Biodiesel is a fuel that is made from the long-chain esters (fatty acids) from plants.  These are usually concentrated in a few parts of the plant such as seeds.

The problem is that only a very small part of the overall plant, just a few percent of its dry weight, is made up of these esters.  The rest is basically some kind of cellulose or starch.  So you'd be throwing away that part of the plant (or doing something less useful with it) rather than making fuel from it.

Their may be a niche for biodiesel, using by-products that we'd throw away anyway (like old vegetable oil) but it would never make sense to grow plants for this purpose -- it would be too expensive.

To make fuel from plants, one has to make use of cellulose, because that's the bulk mass of plant material.  This would include methanogensis (anaerobic digestion) to produce methane,  cellulosic fermentation (via artificially replicated enzymes) to produce ethanol, perhaps some kind of pyrolysis to produce methanol and possibly some other products.

Like everything else (and maybe more so) there is no free lunch when creating a fuel.  This is definitely the case with biodiesel.

Build plugin hybrids that run on renewable methane. That's all that's needed.

1. Biodiesel is currently, for all intents and purposes, a domestically produced fuel.  Part of its budding appeal is that the U.S. wouldn't be importing it.  And here in the U.S., nobody is tearing down rainforests to grow soybeans and mustard seed. Currently, NO forests in the U.S. were torn down to produce biodiesel. Consumers in Seattle, Washington bear no responsibility for Brazil tearing down rainforests and I think it's blatantly irresponsible to insinuate as such.

2. The "Penn State site" you linked to is a page put up by students in a 101 level class.  It has not been vetted by anyone in the scientific community.  That issue aside, all they said was that it costs more, they said nothing about using more energy which would be the primary environmental concern, one would think.  Hybrids cost more too.

3. The cellulose byproduct of soybean oil is soybean meal, which is used in animal feed amongst other things.  Part of the appeal of soybeans is that no part of the plant is wasted, you can use the oil for fuel and the meal for feed.  

4. Everyone is quick to pick on the inefficiency of soybeans, myself included.  They only produce about 48 gallons of biodiesel per acre.  However, there are much higher yielding seed crops like rapeseed (127 gallons per acre), jatropha (202 gallons per acres), and algae (theoretically up to 10,000 gallons per acre).

Those of us who are concerned about climate change tend to view diesel favorably because it's so fuel-efficient, but that's like saying nuclear power is good because it doesn't emit carbon. The particulate emissions from diesel represent a serious public health threat in terms of increasing the risks of cancer and heart disease, and there are probably significant non-human environmental impacts as well. Until clean diesel engines are commercially available, I'd steer clear of it. Check out either EPA's Green Car Guide or ACEEE's Green Guide for more information.

It's important to note that B100 biodiesel dramatically reduces harmful emissions over petroleum diesel.  CO is reduced by over 50%, particulates by up to 65%, CO2 by 78%, sulfur by 100%, PAH & nPAHs by 90%, and hydrocarbons by over 40%. The only increase of conventional diesel is in NOx.

Here are a few links to the above mentioned statistics:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

Diesel engines are continuing to improve with the mandatory adoption of low sulfur diesel here in the U.S., enabling EPA's Tier II emissions standards and the adoption of Euro 3 and Euro 4 diesel emissions standards in Europe.  More on the oodles of new emissions reductions technologies here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/emissions/index.html

The guides you mentioned completely ignore alternative fuels like biodiesel, not surprisingly. The EPA's green car guide has also been linked to a slightly too friendly connection to automakers: http://www.cleancarcampaign.org/20020621alert.shtml

Re biodiversivit's post, the only way to stop, or at least significantly reduce, the ecological harms of driving is to stop or significantly reduce driving.  A great lowering of the human population would also greatly help, as it would in all ecological matters.

Re bhurley's constant rant, it's simply not true.  First, gasoline is more refined than diesel, and the pollution from the extra refining of gasoline is emitted at the refineries.  Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, as I said before.  Second, what greenstork said.  Third, the only reason that catalytic converters can't be used with diesel engines is the high amount of sulfur that's in petroleum diesel.  Biodiesesl contains no sulfur so that a catalytic converter can be used on a diesel engine burning it.  This combination would create an ultra low emission vehicle.

Jeff Hoffman

A significant, obvious benefit of biodiesel is its potential to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and fossil fuels in general.  I'm not an air quality expert, but I'd bet a lot that combustion of biodiesel doesn't put nearly as many types of dangerous carcinogens into the air as the hydrocarbons of gasoline or conventional diesel.  Additionally, while burning biodiesel does release CO2, just as fossil fuels do, it's CO2 that's being drawn out of the atmosphere by plant respiration, rather than CO2 that's been locked up in the Earth's crust for a few geologic ages.  Thus biodiesel more closely resembles a closed, sustainable system, not to mention the fact that it's renewable.

One reason that biodiversity is so important is that it makes a system more adaptable.  I think the same thing goes for our energy system.  Like ethanol, methane, and hydrogen, biodiesel helps diversify an economy that up until now has been dangerously homogenous.  It may not be a perfect solution, but it's a step up from where we are now, and it sure as heck beats fossil fuels.

Also, in regard to jimbeyer's post about only using the fatty acids in plants, MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article about progress that is being made to utilize more of the plant in the production process.

Frequently asked technical questions about Grist's newsletters and website.

But recycling all the food, crop, human, and animal waste using wind and solar power to produce biodiesel and using that biodiesel to then power plugin hybrids is a good idea.

As is producing other biofuels from the waste stream like methane, ethanol, and methanol, using renewable energy for processing and refining.

A comprehensive energy policy is what is needed.  In fact the new fast charge nano tech lithium ion battery would make electric cars the best solution.  

But conversion of the transportation energy economy to that source will take awhile, biodiesl from recycling is a good interim solution, especially in diesel hybrids.

And air travel will still rely on liquid fuel.  Better off with jet biofuel produced from recycled food, crop, human, and animal waste than ever more expensive (in terms of dollars and blood) oil based jet fuel.

But the Brazilian plan?  Eco-disaster.  Sugar cane and soybeans produced the big agri-chem-biz-mono-culture-GMO way is suiciode for spaceship earth.

The first time I've agreed on anything with this poster/moderator.  

The population control mention is apreciated too.  Should the women of the world get their reproductive rights back from fundamentalist religious outfits like islam, catholicism, and the fundamentalist bushco inc. administration, it would go a long way toward that goal of population growth control.

The problem is that the continual support of poster/moderators like this one for bushco inc. administration policies undermines efforts to oust the neo-conservatives.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

The energy balance for corn ethanol and biodiesel are completely different.  While ethanol is very inefficient, at or around a 1 to 1 energy balance, biodiesel is very efficient, at 3.2 to 1.  What that means is that for every 1 unit of energy that goes into the system, biodiesel stores 3.2 units of energy in the fuel.

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html
http://www.gobluesun.com/html/pdf/Biodiesel_Lifecycle.pdf
http://www.eesi.org/programs/agriculture/Energy%20Balance%20update.htm

What is also important to note is that this energy balance model is for biodiesel produced from soybeans which only yields 48 gallons an acre. There are much more efficient crops like rapeseed at 127 gallons an acre and even research on algae that could produce up to 10,000 gallons an acre and grow in the desert using salt water:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

I fully support plug-in hybrids too.  In fact my dream car is a hybrid diesel but I think it's important to set the record straight on the many misconceptions about biodiesel which unfortunately gets lumped in with corn ethanol when in fact there are major differences in energy production costs.  

It is only a matter of time before Seattlites start buying the cheapest biofuels which will most likely come from abraod. Campaigns to buy locally will fail because people will buy the least expensive product. By promoting biodiesel, you are promoting the use of cropland for fuel instead of food. The destruction of rainforsts has already begun because they are the only place left to get more cropland.

Farmers are drooling over the prospect of growing crops to make biodiesel. Once the profit motive genie gets out of the bottle, we will never get it back in. The fact that Bush thinks it's a great idea sends a chill down my spine. If farmers can get more for biodiesel crops than food crops, that is what they will grow (unless it is made illegal to do so and that is not how free markets work). This will increase the cost of food. The 800 million malnourished on the planet are that way because they cannot afford food as it is. There are three billion more people in the pipeline. Farmers are going to be very busy without growing crops to fuel our cars.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I think you're making far too many assumptions. You're assuming that biodiesel will be a cost effective export fuel and that has never been proven in real world circumstances.  In fact, there are literally dozens of tax incentives and more being proposed every day to enhance domestic production.  Again, domestic production = NO impact on rainforests.  Farmland in the U.S. is already firmly established, no new forest will be cut down.

The cost off food is not controlled by a free market, just the opposite.  In fact, there are many farms around the U.S. who actually get federal subsidies to NOT grow food.  There are huge extra stores of grain that sometimes get tossed.  It doesn't go to malnourished nations because giving food to impoverished nations can perpetuate poverty by artificially maintaining high birth rates.  You were so quick to point out that we need to keep the population in check and as callous as it may sound, keeping food prices low isn't necessarily the answer.  

Biodiesel has enough benefits not to get bashed on a very prominent environmental website, citing Penn State students as your source.  

As far as the fine points of these comparisons cited in your links, I smell BS.  Will get back to a complete breakdown on this later.

You are right about bio-d's sophistry though.  It's subtle as usual.  And as usual serves to diss progress on biofuel to leave the status quo.

Does bio-d does  have energy policy suggestions?

"Develop energy sources that would make growing crops non-competitive (another Manhattan project)?"

Sounds a lot like nuclear power/hydrogen fuel cell transportation energy to me.  But maybe not.

Let's ask him?

"More research" bio-d?  Or will you admit that practical solutions like biodiesel and ethanol from waste using green energy for refining is part of an energy plan that ought to be instituted now?

My "Manhattan Project" would be a 10 year plan using plugin hybrid, wind, solar, and biofuel from waste.  Any crops grown for food or fuel  would use fertilizer that is a byproduct of waste digestion to produce methane.

And the tractors, processing and refining for fuel crops would be powered with solar, biofuel, and wind power.    

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

The energy costs of biodiesel are lower because there is no "refining," per se.  Plants are crushed for oil and then go through a process called transesterification.  The point that I was trying to make is that this is a relatively low energy process compared to what corn goes through to eventually yield ethanol.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transesterification

I like your "Manhattan Project".  It reminds a little bit of our local congressman, Jay Inslee's, New Apollo Energy Project:
http://www.house.gov/inslee/issues/energy/apollo_amdt_update.html

 I am interested in getting a newer Diesel car (hopefully with better emission technology than an older diesel engine), a biodiesel converter "kit" to add a second fuel compartment and to filter cooking oil waste to fuel my car. The comments that I am reading, though, have increased my skepticism about buying a diesel engine car and running it on used cooking oil.

I have some practical concerns - such as engine life and, also, if I resort to regular Diesel once in a while, if that would outweigh the benefits of used cooking oil the rest of the time.

Does anyone have any ideas on oil/ biodiesel and how 'safe' this is on engines? Is Diesel that much more horrible than regular petrol for once in a while use?

I'm looking for some field stories from folks who have been running newer diesel engines on used cooking oil.

The other option would be to go hybrid, but I also recently heard a good point -  there are non-hybrid vehicles out there with comparable gas mileage and hybrids have battery waste on top of emissions. Any thoughts?

1. There is currently no biodiesel export business worldwide. In fact biodiesel is specifically local in it's nature, unlike natural gas or the other fossil fuels which require large holdings piped, transported and refined globally..
   
2. Brazil's deforestation is not primarily for biodiesel production, and suggesting otherwise is an intentional distortion, or a very deep misunderstanding of global agriculture crop practices.
   
3. Soybean oil is a by product of soy meal production. Soy is grown almost entirely for it's meal/protein content.
   
4. Renewable fuels will always cost more to produce than fossil fuels. This is inherent to the very nature of renewable anything (as opposed to simply using all of the fossil fuels nature has produced and stored over the past million or so years).
   
5. If truly concerned for biodiversity of agri-lands, biodiesel should be the least of your worries. For one- stop consuming soy products of any sort, now. Stop all consumption of meat. And work for localized energy sources world-wide, instead of ever increasing capital demands (often met through increased farming income) required for energy transportation.
   
6. Please suggest a viable alternative fuel or transport available now, or anytime in the near future, for those of us ready to make change now.

Biodiesel and petroleum diesel run pretty much the same in any diesel car.  But there is a notable difference between waste vegetable oil and biodiesel.  WVO is much thicker, and often dirtier than vegetable oil. You need to perform major modifications to run WVO, and could face costly repairs should anything go wrong.  

The biggest concern with any diesel fuel or vegetable oil is water. Modern diesels engines have a tough time with any water in the fuel.  Most new diesels run cleaner and are more efficient because the fuel is injected into the engine at very high pressures, in a very fine mist.  New VW's pump fuel into the cylinder at 30,000 psi.  If any water is present in the fuel, it can wreak havoc at these high pressures AND can also cause rust.  

Since WVO is used to fry up foods, water can find its way into the fuel.  

Biodiesel is also quite hydrophilic, but if it is stored properly and manufactured correctly, should have no water present and is completely safe for any modern diesel engines. It is important to ensure that your distributor gets their biodiesel from a reputable manufacturer and follows a few best management practices for storage.  In fact, biodiesel has more lubricity (it's greasier) than regular diesel fuel, which is better for the long-term health of your engine.  

One of the biggest issues with burning WVO is the release of a nasty toxin called acrolein:
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/acrolein.html
Acrolein comes from the glycerin present in veggie oil.  In biodiesel however, glycerin is removed, and with it, this nasty chemical.

More info here:
http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2590&SearchTerms=wvo,emissions

In general the BiodieselNow forums that I listed in the link above are an excellent resource for these types of questions.  

Biodiesel is heated then cleaned in the case of recycled vegetable cooking oil, or oil from animal fat, or waste.  With seed it is pressed, heated, and filtered.  

The main oil based energy input to biodiesel from crops grown specifically for that purpose is the oil used to make the fertilizer and the oil used to power the farm machinery.

That is roughly the same for ethanol or biodiesel, ethanol comes in a poor second because of the heat needed for distilling.  But this heat provided by a windpowered heat pump and solar collector combination replaces all that energy with renewable energy.

It locks in the value of the wind and solar, into the biofuels by substituting for fossil and nuclear energy.  It saves emissions of greenhouse gases and radiation.

This is how the energy equation must be viewed.

The cost of energy from oil, coal, and nuclear all weighed on an economic scale that takles into account their inherent promblems.

That is why the link you gave that measured only the energy for distillation distorts the picture.

And saying well this is how it's done now, assuming it must be done that way just plays into the hands of those arguing that renewablews like biodiesel are worse than oil.

Leading one down the garden path, buy the false premise and you buy the false argument.  I suspect those sites all have agendas that are behind those obsfucations.


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

"Wind energy is one of the cheapest, most widespread, and fastest-growing forms of renewable energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory projects wind energy costs an average of $0.02 per kilowatt hour this year."

Eureka!  It has happened.

See what I mean?  A company that makes biofuel (ethanol, biodiesel, methane, methanol) buys a wind system, then locks in that 2 cent per kwh energy into a fuel that substitutes for ever more expensive fuels made from oil.

Using a heat pump, for instance, powered by the wind system, at a cost of 2 cents per kwh, gets you triple the heat of a simple electic powered distillation boiler.  

It allows the use of solar heat collected at low temperatures, very efficiently, to distill the ethanol, then on condensation the waste heat can be used to heat more ethanol mash.

It is pure fiction that these processes are impractical or inefficient and that oil based energy is cheaper.  nothing but energy monopoly game propaganda.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Improved technology like the saltwater algae scenario proposed by greenstork would change everything. But as of today, if you use biodiesel made from soybeans, you will usurp ten acres of cropland per year to keep your gas tank full. That is a lot of planet for one person's gas tank. Run the numbers yourself. I used the 48 gallons per acre suggested by greenstork and 500 gallons per year as an average: 500 gal/50 gal per acre = 10 acres.

As long as it remains a local cottage industry that does not raise the price of food, or stimulate the conversion of fallow land into production, then it is not a problem. The flip side of that, however, is that it will also not be much of a solution. My post was a warning for the future.

Propel,

Your comment that there is currently no biodiesel export business worldwide was instructive. As long as that remains true, then American consumers of biodiesel can rest easy that their fuel will not destroy rainforests.

However, I did not say, "Brazil's deforestation is [snip] primarily for biodiesel production." I said that rainforests are being cut down to grow soybeans and that soybeans are also used to make biodiesel. There is a big difference. If the production of biodiesel increases the demand for soybeans in Brazil, then one can assume that more cropland will be needed to meet that demand, in Brazil. Pretty straightforward logic.

Greenstork,

Your point, that biodiesel may never be a cost effective export fuel, was a good one. However, I beg to differ with the comment "The cost off food is not controlled by a free market,..." The existence of some pork barrel protectionism and a few crop subsidies does not mean that all food production has been disengaged from the free market.

In reference to your comment about food surpluses:

It doesn't go to malnourished nations because giving food to impoverished nations can perpetuate poverty by artificially maintaining high birth rates. You were so quick to point out that we need to keep the population in check and as callous as it may sound, keeping food prices low isn't necessarily the answer.

Food surpluses represent a financial loss to someone, either the farmer or the middleman who bought it from him. That loss would be compounded if they had to ship it across an ocean to give it away. Companies cut their losses and dispose of it as economically as they can. I once watched a truck from a local bakery pull up to the dump and unload thousands of perfectly good, high end bread products for the same reason. Your suggestion that surplus disposal represents a government conspiracy to retard the birthrates of malnourished people is way off the mark, right in there with your suggestion that higher food prices would be a good thing.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Grade A sophistry D!  Congrats.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I think you've twisted my my language a little bit.  I never suggested anything about a government conspiracy, nor did I say high food prices would be a good thing.  

I did say that "low food prices weren't necessarily the answer" to a complex issue such as poverty.  And you do understand that U.S. farm subsidies serve to control the price of grain on a world market. I think conspiracy implies some sort of motivation, which I don't believe to be the case.

Also, I think you're deluding yourself if you think it's just a few "pork barrel" subsidies.  Bush just proposed the largest increase in farm subsidies ever.  These policies have much more to do with world poverty and the availability of food in developing nations than whether or not biodiesel and ethanol take off:
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twe280e.htm
http://www.reason.com/hod/cpmt061705.shtml

P.S. While I agree that it is impractical to expect biodiesel to fuel the world, it could fuel 10% of the U.S. -- providing jobs for farmers, reducing harmful emissions, and reducing our reliance on mid-east oil -- with none of the harmful side effects you mentioned.  That's a good thing biodiversivist, something the environmental community should be cheering, not poking holes in.  

Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.

"There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable."

Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants. Their report is published in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76).

In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:

• corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;

• switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and

• wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

• soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and

• sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

"The United State desperately needs a liquid fuel replacement for oil in the near future," says Pimentel, "but producing ethanol or biodiesel from plant biomass is going down the wrong road, because you use more energy to produce these fuels than you get out from the combustion of these products."

Although Pimentel advocates the use of burning biomass to produce thermal energy (to heat homes, for example), he deplores the use of biomass for liquid fuel. "The government spends more than $3 billion a year to subsidize ethanol production when it does not provide a net energy balance or gain, is not a renewable energy source or an economical fuel. Further, its production and use contribute to air, water and soil pollution and global warming," Pimentel says. He points out that the vast majority of the subsidies do not go to farmers but to large ethanol-producing corporations.

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, economy or the environment," says Pimentel. "Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits." He says the country should instead focus its efforts on producing electrical energy from photovoltaic cells, wind power and burning biomass and producing fuel from hydrogen conversion.

There's no reasoning with some.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Just some thoughts

Castor Oil @ http://www.castoroil.in