cetanes, yeah, I can give you a textbook definition if you like, and octane, and alkanes, and flash point
I can even tell you that the way cetane and octane etc are calculated, in a ricardo or the modern equivalent, a whole host of other factors are tightly controlled, and what really fucks them up if you try and use them as gospel for a motor such as a lister is induction air temperature, unless you run LOTS of preheat to get it up to just below 70 celcius, and injection timing, which is always (from memory)
13 degrees BTDC
these (analysis) engines and ratings are there so you can compare one fuel to the next, they do not tell you which fuel is "best" because that depends on the specific application and therefore engine.
diesels, otto diesels, semi diesels, TVO, you name it I worked on em.
Genuine lister was DESIGNED for
a/ Distillate fuel ONLY
b/ viscocity <50 seconds redwodd @ 100 farenheit
c/ asphalt <0.5%
d/ sulphur <1%
e/ calorific value >19000 btu/lb
f/ s-gravity <0.88
bloody stupid to say because the first diesel ran on peanut oil then peanut oil is best, there wasn't a bloody petrochem industry then, fuels where what you could find, hell theres a whole history lesson in things like how producer gas was accidentally discovered and all the rest of it.
you want an "evil megacorp" argument? Ok you can have one.
1/ No such thing as "big oil", it's "big energy"
2/ energy is like heroin addiction, the addict denies he is addicted, won't give up, and needs more every year for the same hit
3/ "big energy" might fan the flames of addiction, but it isn't exactly a challenging task
4/ in REAL terms fuel now is cheaper than when my dad was a lad, it's only "expensive" for those of use who remember pre 1973 and have rose tinted glasses
5/ "big energy" might be a "dealer" and "pusher" for our "drug" of choice, but my god is it ever a quality product, with fabulous quality control from batch to batch.
6/ big energy might be all those things above, but never overlook the "BIG" in "big energy" economies of scale means they can do things you can't even dream of, and THAT means efficiency, and that means maximum calories per of usable fuel out for minimal calories of fuel in and used in production, they can beat any home set up by at least three orders of magnitude, that's 1000 times less waste energy that you or I can do it for.
7/ WVO + biodiesel or whatever you want to call it simply aren't an alternative, nobody understands just how much we use NOW... 88 million barrels per day.....
8/ the USA DAILY demand in the 3rd quarter of 2005 was 20.77 million barrels per DAY, you produced 8 million.... the ENTIRE production of ALL the americas, north and south, including all the offshore oil and canada, greenland, etc etc etc, is BARELY enough to supply the United States ALONE....
9/ the former USSR, western europe, china, india and the rest of asia used 13 million barrels a day, TOGETHER.
10/ where are you going to grow this biodiesel? because without petrochem byproducts such as fertilisers you aren't going to grow shit, never mind enough food to feed yourselves... how you going to transport it? where is the energy coming from to refine it?
NOW I'm here to tell you something.
Do you REALLY want to know why a hell of a lot of the world hates america?
Well, you take a listeroid engine built by people on a wage that wouldn't keep the average westerner supplied with bog (toilet) paper, and then you take that fucking great lump of cast iron and you crate it up in fucking great lumps of wood, and then you ship the bastard half way around the world, and THEN start whining about economic and ecological sustainability.
You any idea how much of that cheap "dino" fuel powered energy you consumed to get that lump in your back yard so you could whine about people burning dino fuel?
Did you paint the bitch? what in? what was the paint made from?
What do you use for lube oil?
How about the paper for gaskets and fuel filters? thought about the ecological aspects of that and how much dino fuel power went into it?
you never thought about these things and did the numbers, you don't have to, you are fortunate to be a citizen in what is by far the most energy rich country the planet has ever seen.
I am NOT trying to start a flame war here or bash the yanks, but I gotta tell you the one thing you CANNOT do is start banging the enviornmental drum about big oil, capitalism, and sustainability, when your road to PERSONAL sustainability is paved with kilowatt hours that other peoples cannot even dream of having at their disposal.
Now, if you picked up an old american made engine local to you, you would have disarmed my entire argument, as it is you need to save all the energy used in building your listeroid, shipping it to you, painting it, making all the spares you use, making all the consumables you use such as gaskets and filters (and shipping them to you too) before you can even start on trying to claw back some of the energy used in making your WVO, before you can even start on being energy neutral.
Of course if you were to turn around and say "balls to the eco shit, I'm doing this cos it is CHEAP and I am a tightwad" then hats off to you, but it is bogus to draw a line under GETTING a listeroid and then maintaining a listeroid and claiming that all anyone is allowed to consider is the fuel you use. no fair.
like I said, not a flame or antagonistic, so I hope it don't come accross that way, two peoples separated by a common language and all that.
it's a shame but emissions push harder than economics, but anyway, here's a decent paper (authorised by the SAE so it ain't crap) about free electrons in combustion, diesel specifically.
http://delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/1999-01-0549.PDF