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BIOFUELS * Germany - Daimler making progress on zero-emissions truck
Stuttgart,Germany -Today's Trucking (CAN) -14 Jan 2008: -- Daimler Trucks recently launched its 'Shaping Future Transportation' initiative at a press conference in the spectacular Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany... Dr. Wolfgang Warnecke, global manager of automotive fuels development for Royal Dutch Shell, opened the affair: "Transportation continues to be the preserve of oil," he said, adding that oil supply and use will peak by about 2050. Biofuels are the only viable non-fossil-fuel option in the short term, he added, but "not all biofuels are created equal"... First-generation biofuels like ethanol and its variations have limited usefulness, Warnecke said, while second-generation fuels like BTL that use whole plants and such waste as wood chips are more promising. The key, he said, as we heard several weeks earlier from Volvo trucks chief Leif Johansson, will be having standards that guarantee users fuel of the right quality... Daimler is also investigating alternative fuels. The most promising fuels from renewable resources, the company says, are vegetable oil-derived hydrated fuels (HVOs). Later, they'll be joined by second-generation biodiesel fuels known as BTL (biomass to liquid). These synthetic fuels made of straw and waste wood are carbon-dioxide neutral, emit 50-percent percent fewer particulates than diesel, and contain no sulfur. Happily, they can be used in today's diesels with no problem, Renschler said... Beyond that we'll see a biofuel enriched with hydrogen, called NExBTL. Renschler said it has energy properties much like diesel... Daimler has launched a three-year test of this fuel in co-operation with courier company DHL, the Stuttgart public transport authority, and the OMV oil company... (Lofty Ambitions: This Freightliner M2 hybrid utility truck was on display at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.)Labels: biofuel debate
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