An Old Style Lister diesel engine is the primary source of motive power for the Multi Functional Rural Fuel Platform (MFRFP). This motive power is used to drive the oil seed extruder, the electric generator, the water purifier, the water pump, plus provide a small amount heat for home and/or water heating.
Locally Produced Fuel
The Multi Functional Rural Fuel Platform's (MFRFP's) oil seed extruder crushes vegetable oil seeds. This extrusion process produces both a quality high meal cake and a vegetable oil. This vegetable oil is used as the fuel for the MFRFP's diesel engine. Using a locally produced fuel ensures there is no need to import fuel into the community. Rural communities can therefore use the MFRFP to energize their lives without needing to spend all their income importing fuel to provide that energy.
Why the Diesel Engine?
We chose a diesel (compression ignition) engine to provide the motive power for the MFRFP as it is capable of burning both petroleum based fuels like diesel and kerosene, as well as renewable fuels like vegetable oils. Old Style Lister's goal is to build a generator system that will run 100,000+ hours with very little maintenance. Most larger generator systems last about 20,000 before you need to rebuild them and the low cost portable generators, about 3,000 hours if you are lucky...
Vegetable Oil as fuel, is this a new idea?
The concept of using vegetable oil as a fuel dates back to 1895 when Dr. Rudolf Diesel developed the first diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. He demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and described an experiment using peanut oil as fuel in his engine. In 1911 Rudolf 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." In 1912, Diesel said: "the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." Lets make his statement come true in the 21st century...
