresh air would reduce fuel consumption by 10% to 20%, depending on the amount of natural gas being used. This would extend our fuel tank from about 30 hours to a extra day or two, again depending on the amount of natural gas used.

Fred.