Biodiesel Facts For Kids
Biodiesel Facts For Kids
BIODIESEL MADE FROM VEGETABLE OILS AND ANIMAL FATS
Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that can be used instead of diesel fuel made from petroleum. Biodioesel can be made from vegetable oils, animal fats, or greases. Most biodiesel today is made from soybean oil. About half of biodiesel producers are able to make biodiesel from used oils or fats, including recycled restaurant grease.
Biodiesel is most often blended with petroleum diesel in ratios of 2 percent (B2), 5 percent (B5), or 20 percent (B20). It can also be used as pure biodiesel (B100). Biodiesel fuels can be used in regular diesel vehicles without making any changes to the engines. It can also be stored and transported using diesel tanks and equipment.
Fueling engines with biodiesel has just started to catch on, but this isn't a new idea. Before petroleum diesel fuel became popular, Rudolf Diesel, the designer of the diesel engine, experimented with using vegetable oil (biodiesel) as fuel.
BIODIESEL AS A TRANSPORTATION FUEL
Most trucks, buses, and tractors in the United States use diesel fuel. Diesel is a nonrenewable fuel made from petroleum. Using biodiesel means that we use a little bit less petroleum. Biodiesel results in less pollution than petroleum diesel. Any vehicle that operates on diesel fuel can switch to biodiesel without changes to its engine.
Because it is so clean burning and easy to use, biodiesel is the fastest growing and most cost efficient fuel for fleet vehicles. Many school districts are switching to biodiesel blends for their school buses. Biodiesel is also being used for fleets of snowplows, garbage trucks, mail trucks, and military vehicles. So far, the use of biodiesel has been limited to fleets of vehicles that have their owner fueling stations. As the number of public fueling stations that offer biodiesel grows, it may become more popular with individual consumers.
B100 and biodiesel blends are sensitive to cold weather and may require special anti-freeze, just like petroleum-based diesel fuel does. Biodiesel acts like a detergent additive, loosening and dissolving sediments in storage tanks. Because biodiesel is a solvent, B100 may cause rubber and other components to fail in older vehicles. This problem does not occur with biodiesel blends.
BIODIESEL AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Biodiesel is renewable, nontoxic, and biodegradable. Compared to diesel, biodiesel, is significantly cleaner burning. It produces fewer air pollutants, like particulates, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and air toxics. It does slightly increase emissions of nitrogen oxides, though. Biodiesel produces less black smoke, and smells better, too. Sometimes biodiesel smells like french fries!
Regular diesel fuel contains sulfur. Sulfur can cause damage to the environment when it is burned in fuels. New environmental laws will require the amount of sulfur in diesel fuel to be dramatically reduced over the next few years. When sulfur is removed from regular diesel fuel, the fuel doesn't work as well. Adding a small amount of biodiesel can fix the problem. Biodiesel has no sulfur, so it can reduce sulfur levels in the nation's diesel fuel supply while making engines run more smoothly.
Patrick Takahashi: What Is The Best Biofuel? (HuffingtonPost)
The European Union, opening up a new transatlantic trade spat, will investigate whether soaring imports of U.S. biodiesel break global trade rules because of subsidies, the EU's executive Commission said on Friday.'Read more
EU probes U.S. biodiesel subsidies in new trade row (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union threatened to impose tariffs on biodiesel from the U.S., saying EU producers may be victims of American subsidies and price undercutting.'Read more
European Union Threatens Tariffs on U.S. Biodiesel (Update1) (Bloomberg.com)
SEATTLE - When King County, Wash., Metro Transit signed a one-year contract last June to buy 2 million gallons of biodiesel made by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables, the... 'Read more
Biofuel backlash: High prices, pollution worries hit consumers (Boston Herald)
More than 20 groups, including food processors and retail, environmental, hunger and food industry organizations, launched a cooperative effort to urge Congress to revisit the nation’s food-to-fuel policies on Tuesday, called the Food Before Fuel campaign.'Read more
'Food Before Fuel' campaign kicks off (St. Joseph News-Press)
CUPERTINO, Calif.----AE Biofuels, Inc., a vertically integrated biofuels company, today announced that it has signed a joint development agreement with DS Development, a subsidiary of DS Group, to build, own and operate a 75 million gallon per year production biodiesel plant near Rosario, Argentina.'Read more
AE Biofuels Announces Plans to Construct a 75 Million Gallon Argentina Biodiesel Plant With DS Group (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance)
It takes six days for a blend of chicken fat and soybean oil to emerge from the reactors as B100 biodiesel, but the process is such at Pinnacle Biofuels in Crossett that the company produces 29,000 gallons of diesel per day, or 20 gallons per minute.'Read more
From Chicken Fat to B100 Diesel Fuel: The Pinnacle Biofuels Plant (Ashley County Ledger)
Mark Troyer thinks his 10-acre patch of camelina looks like a bunch of weeds. But he and some other local farmers are hoping that looks are deceiving and that camelina makes good on its promise as the next big thing for the biofuel industry.'Read more
Plant fuel Farmers roll dice on camelina, which some see as biofuel's future (Erie Times-News)
Checking in on stealthy solar start-up Stion, biodiesel woes, water recycling in Israel, microbes for energy production, and the ethanol from beer waste.'Read more
Green news harvest: 500-mile fuel cell car, Linux gets 'green flag' (CNET)
Amid accusations that alternative fuel sources such as ethanol and biodiesel are responsible for high food prices, employees of Minden-based Bently Biofuels are sticking up for themselves and their industry.'Read more