Vegetable oil myths “The diesel engine was designed to run on
vegetable oil” “The first diesel engine ran on vegetable oil”
“Diesel designed the Diesel engine to run on vegetable oil”
Diesel designed engines based on Carnot’s heat cycle, Otto,
Daimler, Clerk, Benz, Mayback and Deutz had already built
functioning diesel engines long before Diesel published his
designs. In fact Diesel was denied a patent in Europe because
his ideas were “not original”, later he was granted a patent in
the US. Diesels first engine was designed to burn coal dust and
only in the last years of his life did he attempt to promote the
use of plant oils as fuels in tropical regions. In fact I know
of no account of Diesel ever having run a single engine on
vegetable oil of any type. At the Paris exhibition in 1900 a
small diesel engine built by the Otto company ran on peanut oil,
few at the exhibition were aware of this as it had been arranged
at the request of the French government, their idea was that if
these engines could successful