Key words: HVB, HVP, HVV, biofuel, trituration, production, decentralized, clean energy, CO2

Here is the alternative fuel par excellence, this time, for diesel engines: Pure Vegetable Oils or HVP. Indeed, these engines with indisputable virtues, today represent the biggest sales in France and particularly for 4 × 4 and their hybrid SUV cousins. Europe has given the green light to the HVP for years, but as in a famous Gallic comic strip “All of Europe is conquered. Any? No, because a small country is still resisting the invader ”

Why, then ?

The Titanic Syndrome

This is the revealing title of Nicolas Hulot's book on the suicidal and highly irresponsible behavior of the economic and political leaders of rich societies. Rich ? Of material yes, but common sense, no.
Currently, industry produces even more greenhouse gases than transport, but these are increasing alarmingly and should soon become the most polluting sector ... The problem with these activities is that they use fossil fuels which oil. However, the main common defect of these primary energies, with gas or coal, is their contribution of greenhouse gases, including the media C02, in a very short time, when we think of the 400 million years of storage by nature ! Are you still skeptical? The analyzes of the gases trapped in the deep cores at the North Pole show an obvious correlation between the rise in the level of C02 and that of the average temperature. Know that it has already increased by 0.6 ° in just 1 century. Consequences ? They are innumerable and extremely serious for all life on earth, including the most fragile: ours! These include, for example, the melting of freshwater ice floes, the disruption of the major marine currents that regulate the global climate, cyclones, the rise in sea level by thermal expansion, the increase in rainfall, whether torrential or not. , in temperate regions and on the contrary, an accentuated desertification in the southern regions. Now the balance is upset and since 1950, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions is exponential and directly proportional to our activities and economic growth (the famous + 3% per year…)! Not to mention the logical exhaustion of these resources, the earth can already recycle only half of the current CO2, which you know, is not the worst greenhouse gas by far. However, it should be understood that the one who consumes the most, pollutes the most, with current methods. At this level, North America, Europe, Russia and Australia, which account for only 1/4 of the world's population, use 2/3 of the energy produced! An untenable rate at the global level with our 6.5 billion human beings since it would take 5 times the resources of the earth to all live as… Americans! And what can we say in 2050, when we will be close to 10 billion? These flagrant and growing imbalances are conducive to tensions, even extreme ones, like war or rather its modern version, terrorism.

This is not the street that governs!

This little murderous sentence by M. Raffarin says a lot about the immutable state of mind of our "great" leaders, who are often poorly advised, and explains, by itself, 99% of our problems. If politics made rational decisions, there would be no more crises but, all too often, advisors are nothing more than the highly paid spokespersons of selfish and greedy lobbies. And we can wonder if the misfortune of some would not make the happiness of others ...
Political side therefore, nothing to hope. Except for Diester and other ethanol sectors in the hands of large farmers of rape, wheat and beet. Energetically bad from well to wheel or overall if you prefer, this sector has the only "advantage" of reducing and concentrating the production of this alternative fuel in the current refineries. As Christian Brodhag, the Interministerial Delegate for Sustainable Development, recently underlined, "The small size of the facilities (HVP, ndla) also poses transaction problems between all the actors that are necessary for their implementation. Decisions in a centralized energy system are easier than in a decentralized system. We are now aware of these difficulties in the deployment of wind power in France. (Park ridiculously weak and currently almost stopped by the lobbie EDF, ndla) »However, these micro-productions would avoid expensive transport and create jobs everywhere, is not it? And he added, "The context of sustainable development implies in fact minimizing the economic and social costs of the changes in production and consumption patterns made necessary to reduce our emissions. There are two main ways to reduce these costs:
· Technology that allows for a more efficient result at lower cost
· Seeking opportunities in economic and employment terms, new services and new products. The significant development of renewable energies therefore poses new problems by their very nature. "
Reading between the lines and with a little common sense, it is easy to see that the political situation is stuck to these announcements. Take for example, the last line taken from the above speech “looking for opportunities ..”: We will list them on paper and above all… do nothing concrete. Yet another outright egotistical reasoning induced by the dominant lobbies as the rapidly growing global imbalance between rich and poor countries threatens us with the worst in the short term. In fact, in less than two centuries, we are releasing carbon, mainly via petroleum, which nature has stored for good reasons of vital balance, be sure. To close this political chapter, on which our survival depends, let us add that Europe authorized by Directive 2003/30 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 May 2003 aiming to promote the use of biofuels or other renewable fuels in transport
“Thanks to advances in technology, most vehicles currently in use in the European Union can already use a weak blend of biofuel without major problems. The latest technological advances allow higher percentages of biofuel in the mixture. In some countries, blends with 10% biofuel and more are already in use. "

As we can imagine, renewable energies can play a major role, but are currently limited to 10% of energy consumption in Europe, reaching 21% by 2010 according to the regulations currently in force. Biofuels - ethanol, methanol and biodiesel - are expected to drop from 2% in 2005 to 5,75% in 2010, which is, ecologically, far from sufficient. In France, they are currently only incorporated up to 1% in gasoline and diesel, despite 180 million euros of tax incentives per year. Professionals in these sectors are impatiently awaiting other fiscal and regulatory measures, but the government remains silent on this issue.
And even if France has just increased the biofuel quota less taxed under the TIPP (domestic tax on petroleum products) or ICT now (Internal Tax on Consumption!), It has curiously "forgotten" the most promising and by far, of these new fuels: The vegetable oil of sunflower. While the agricultural orientation law will be voted on this October, the IFHVP has proposed two judicious amendments to Article 12 which will only allow the agricultural self-consumption of HVP on an experimental basis. This would finally put us in agreement with the directive 2003 / 30 / CE which must apply right in France since 1 last January, which is not the case, you understood it!

HVB, HVV or HVP?

Vegetable oil Brute, Virgin or Pure? The European term used is HVP, for pure vegetable oil. This is the only question that remains about this virgin sunflower oil extracted by mechanical pressure or trituration. Then a simple decantation of 72 H 00 and filtering 5 microns, allow a few hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles in Germany, Austria and Ireland in particular, to reduce their particles and have a CO2 balance "from the well to the wheel" close to zero! Better still, do not recover and recycle the 500 000 free tonnes of industrial frying oils, communities or restaurants that end up most often in nature? Note here that there are also biodegradable vegetable motor oils as effective as those based on petrol for 4 engine and 2 time as well as hydraulic oils widely used in Austria and Germany in essentially ... forest uses!
Coming back to HVP fuel, it is good to know that its Rudolf Diesel engine initially ran on peanut vegetable oil as it did during its public demonstration at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. A particularly interesting and applied feature for the military… The well-advised tankers quickly offered their “petroleum oil” as a substitute and M.Diesel even had to “disappear” from the boat bringing him to England in 1913 to diesel the English submarines…

Let's talk about performance and politics

Putting pure vegetable oil in a diesel engine is doubly beneficial because the production yields of this oil can reach 7,5 that is to say with the equivalent of a liter of oil used to produce , crush, transport the oilseeds, we can remove 7,5 liters of oil equivalent in the form of 4 liters of oil, therefore 3 remain to be sold, and 3,5 of food energy equivalent in the form of fatty meals for animal feed in substitution for imports (GMOs?) from Brazil or the USA.

Another thing, 1 liter of oil is energetically equivalent to 1 liter of diesel but does not release CO2 and reduces unburnt substances suspected of causing 75 to 3 thousand deaths per year by 6% in France alone. Indeed, while the engineers "know how" and have produced prototypes of cars consuming 3 L / 100 km of gasoline on average on the urban cycle, 90 and 120 km / h, in 1984 (Citroën Eco 2000, Peugeot VERA and Renault VESTA 1 then 2), nothing has been marketed for 20 years!

Only our ever clearer-sighted German neighbors and often better technicians than us, have "dared" to sell Audi A2, Volkswagen Lupo 3 L with TDI tri-cylinder engines that display the best yields of current production with more than 40% , maximum. Before them, in 1977, their compatriot Ludwig Elsbett, had developed a poly-fuel engine including sunflower oil of course, with already an overall yield of 40%! With this solution, more pollution displaced by a non-renewable electricity production, nor by the long and dangerous transport by giant tankers, the dangerous and polluting refining, the transport by tank truck and I forget about it. In addition, this oil is biodegradable, hardly flammable in case of accident for example and can ensure the role of fuel in all its current applications with even ... a delicious kitchen smell! This is possible due to many short and delocalized channels where consumers are. More or less transport of fuel and more fear of shortage typical of centralized energies to better control ...?

Add an easy-to-grow sunflower, with little water, no fertilizer, and a second boost in livestock feed instead of importing 70% of our US requirements as GM soybean cakes! With sunflower, waste can also be upgraded to solid fuel and natural fertilizer. Who says better ? Nobody ! And especially not this current political alibi dubbed Diester, so expensive and polluting to produce in oil refineries, that it composes only 30% of Bio Diesel

It is clear that the oil lobbies associated or not, the builders are as powerful as greedy for short-term goals. Remember that today, in 2005, with already more than 650 million "classic" cars and therefore very polluting in the world, it is more than time to react. What will become of these same multinational energy companies when their customers are all sick or dead? We are being beaten on the head and we are all exasperated by these macroeconomic blockages of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund)! So, to avoid the current disaster, tankers and builders concerned about their benefits first and foremost, must logically convert to this global industry to ensure the future and their own sustainability. The yellow gold must replace the black gold today, waiting even better with the end of the engines.

In our second part, we will see current citizen actions and their applications of HVP on current cars which demonstrate their feasibility and which are the seeds of this “yellow” revolution!

Marc ALIAS