Have you used biodiesel, or would you?

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a biofuel, a diesel fuel that is made from renewable resources instead of petroleum-based diesel fuel (petrodiesel). It can be made from a variety of vegetable oils and animal fats.

Vegetable oil was first converted to diesel in 1853. The first running diesel engine was created by Rudolf Diesel in 1893 and won a prize at the World Fair in Paris, France in 1900. On that occasion it ran on peanut oil rather than diesel, however. Diesel expected fuels from vegetable oils to become as important as gasoline.

Biodiesel has many advantages:

• unlike petrodiesel, it is renewable
• it recycles carbon already in the environment rather than releasing locked-up carbon
• it can be used instead of diesel by many engines without any alteration (the rubber gaskets and hoses of pre-1992 vehicles may be degraded)
• it can be blended with diesel to improve lubricity of pure ultra low sulfur petrodiesel fuel
• it can be distributed using the existing diesel distribution system
• it only catches fire at a much higher temperature (150 °C) than petrodiesel (64 °C) or gasoline (-45 °C), so it is much safer in accidents
• it is biodegradable and non-toxic
• when used as a fuel, it significantly reduces toxic and other emission
• it can use material which is currently considered waste, saving on disposal costs and environmental impacts, and could improve the profitability of products which produce waste that can be turned into biodiesel
• reduces emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) by vehicles by approximately 50%
• reduces emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) by vehicles by approximately 78.45%
• contains fewer aromatic hydrocarbons
• eliminates sulphur dioxide emissions (SO₂)
• reduces the emission of particulates by up to 65%
• it improves engine lubrication
• it improves fuel efficiency
• it can be made on a small scale

Biodiesel does have a few disadvantages, however:

• its use is limited in cold climates because it gels at a higher temperature (around 0 °C) than petrodiesel (the gel point can vary)
• farming to produce biodiesel can involve use of pesticides and fertilizers, and increasing production would mean diverting land from other uses.
• produces more NO_x emissions than petrodiesel; catalytic converters can reduce this, but are not normally fitted as the sulphur in petrodiesel destroys them (biodiesel has no sulphur)
• there would not be enough to meet all demand (there would not be enough land after food production to grow the crops)
• it may not be acceptable to vegetarians, as it may have been produced using animal fats

Production and use of biodiesel still accounts for only a small proportion of total diesel, but it is growing rapidly. Biodiesel currently tends to be more expensive than petrodiesel, but it has not yet achieved economies of scale, and the price of petrodiesel is likely to rise in the long term.

Biodiesel tends to dissolve residues deposited on engines that have used petrodiesel, which can clause clogging of filters by particulates in the short term, but leads to cleaner engines. Biodiesel has been used in heating systems as well as in vehicle engines (again, as it dissolves old residues there can be clogging initially).

Sources that have been used for biodiesel, whether commercially or experimentally, include: soybean oil, rapeseed oil, other crop oils, waste vegetable oil (from cooking), Jatropha, waste tallow, waste lard, algae. Although waste vegetable oil is a very good source, there is not enough to meet all demand, and it is more profitable to turn it into soap. The residue from some crops could be put to further use; for example, that from mustard could be used as a pesticide. The Jatropha tree used in India and Southeast Asia is also useful for watershed protection.

Studies show that in theory algae could be grown in desert areas that are not suitable for crops and take advantage of the sunlight, excess CO₂ and farm waste. Algae have not yet been tried commercially. Research on a variety of sources for biodiesel continues.

Farming uses energy, and it may be that more energy is used in the whole chain in creating biodiesel than is produced by the use of the biodiesel. Different studies produce different answers about what the efficiency of biodiesel production is, and how well it compares against other forms of energy (which have different production/extraction costs and produce varying amounts of energy). The equation is different for each crop or source. Cost and ease of use and environmental considerations also need to be taken into account. These differences allow different experts and others to make different claims for and against biodiesel.

Whether biodiesel will make economic or environmental sense for a particular country or region will depend on what land is available (bearing in mind how much is needed for food production) and what crops will grow on it, or what wastes are available that can be converted. Marginal land, for example beside roads, can be used for some. Countries' tax policies can also make a difference.

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Have you used biodiesel, or would you?

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