Sounds neat in principle.

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2006/04/19/ap2681244.html

And yes, "Thingy" is a technical term.

Really cool. Oh BTW That article has justified my use of the word "thingy"):h

Someone buy that inventer a beer! Id like a few of those stackable devices- pumping into my tank every night. Drive home, fill up, wake up, drive off- Full tank of Cheap Diesel!!!!!!!

Speaking of Cheap- Diesel is $.08 cheaper here than regular Unleaded!!!!! Now im laughing at the folks who said I was insane for buying a diesel!!! Namely my dad!

Those nanoreactors are pretty cool, but that article was short on scientific details as to how they are getting around needing a catalyst. Has to be something to break the glyceride molecule apart, but there are a lot of ways other than sodium hydroxide to do it. They're also still going to have to have a way to separate the glycerin at the end.

They also mention on-farm production as a way to eliminate the need for trucking in biodiesel, but I wonder how exactly they plan to get the oil and methanol there? On-farm oil extraction would be nice, but the capital investment for an efficient process is pretty extensive.

All this being said, the existence of such a device points to an argument I've had in favor of biodiesel for years. You don't need a multi-million dollar refinery with miles of wires and pipes to produce biodiesel (unlike petrol diesel). And even if you do have to truck the commodity a hundred miles to a plant, you'll never convince me that's more expensive than shipping oil halfway around the world.

Not to mention, you can run the bio in the truck transporting the bio to us! The costs would be much lower than running dino to bring the bio to us.