hey,

I'm currently in my senior year of high school and am about to write my final paper biodiesel. The paper will be about wether or not people should explore or switch to the world of biodiesel, with the rising diesel prices. If any of you have any facts, comments or topic on the matter that I should write about please feel free to let me know. This paper has to be killer. Thanks.

To start off Biodiesel is a much better fuel supply than #2 (gas bought diesel) both for the truck and for the enviroment. Biodiesel's lubricity is 20X greater than #2 and is a renewable energy source that burns cleaner than #2. No figures..maybe someone else can help with that.

Here are a couple of sites that should be able to provide you with some information, as well as some people to contact if need be. I contacted and used them as a resources for some articles that I had to ghost write for a client. Good luck on the paper.

www.dieselforum.org (http://www.dieselforum.org)
www.biodieselnow.com (http://www.biodieselnow.com)

Here's another:

http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/

Biodiesel, as we now know it, is not going to get us anywhere. The feedstocks are far too expensive and linked to food use. Algea shows promise, as do a few other new feedstocks. As we are learning with corn and ethanol, we cannot feed ourselves and our vehicles simultaneously.

Good luck with that paper.

There's a lot of misinformation on this issue. We're not starving people to make ethanol. Consider this article: from American Thinker. (http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/the_bum_rap_on_biofuels.html) An excerpt is below.

"Here in the US we have indeed begun to "grow" biofuels, for instance using mostly corn and also soybeans to produce ethanol. So let's take a look at some numbers: According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 1995 American farmers produced 192 million metric tons of corn. Of this, 14.7 million tons were used to make ethanol, from which 4.9 million tons of dried distillers grain were returned to the grain market. That left 182 million tons available for consumption and export.

In 2007, US corn production rose to 349 million metric tons. Of this, about 62 million tons were used to produce ethanol, of which 21 million tons of dried distillers grains were returned to the grain market. This left a whopping 308 million tons available for consumption and export -- an increase of 110 million tons, or about 82 percent, over the 1995 figures.

During these years, the US population increased by about 14 percent, from 264 million in 1995 to 301 million in 2007. We needed only about 25 million additional tons of corn to meet our rising domestic, non-ethanol consumption and export requirements. In fact, we produced an additional 126 million tons. Obviously, the notion that our increased use of corn for ethanol has "caused" food shortages is false."

Here's some more information about the campaign to discredit biodiesel from the Biodiesel Board:

"On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) expressed outrage over the orchestrated anti-biofuels campaign. "It turns out that a $300,000, six-month retainer of a beltway public relations firm is behind the smear campaign, hired by the Grocery Manufacturers Association," said Senator Grassley. "They've outlined their strategy of using environmental, hunger and food aid groups to demonstrate their contrived 'crises'. I think it is important for policy-makers and the American people to know who's behind this effort."

Senator Grassley concluded his lengthy statement with, "It's time we clear the air, look at the facts, and recognize once again that everything about our domestic renewable fuels industry is good, good, good." Read his full comments in this PDF. (http://nbb.grassroots.com/resources/GrassleyNRMay152008.pdf) and here's an article from Roll Call on the issue. (http://nbb.grassroots.com/resources/RollCallGMA.pdf). I don't think we should cut down rain forests to make palm oil myself, but I don't think bio should be vilified politically either. There are two sides to this story and the Main Stream Media is telling only one.

Mannytranny is right, biodiesel as we know it is not the solution. But the only reason we have biodiesel as we know it is because the food crops were what has been available in abundance so far. As I understand it most plant based U.S. biodiesel is processed from soy beans. Rapeseed ( the european standard ) and palm yield more oil per hectare than soy. Algae shows great promise as some species can triple their mass in as little as twenty four hours. That could yield about six hundred times as much oil per hectare per year. Biodiesel (done properly) with its production byproducts ( excess methanol reclaimed, stalks composted etc.) can actually cause a reduction in greenhouse gasses particularly CO2 by putting more carbon back into the ground. Petroleum diesel can't do that, unless of course you have a spill...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGptWo6elAE&feature=related

Here are some more good places to look:

http://www.localb100.com/
http://www.biodieselwarehouse.com/
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/
http://biodiesel.org/
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/
http://biodieselcommunity.org/

I've been a proponent of biodiesel for a long time (even back when mentioning it on here was a good way to get flamed) so I support it 100%. But, if you're going to write a decent paper on the subject, you're going to have to research the other side of the argument for balance. The links given above are great for the positives of biodiesel, but for the other side of the argument do a google search for David Pimintel (I think that's the spelling, if you type that and biodiesel in, google will know what you're talking about I'm sure). He is a professor at Cornell, and though I don't agree with most of Pimintel's points, they are representative of the usual negatives brought up in counterarguments against biodiesel. Including them will enrich your paper.

soy based biodiesel came from japanese wanting soymeal, farmers processed and needed to figure out what to do with oil back in late 70's. minnesota is testing a family member of tumbleweed, very similar to rapeseed and mustard seed, yields high oil content to mass, similar to sunflower seeds oils volumn to mass yield. colombia rope company is trying to get away from synthetic rope, "manila" hemp rope much better overall, have test fields growing high resin hemp. they roll press oil out hemp, then try and make celulosic ethanol from hulks instead of washing process and use remaining fibres to make rope. some biodiesel blends have shown higher combustion temps which can lead to higher NOx levels. algae has high yield and is looking like good source also.

interesting subject. I am a Chevy Salesperson taking one class at a time. Two weeks ago, I finished my international business paper on alternative fuels... Good luck with your paper. If your class was like mine they will be amazed at your knowledge.

Now a lot of biodiesel is made from WVO so how is it depleting our agricultural sources, its recyling at its best. Someone enlighten me on this.

Now a lot of biodiesel is made from WVO so how is it depleting our agricultural sources, its recyling at its best. Someone enlighten me on this.

I don't have time to get too deep into this, but first, most biodiesel is still made from virgin oil. WVO biodiesel is becoming more prevalent, but there is still somewhat of a quality stigma attached to biodiesel made from waste oil. It generally has a higher gel point and the producer has to be more careful during processing to be sure contaminants aren't passed on to the final product.

The whole business about biofuels taking food out of people's mouths is way overblown and is basically a media creation. The latest farm bill still includes a provision for CRP payments-meaning our tax dollars are still being used to pay farmers not to grow crops. If we're so short on food, why are we still doing that?? Anyway, that's a separate issue.

The argument that does have some merit is the total environmental footprint of biofuels. Dumping tons of pesticides and fertilizers on the ground to gain a few bushels more per acre is not a sustainable practice and it is damaging to the environment. Further, corn, and soybeans also to a certain extent, is an extremely input-intensive crop. High corn prices mean corn is being grown on land that should never be used for that purpose (water requirements being the primary problem). For ag-based biofuels to become sustainable, there has to be a fundamental shift in where and what types of crops are grown. Old habits die hard, though, so until it's economically attractive to switch away from traditional crops, it's going to be business as usual.

Now maybe things are done differently here in Reno/Minden area where I live but the local rendering companies are making biodiesel and selling it at the pump just like any other fuel station. There fuel is obviously ASTM certified, infact they do the testing for a lot of the biodiesel suppliers nationally. They initially were using crop based oils however they have switched over to WVO to make there fuels.

Now maybe things are done differently here in Reno/Minden area where I live but the local rendering companies are making biodiesel and selling it at the pump just like any other fuel station...

Rendering companies nation wide are making biodiesel from WVO; it's not unique to your area. As to quality, I personally have no qualms with using WVO-derived biodiesel. But a lot of biodiesel sold is advertised as being from virgin oil-making it sound like a value-added product. That stigma still needs to be overcome.

But even if every ounce of WVO in the country was turned into biodiesel, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to how much diesel is used every day. Even if you factor in waste fat from animal processing, you still don't come close to satisfying the requirements of the country. If you're going to replace petroldiesel to any significant extent, you're going to have to use virgin oil at some point-there's no way around it.

Also, since it hasn't been mentioned, do a search on jatropha. It's a 'weed' plant that has a very high yield of oil that can grow on otherwise infertile soil or be used as a cover crop.

Also, you might want to cver gel points in depth. Lots of people use 'bio-diesel' as a generic term. WVO has a high gel point. Soy has a lower one (32*). Palm oil is higher as well. These issues are crucial to safe running,

thanks guys this helps alot.

I am just curious, people are screaming that because of soy is used for BioD that we are creating a shortage of food. Let me ask you all here, how many of you eat soy in their raw form? I understand that there are soy oil (vegetable oil), or soy sauce.

well if corn oil is made from corn,, and vegtable oil is made form vegtables,,, what is baby oil made from? I'm on the side of being a waste recycler, thats where my oil is coming from,, Good luck on the paper!

I am just curious, people are screaming that because of soy is used for BioD that we are creating a shortage of food. Let me ask you all here, how many of you eat soy in their raw form? I understand that there are soy oil (vegetable oil), or soy sauce.

While visiting a friend on the left coast we munched soy beans in restaurant while waiting for our table. But it is not just how many eat them in their raw form, How many carnivores do we have here? A lot of animal feed contains soy beans. Price of feed goes up, so does the price of my steak.