Why isnt Biodiesel Catching on Faster?

First off, lets learn a little about the product.

What is biodiesel?
Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

How is biodiesel made?
Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products -- methyl esters (the chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (a valuable byproduct usually sold to be used in soaps and other products).

www.biodiesel.org...

FactSheets
FAQ's

My question is, basically, why it isnt catching on faster. Gas prices are here to stay, and will only increase in my opinion. Now this is not a replacement for gas either, its of course diesel.

But what isnt it catching on more?

This is a fuel we can grow.

Heres some fuel, as far as the eye can see.


The new black gold.


Alot of Canola is grown here. It will be sold at an unfair LOW price. We practically have to give it away.

We have mass abundance of this crop, and its not being put to use in the right sectors.

This product alone would create thousands of jobs, and an improved economy for agriculture.

So whats holding it back?

The diesel engines? The oil companies? The governments because city centres will not profit as much because its an agriculture based business?

What is holding this back?

Sure it may be expensive now to have pure biodiesel, but supply must increase. Biodiesel can be run on a mix and doesnt have to run pure.

City buses here have begun to use it.

www.city.saskatoon.sk.ca...
www.municipalsuppliers.com...
www.gov.sk.ca...

Whats holding it back?


[edit on 30-8-2005 by Dulcimer]

If you mean the US, alot of reasons:

Diesel is more expensive than gas. You may get better mpg, but the psychological fator is not to be underestimated

Very few diesels on the market here

While promising, its still considered (Remember we are talking about preception and psychology here) a fringe technology. The closest anaology I can think of is the average Windows user. Sure a Linux box is more dependable etc, but the preception is that it a "For Geeks Only" OS

Lack of a diesel infrastructure once you get off the main highway system. Have you ever tried to buy diesel in a suburban area?

Im from Canada. I have never found a spot that didnt offer diesel, but then again I dont travel much.

We have the room, and the need for a product like this.

I believe the largest biodiesel plant is in Iowa, but I could be wrong.

This needs to be expanded.

Originally posted by FredT
If you mean the US, alot of reasons:

Diesel is more expensive than gas. You may get better mpg, but the psychological fator is not to be underestimated

you can make biodiesel yourself if you wanted. link

here in CA biofuel is $3.50/gal (which is only $.50 more then gas). I think if there was a larger market, the price would be significantly lower (granted it would have to be significantly larger). In a few years time, how bad is $3.50/gal??

Very few diesels on the market here

VW has a whole line of diesels, Jeep has the Liberty, Mercedes has a few, and that's just what's on the new market. link

While promising, its still considered (Remember we are talking about preception and psychology here) a fringe technology. The closest anaology I can think of is the average Windows user. Sure a Linux box is more dependable etc, but the preception is that it a "For Geeks Only" OS

That's only because it's not being marketed.

Lack of a diesel infrastructure once you get off the main highway system. Have you ever tried to buy diesel in a suburban area?

Here's all the retailers in the country. link

Now what if that wasn't just mom&pop start-ups and the corperate world did its thing, I don't think suburbanites would have too hard a time.

To me it seems that it's just another viable solution to part of our energy trouble that is being pushed from public eye. Or it's just being put to the side until people are sick of paying $5/gal for gas.

Here's an article on biofuel history. link



[edit on 30-8-2005 by Street Scholar]

The reason is simple - biodiesel, coal liquefication, tar sands oil etc. are great technologies (especially for USA). BUT in order those for those new tech to work the price of oil cannot fall under 35 $ per barrel.
The potential investors fear the oil industry can lower the prices of oil for some time (1-2 years) in order to make them bankrupt. This already happened in 80ties - many companies went bankrupt because of lower than expected oil prices.
So what should be done? The US goverment need to GUARRANTIE that the minimal price of crude oil will NOT fall under 35$ in future. It could be done through VAT (in case the price of crude oil falls under 35$ the VAT would be applied in order to keep it so high).
There are of course some problems with this - especially state intervention to the free market and that the oil companies have HUGE ties with US goverements especially republican ones. So you can hardly expect Bush administration to do something like that. Why should they invest into the new technologies and loose control over oil market when they can milk the people with 70$ per barrel?

it is ridiculous. Why are we slaves to the oil wars when we can make biodiesel.
In The Netherlands, biodiesel is sold at the pump for .65 a litre and crude diesel sell for 1.20 a litre...make sense to you? not to me it doesn't..

Its about time we started screaming for this to be investigated and truthful facts put before us.

its simple, and it can cost next to nothing, get a modified engine, get a big assed tank, put it in the back of your pickup, go to your local fast food restaurants, offer to take the grease from the fryers for free (since they have to pay to get rid of it) take it home, filter it, and you got reletivly cheap feul. until you get the cost payback from the engine (base it on the price of a gallon of oil) then after that, the fast food gets rid of the grease for free, and you got free fuel

It is a good alternative- but it cannot be the answer or technological fix for our whole gas line of products.

It is not sustainable, nor is it likely or advisable to use all of our arable land to create this type of energy. But it does sound like a good way to recycle!

If you want to make small amounts yourself- realgoods, I believe sells a small processing unit for about $2000.

Biodiesel requires a small amount of race car fuel to process- all other ingredients are easier to come by. The quality of your frying grease is another issue. Prestraining can be labor intensive. Some city in Oregon is testdriving a small biodiesel refinery for profit. That may be the short term solution.

I would say, depend on biodiesel for farm machinery only, use your local train for transporting finished goods out, and diversify your energy input as much as possible. Solar, wind, geothermal, biodiesel, etc.

By the way, what do we use for lubricants if we can't have oil?

Why isn't bio catching on? It is very hard to leave out the political part of it since that is where the breakdown happens. Last I heard we are paying farmers to NOT plant crops. Why keep spending the money for nothing and instead let them plant the crops for bio. I've seen some of it around here finally. But not to the extent I've seen it in Europe. BTW my windows desktop pic for the longest time was a pic of a field in Germany with the yellow flowers.

BTW Fred... Diesel here is now much cheaper than regular unleaded gas. However for a while it was the other way around.

I think if farmers shifted their focus from over producing grain and got away more from dairy farming which is overloading the market so bad that the U.S. government has purchased an 18 month supply of dry milk we could save a fortune on wasted tax dollars and actually produce a crop that does the farmers and our economy some good.

Ok if that didn't make sense its because i'm on my 3rd cup of coffee in the hour.

Think about the amount of crops and crop land it will take to produce enough of the biodeisel to supply even a small precentage of the country. To every action there is a reaction and this would influance all food prices and lessen our excess grains form going to poor starving people.

Originally posted by factfinder38
Think about the amount of crops and crop land it will take to produce enough of the biodeisel to supply even a small precentage of the country. To every action there is a reaction and this would influance all food prices and lessen our excess grains form going to poor starving people.

If people only knew how crappy the grain markets are now.

2 years in a row now, it costs more to actually produce the product, then you get to sell it.

Canola, the primary crop for biodiesel is basically not even worth growing now as you cant get a decent price for it.

And by the way, no matter how much grain we have, its not going to any poor people. Why?

Because farmers have no control in where there product goes after the sale.

By the way, what do we use for lubricants if we can't have oil?

There are some new Nano-based synthetics that are superior to any lubricants on the market to date. Not on the market just yet but it's coming soon.