A Quick History Lesson

"How can a DIESEL engine help improve the environment!?"  This is a question I often here in a tone of disbelief. 

Most folks associate the diesel engine with the black soot billowing from 18-wheeled trucks delivering goods on the highways and byways of our great nation.  We've all smelled the stench when they idle in a parking lot. 

This is how the diesel engine has evolved but did you know that its inventor did not first envision it as a petroleum-fueled engine?  That's right, the DIESEL engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel and ran successfully at the 1900 World's Fair on its fuel of choice - PEANUT OIL ! 

Later, Diesel also experimented successfully with using whale oil but neither fuel was as prevalent or as easily obtainable as petroleum.  In order to make his invention economically viable, others began to optimize the engine to burn petroleum-based oils as fuel... and you know the rest of the story!

Around 1912 Diesel stated:

"The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it"

Diesel also later predicted that:

"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time."

So why hasn't someone done something about this in the past 100 years?  Well, it's happening NOW!!