Diesel Generators or Petrol Generators?

Death of Diesel from the Fools?

• The usual Motley Fool teaser came through taunting that they knew a great buy and would let you know if you subscribed. They mentioned the University of British Columbia and diesel. Out of boredom, I did a quick look up. It looks like a company called Westport, WPRT on NASDAQ and WPT on the TSX, is promoting a technology developed at UBC where a bit of diesel fuel is injected followed by pressurized natural gas into a diesel engine thereby running the engine effectively on natural gas. They claim that this is to produce lower NOx and particulate matter. Nitrous Oxides actually comes from air and the high temperatures and pressures inside the engine which is why diesels and Hemis were non-existent in US passenger cars back when NOx were restricted and they all came back giving us 300 hp cars again when they shifted the pollution restriction to Ozone ( Ozone is produced by sunshine and lightning but is the critical catalyst in forming smog ). Particulate matter isn't as much an issue as it used to be, now that we have catalytic converters to burn them. I wouldn't put the emissions as a significant advantage but natural gas is cheap as it's a waste product of oil production and about 60% of it is just flared at the wellhead. But natural gas is also a gas and therefore has a low volumetric energy density, not nearly as bad as hydrogen and natural gas is at least easily liquefied but it takes a lo more room and pressure tanks to store it. I can see a market for it with standby diesel generators as refueling such generators is a problem during a crisis while natural gas lines are often unaffected by most disasters. Also it may be possible to configure the motors to run on either natural gas or diesel thereby giving you two sources of power. Trains are a maybe as carrying extra carloads of natural gas wouldn't be a problem for a train but trucks and farm vehicles would suffer from significantly reduced ranges. A reduced range for a personal vehicle probably isn't a problem so long as it's greater than lithium batteries and natural gas vehicles can be topped off overnight. So the technology is promising but are these industries ready for the capital costs associated with a new technology? Will they actually pay a premium price to make the investment in a small startup worthwhile?

• Answer:

  I tend to regard TMF recs as primarily benefiting the company and TMF, but not the investors. But, on rare occasions, they get one correct. If you feel the technology has merit, you can do more DD before deciding if you want to invest. I suspect it could be a long time cycle, so at my age, prefer not to do so. Good luck.