I've heard of fuels known as biodiesel, why aren't we using it?

Question

The fuel is clearly better for the environment; being composed of alcohol, caustic soda, and vegetable oil. Knowing that it will help improve things environementally speaking as well as putting an end to to the problems caused by the pursuit of oil,why haven't we began to adopt it for transport. Is it because our cars' engines are not suited for it?

Answer 1

There is no free lunch.  Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil.  The best sources of vegetable oil are food crops such as soy beans and rape seed which require considerable amounts of fuel and fertilizer to produce.  The end result is that you consume large amounts of energy to produce a small amount of energy, you tie-up valuable crop land and you consume a valuable food source.  There are really good reasons that biodiesel hasn't caught on.

Answer 2

It is being used. There are stations selling it all over the country right now.

Perhaps you mean to ask why isn't every station in the country selling only bio diesel and not regular diesel. This is because there is not nearly enough vegetable oil in the country to make that much bio diesel. There are also problems with it. It turns to a gel at low temperatures and the fuel tank must be heated to liquefy it in winter on many states.

Answer 3

Any diesel engine can run biodiesel.  Dr. Rudolf Diesel originally designed his engine to use vegetable oil straight, but they switched to petroleum because it was cheaper, and it was also thinner (less viscous) and now diesel engines can't deal with the thicker vegetable oil.  Thus they add caustic soda and methanol to transesterify it, to thin it.

About half the cars in Europe are diesel and they all use 5-10% biodiesel.  It's a good injector lubricant and it replaces the sulfur that used to serve that purpose (and make acid rain).   Diesel cars weren't very popular in the USA, but now a bunch of carmakers are starting to make them.

So why aren't you running biodiesel? Get yourself a VW Golf or an old Mercedes diesel, and have at.

Admittedly, there isn't enough vegetable oil for everyone to run biodiesel/veggie oil without impacting the food supply.  But lots of oil crops (sawgrass) will grow in places food can't.  That problem is getting help from an unlikely source: Boeing.  The airplane builder, whose products use a heck of a lot of diesel fuel (well Jet A, nearly the same stuff).  Expensive diesel means nobody wants to buy airplanes, so they're trying to figure out how to make bio-Jet-A in mass quantities. Jet-A will work fine in diesels too.

Answer 4

When most people speak about the use of bio-diesel and ethanol we tend to look at a large scale. Because of us looking at the large scale and becoming dependent on big companies to supply us with bio-diesel or ethanol then cost goes up. The main reason a company goes into business it to make money so they know we need fuel and will charge ridiculous prices if the can. If you are in the country or have a safe place in your suburban neighborhood you can make your own bio-diesel. With minor reformatting of a diesel truck you can run it with your own bio-diesel. Now remember it might take a while to warm up during the winter but your driving fuel cost will go down, especially if your getting the used vegetable oil for free. Take the time and research the process and maybe you and a few friends can make it work.