About Biodiesel
Written by Administrator   
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Biodiesel is an alternative to diesel fuel. Biodiesel is a renewable fuel unlike petroluem fuels becuase it is derived from an oil crop that can be grown year after year. The oil seeds like soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, and canola are harvested and crushed to extract the oil that they hold. This oil can then be used for cooking or can be made right into biodiesel. The oil that is used for cooking will soon become used vegatable oil that can then be made into biodiesel. This allows for our country to become less dependent on oil producing countries while providing us with a product that can be produced in our country providing jobs, and tax dollars which keeps our money here at home. 
Biodiesel also is very favorable when compared to traditional diesel fuel in the area of emissions. The graph below appears to be upside down but it is not. It shows the decrease in emissions when biodiesel is compared to tradiotional diesel fuel. The bar labeled B100 denotes the decrease in emissions of pure biodiesel compared to diesel #2 and the bar labeled B20 shows the decrease in emissions when a 20% biodiesel and 80% petrodiesel blend is compared to traditional #2 diesel fuel.

Chart comparing the emissions of B100 to B20 and Diesel #2

 

 If you are reading this it is probably becuase you are looking to kick the petrodiesel addiction at above $4 per gallon it is a very expensive one. This brings us to another very important advantage biodiesel has over petrodiesel; biodiesel can be often be produced for less then purchasing petrodiesel espiacally for the homebrewer. When rudolph diesel invented the diesel engine he displayed it at the world fair in Paris France and the engine ran flawlessely for weeks on peanut oil. This peanut oil was the predecessor to the biodiesel we know today. When the oil companies saw that the diesel engine was going to be succesful they jumped on board and offered up what was then considered a byproduct. This "byproduct" was much cheaper then the peanut oil Rudolph Diesel orginally used. Ever since that time petrodiesel has been significantly cheaper then vegetable oil based fuels. However now we begin to see that biodiesel and renewable oil based fuels can be produced locally and are normally cheaper then petroleum based fuels.

 Chart showing the increase in biodiesel consumption as diesel price increases

The above chart shows the relation between diesel consumption, diesel price, and biodiesel consumption. As you can see this data is somewhat dated becuase when was the diesel price at $2.70, if it were that still you probably wouldn't be on this site. The purple line which is denoting millions of gallons per year of diesel consumption, as price rises consumption slowly rises. We also see that as the price rises biodiesel consumption more then doubles each year. From this data it appears that biodiesel consumption is on an exponentail growth curve. The biodiesel market will continue to grow as the price of diesel fuel increases.

You are probabaly wondering just what a gallon of homemade diesel costs, well you should find with current methanol prices you will have about $1 in methanol for every gallon of biodiesel. You then must consider the electricity and catalyst both of which are minimal compared to the costs in methanol. Of course if you invest in this project you will have the cost of the equipment the space the equipment takes up and your time in building the equipment and running the batches.

 The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) mandates that all biodiesel produced meets ASTM specification. This is a quality assurance and in order to obtain tax incentives or sell the fuel the ASTM spec must be met. Often times the homebrewer is not trying to meet ASTM spec as it costs to much to get the fuel tested (about $1000) and even if he did meet the spec and claimed the incentives then he would have to play by the governments rules. See the page on for more information on testing for quality and ASTM test.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 13 July 2008 )