Rudolf Diesel was born in Paris in 1858 to German immigrants. Before immigrating to France, Diesel Sr. had been a bookbinder in his native Bavaria. In Paris, he became a manufacturer of leather goods. The family worked hard to make ends meet. Young Diesel worked in his father’s shop and made customer deliveries. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the family was forced to leave France and resettled in London. Even before the war ended the following year, his mother sent Rudolf to live with an aunt and uncle in Augsburg, Germany, and learn the language. Diesel completed his basic education in 1873 and graduated from university in 1880.
More than 100 years ago, Rudolf Diesel patented a design for a new type of internal combustion engine. Photo taken in June 1892 – https.//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:Rudolf Diesel2.jpg
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Diesel’s Career
Following graduation, Rudolf Diesel returned to Paris to work with Carl von Linde, one of his former university professors, on the construction of a modern refrigeration plant. But Dr. Diesel’s first love was engineering, and he soon began to experiment with a more efficient internal combustion engine than existed at the time. The steam engines of their day wasted 90% of the energy, and Diesel intended to invent a more efficient engine.
Rudolf Diesel Tests his Engine Design
Diesel built his first engine model in 1892. After several original design revisions, his first viable engine was called “Motor 250/400.” He tested it in 1897. Three years later, Dr. Diesel introduced the first engine to run on 100 percent peanut oil. It was more than 75 percent efficient. The steam engines of the time were less than 10 percent efficient. That put him at odds with the petroleum industry. He ended up modifying his diesel engine to run on the oil refinery product we now know as “diesel.” His peanut-powered engine was soon forgotten.
Today’s Diesel Engine
The primary fuel used in today’s diesel engines is Petrodiesel which isderived from unrefined petroleum. Biodiesel, on the other hand, is a renewable, biodegradable fuel, manufactured from peanut oil, soybean oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil, animal fat, or recycled restaurant grease. In 2008, the rise in fuel prices, coupled with concerns about the remaining petroleum reserves, led to an increased use of biodiesel. Biodiesel now powers many semi-trucks, tractors, heavy construction equipment, boats, school buses, city transit buses, military equipment, diesel pickup trucks, passenger vehicles, home heating burners, electrical generators.
Rudolf Diesel’s Mysterious Death
In 1913, Rudolf Diesel died in controversial circumstances just before the outbreak of World War I. On a trip from Belgium to England on the steamer, SS Dresden, he disappeared. There were rumors that he had been murdered by agents from the big oil trust. Some speculated that he was killed by coal magnates. Others theorized that he was assassinated by German spies to prevent him from sharing details about the development of the German U-boat. There is also the possibility that he deliberately jumped overboard because he was in financial trouble. To this day, the case remains unsolved. One thing is certain however: Rudolf Diesel was a man ahead of his time.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall, and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
