By: Jeremy Sandor
Much has been made ado about the viability and future of ethanol in this country; it was first hailed as the future of American travel and a source of economic salvation for the our nation’s struggling farm industry only to be lambasted as a waste of food resources and demonstrated to be economically unfeasible.
Why not focus on a readily available resource that can be economically competitive today, a fuel that can be produced locally and can use oil waste from restaurants. I’m talking about biodiesel. Depending on the method of production and price of petroleum based diesel, biodiesel is already a cost competitive source of fuel that runs clean and does not require an engine overhaul in order to run effectively. What I am proposing is that the minor tax incentives available for producing biodiesel are ramped up in order to stimulate a greater production incentive for large companies (and small producers). An increased incentive to produce would only improve production techniques and further lower fuel prices. Clearly a small policy tweak could have broad implications for the way that Americans travel. Cheap, clean fuel sources are a win-win proposition and are closer than many realize.
14 comments:
You folks will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't biodiesel face the same problem as ethanol in that it is a competing use for potential food sources--that is to say that by using biodiesel we are taking food from the hands of the world's poor by driving up the prices for those food products?
Presumably (if I'm right about this) this is only a short-term effect, but the resulting costs to the poor are real. Something to consider.
That said, I'm also an advocate of any alternative to fossil fuels for a range of policy reasons, including both environmental and security issues.
Yes, Bio-diesel is a great way to make fuel that is also more environmentally friendly. My cousin once did this with his car but he did have a couple problems. One, The filtering process is expensive and can take a long time. Also, sometimes it was hard to get the oils from the restaurants. You are correct, their would need to be some sort of governmental intervention to make this economically viable.
On the other hand, Glenn is correct. When it comes down to the end, bio-diesel creates about the same amount of pollution as conventional oils. This is because of all the extra steps that are involved to make it like growing the crop and refining it. It takes a lot of gas to plow corn fields.
Biodiesel can also be made from soybean oil which does not ruin the soybean. So it does not have to raise food prices.
Also to consider:
People do use soybean oil for food and other products like:
http://www.ilsoy.org/soybean-uses/new-uses/.
In competition for fuel, this could raise demand for soybeans. Which would then raise the demand for land space.
The above comments show the circular issue which any fuel-alternative based on fuel is bound to create. However any alternative fuel source is still going to pollute (I mean even hydrogen gives us water vapor, ironically a pollutant in high quantities). The question is, will biodiesel pollute less than the other alternatives? Compared to electric (which doesn't have that messy food component), probably not.
Sidenote: I believe the buff buses still run on biodiesel.
yes, Biodiesel can be created from either used or unused soybean or other vegetable oils. It can be made from almost any plant-derived oil. There is potentially 100 million gallons of used vegetable oils available each year for creating biodiesel.
Biodiesel also presents the problem of not enough land for crops. In most of the world all the land that can be used to produce crops is already used. Therefore, a country would have to clear a lot of forested land or create more irrigated land to support new crops or they would have to convert crops used for food production to crops used for biodiesel production. The first option would cause increased desertification and contribute to the climate change process, and the second option would create widespread famine and is not feasible. It is tough to find the best option for an alternative fuel.
The biofuel market in China is booming, every year producers are increasing production and new producers are entering the market. By 2010 China’s biofuel production is estimated to reach 10 million tonnes, a 9 million tonne increase since 2005.
Already China officials are worried about the rapid increase in biofuel demand affecting shortage of edible grains and feedstock supplies. These shortages have already occurred in cornstalk used in ethanol production where China has seen prices increase by 500 percent since 2005.
The competition for grain between food and fuel producers is not limited to China. If the demand for biofuel continues to increase at such a high rate, due to its impact on food increase or shortage, biofuel may not be such a readily available socially sustainable resource. Even if it may be environmentally friendly, it may not be socially sustainable in today markets.
I agree with this in providing small incentives for people that use biodiesel. A friend of mine in high school converted his VW rabit to run off biodiesel and got the oil from a local breakfast spot.
In an energy in the environment class i took with prof. Jamie Nagle, he concluded that biodiesel would most definitely take up a lot of land for food resources but in our current situation by depleting our soils with conventional agriculture could it be possible to do massive crop rotations with soy bean plants that in this blog have been noted could be used as biodiesel fuel and food, and soy is a nitrogen fixer and helps out our soils?
I used to work at a summer camp and all our buses ran on biodiesel. We collected fats from the local restaurants and produced it ourselves--very easy to do. We had a "biodiesel classroom," where we made the biodiesel and taught kids about its benefits--so didn't take up alot of space. I definitely agree when you say biodiesel is a real alternative.
I couple years ago I did a motor swap where I put a 1.9 TDI motor from a VW into an older Toyota Pickup to run on veggie oil from restaurants. We had to setup a station in the garage to filter the oil to get debris out of it and add some additives to thin it out a little. You also need to insulate your "fuel" lines and tank or else it will coagulate inside the lines when it is very cold out. It smells delicious too, like french fries!
While this swap was a success on a local basis and the truck is still running veggie oil I don't think it could support our transportation sector. When I first got into it I thought it was a very viable alternative but after doing a lot of research it seems as though there wouldn't be nearly enough oil to run our country. We just don't produce enough of it. We could subsidize it, or maybe even use it in a smaller sector such as only existing diesel vehicles. While I really really like this as an alternative I don't think its practical on a big scale.
Here is an interesting Chinese biofuel company that seemed to be fairly profitable before the economic problems. This is a summary of what they do:
"Gushan Environmental Energy Limited is a biodiesel producer in China. It produces biodiesel and by-products of biodiesel production, including glycerine, plant asphalt, erucic acid and erucic amide. Biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning and biodegradable fuel produced from a variety of feedstocks, such as vegetable oil, animal fat and recycled cooking oil. Biodiesel is used to fuel a range of diesel engines, after blending with diesel, including diesel engines found in trucks, mass transit vehicles, marine vessels and generators. The by-products of its biodiesel production have commercial applications in the food, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. The Company sells its products in China to direct users, including marine vessel operators, petroleum wholesalers and individual retail gas stations. It primarily uses vegetable oil offal and used cooking oil to produce biodiesel. As of December 31, 2008, its aggregate annual biodiesel production capacity was 340,000 tons."
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