The DZA Be Preachin' If anyone does a google search for "Biodiesel", they're probably going to stumble across The National Biodiesel Board website, The Journey To Forever website, and a number of other websites dedicated to homebrewing biodiesel. These sites are all fine and good, but I for one am not going to be making biodiesel in a meth-lab fashion in my garage, for the sole reason of rebelling against establishment or any other leftist hippy reason. I want to persue the manufacture of biodiesel and alternative fuels mostly for economic gain. When I say "economic gain", I mean that not only on a personal level, but on a national level as well. Biodiesel is all well and good for the environment. It's much cleaner than petroleum based diesel, it's biodegradable, and manufacturing it is also more efficient than petrodiesel when done correctly. The biggest selling point, which might be realized sometime in the near future, is it's ability to escalate the United States economy to a level maybe never before seen. Biodiesel keeps American dollars in America. The entire United States economy can run on biodiesel with no retooling whatsoever. Existing infrastructure will not need to be changed to run on this fuel. New jobs will be created and an oil embargo or boycott will have little to no effect on our economy. Biodiesel also has the advantage of being a very distributed industry. For example, if a biodiesel facility in the midwest has an accident or is rendered disabled, energy prices will not be affected in any other region of production. There will be no more price gouging or nationwide energy shortages from a regional event. In european countries, the biodiesel movement is already engaged on a federal level. In France, at least 5 percent biodiesel blends are mandated at fuel pumps. In the Black Forest region of Germany, B100 is mandated in all road and off road applications. All diesel vehicles manufactured in europe, like Fiats, Renaults, Citroens, BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, and Volkswagens are all warrentied to run on at least B20, some even up to B100. Interestingly enough, the same models those manufacturers sell in the US are usually not warrantied, and if they are, it's only up to B20 at the most. There's one main reason that Biodiesel is mainstream in the rest of the world and it's not in the US.


Price.


Biodiesel in Europe is usually cheaper at the pumps than petrodiesel. If that was the case in the US, we would be sucking down B100 as fast as we could produce it. The current manufacturing practice in this industry is to take virgin vegetable oil, usually soybean, and process it from there. There are around 3 billion gallons of waste vegetable oil and animal fats just thrown out every year in the US. That's a whole lotta biodiesel to be made. There is no measurable difference between biodiesel produced from virgin oil and biodiesel produced from waste oil. The only difference between the two products is price. It costs much less to produce it from waste fats than to grow an entire crop, and the use it exclusively for fuel. Like I said before, the next year is going to be a very interesting one. If biodiesel can be made, distributed, and sold for less than petroleum diesel, even if the difference is a few pennies, people will buy it. Americans may be somewhate frightened of sacrificing their giant SUV's for a tiny diesel econobox that gets 80 MPG. I don't understand their fears. I think a Duramax in a Denali would be badass. I have personally driven a BMW X5 with a 3 liter Diesel engine. I noticed no difference between that and a gas version, other than the stump-pulling amounts of torque.

America will eventually catch on. It will not be a gradual change. Something catostrophic will happen and everyone will be forced to catch up to the rest of the world. Lives will be lost and billions, maybe even trillions of dollars will be spent trying to keep a grip on the lifestyle that has been slowly slipping away for the past few decades, but eventually, a change will come.

There's a revolution calling.  ¶ Posted By Anonymous 6:40 PM