home heating oil in your tractor

[buickanddeere]

Back in the day when I was working as a power equipment engineer, one of the major manfacturers of large stationary diesel engines used in generators made noises about not honoring the engines' warranty if anything but no. 2 diesel was used. The no. 2 diesel could be red or any other color, but not clear like no. 1 diesel or kerosene. They said modern diesel engines require the additives in no. 2 diesel.

As an example a customer had an installation with a pair of turbines (jet engines) with an 18,000 gallon tank full of no. 1 diesel. The customer wanted to replace the turbines with new diesels and reuse the tank and the no. 1 diesel. The tank had passed all of the regulatory hurdles and the customer did not want to redo.

The compromise was that the customer would continue to use the existing tank and fuel, but that all fuel added in the future would be no. 2 diesel (red). It would take years for the diesels to use all of that fuel with only normal maintenance runs. During a hurricane or some other major power outage the fuel could be used within a few days. The tanks were sized for 72 hours at maximum output. For equal KW output diesels use about half as much fuel as turbines.

Well .yes, no and maybe on the turbine vs turbo diesel fuel consumption.
The 1950's design gas turbines being replaced use more fuel than the latest turbine designs. Today's turbo diesels also use less fuel than 1950's era diesels. So it's apples and oranges comparison.
Part load operation is another factor. Even a turbo diesel operating at 1/2 max flywheel HP has much lower efficiency. A gas turbine, even a modern unit with throttle vanes . They are just plain lousy at 1/2 load fuel consumption.
On the other hand . A modern gas turbine at 100% power. used in peaking and co-generating applications. They can approach turbo diesel efficiency in a much smaller, lighter and simpler to service package.
Largest piston engine HP iirc is approx 108,000HP . That is just a mid sized gas turbine.