Is biodiesel good or bad?

Question

Is biodiesel good or bad?

Answer 1

yea its better than oil

Answer 2

Right now, BAD.

It causes just as much pollution as regular gas and it used up land for food which is driving up food prices across the planet. It's also more profitable, so places like Brazil are clearcutting tracks of the valuable rainforest to grow biofuels, cause a doubly bad problem.

If it can be made from agricultural waste only, and not from food or on land that was previously used for growing food, then it has a chance at being good... but again, only if the energy it takes to make it is significantly less than the energy you get out of it.

Algae biofules might also be a potentially good technology

How about reducing our diving! Walk, bike, public transit! ... or at least carpool!

Answer 3

better than oil, but bad      the world will starve!   solar is the way to go

Answer 4

The only advantage of biofuel is that burns more efficiently than petroleum and produce less toxic gases but it won't make any difference in the level of CO2 produced.the problem with biofuel is that the world doesn't have enough land to grow crops to be used in its production beside that there is the other problem in relation of "supply and demand" the cost of a product is directly proportional to its demand.This means that the price of those specific crops will rise so much that not only will be too costly as food but even the fuel derived from those crops will be so high that will trigger an inflation in the order of 1500% or more on all items we buy (Just looks at the price of corn today and no corn ethanol has been produced yet.Only the intention by some idiots of politicians has caused the rise in its price).Garbage could be used instead at least we won't have to dump it all around (Because of the lack of garbage dumps some of the richest Countries (I don't want to mention any names) are right now dumping it in the ocean creating an ecological disaster),Conclusion:biofuel is not a good solution to the problem,Geothermal energy is.

Answer 5

BioDiesel is better, not completely good.  Increased production of an already out of control mono-culture cash crop such as corn that has created a lot of environmental problems, isn't really that appealing, especially with half the world starving.

Better to produce BioDiesel from post-consumer vegetable oils. You can do this yourself by taking any post consumer vegetable oil from a restaurant or someplace that is throwing out a large quantity from a deep fryer, filter it with a coffee filter, and allow it to sit for 2 weeks to allow the sediment to reach the bottom of the barrel, then filter again.

Answer 6

Not just bad, horrible.

Answer 7

Biodiesel is the dumbest thing anyone has come up with. The diesel from crude oil when burnt produces CO2 anyway so what's the advantage. And if anyone thinks it's good for the environment they've got rocks in their heads. First of all a great amount of energy is used to make biofuel for what you get out of it. It's like burning three gallons of gas to run the plant that will yield one gallon. Fact :   The amount of corn needed to make enough fuel to fill the tank of a SUV would feed one mouth for a year.

So you knuckleheads out there who think biofuel is the in thing look for information the government doesn't want you to know. Read up on the process used to make the stuff , make informed opinion and don't listen to propaganda. Biofuel will be found to be the biggest blunder ever created. Unless of coarse, it's all going to plan as has been suggested. Food prices are going through the roof , rice has already increased in price by 1000%.  What a way to depopulate certain countries than to make food unaffordable.

Answer 8

There's alot of misinformation out there about biofuels.

Ethanol, for gasoline cars, isn't so great.  It's made from harvesting corn and turning it into an alcohol.  Very energy consuming process actually.  In Brazil, they're making it from sugarcane which is somewhat better.

Biodiesel, for diesel cars, is much much better.  Usually, it's made by recycling food waste that was going to be destroyed, anyways.  They usually make it from refining used vegetable oil from restaurants.  It's VERY eco-friendly.

Answer 9

Bio diesel is a great alternative to regular fuels. It can be made very easily with any organic oil. You can make bio diesel with algae which produces over 10,000 gallons of oil per acre and will not affect the current food market. It can be used in any diesel motor with little to no modifications, with no mpg or power loss. Currently in some places bio diesel is cheaper than regular diesel and when large scale production is in, it should be much less than regular diesel. It is a future fuel; one big pro is that you don't have to buy a new car if you already have a diesel it will run fine, so a whole new engine does not need to be created. If we switched to hydrogen or something like that a whole new engine will be needed and everyone will have to buy a new car.

Answer 10

hmmmm, you like the price of milk, or bread, or vegetables lately?

and that's the result of a relatively minor expansion of e85.

there just is not enough farmland to produce both our food and our fuel.

one might keep in mind that i heartily approve of burning old cooking oil, rather than dumping it into the garbage.

but growing crops specifically for fuel is not a good idea.

Answer 11

Depends what you derive it from.  Algae=good, corn=bad

Answer 12

help meh is right. Biodiesel will take up more farming space. We already have enough wasted space from so many cows and corn etc. solar is the best we can ever get right now!!!

Answer 13

All current fuels are sun based. Oil is stored carbon in the ground. Biodiesel doesnt add any extra carbon to the air. Plants grow and take co2 out of the air and when you burn biodiesel your putting the co2 back in the air.  Fossil fuels add co2 to the air and increase global warming.

Answer 14

It's better than oil and it makes people use up land for fuel instead of crops. Think of the hungry. NO MORE BIO-DIESEL!!!!!!!!

Answer 15

bad if made from food crops or causing the loss of food crop land

there are better ways to make non petrol diesel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tro...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_to_...

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2...

using the Fischer-Tropsch process synthetic diesel may be made from any plant waste, trash, Ag waste, paper,

sewage solids. scrap wood tree limbs.feed lot cattle waste hog sh*t any thing with high carbon hydrogen levels

this would mean no more municipal dumps.  ie landfills.

no more dumping sewage in the ocean.

all it will take is the lawmakers being pushed to require it to be used for making fuel instead of using food crops for fuel.

this is old technology it was first used in the 1920s

Answer 16

Depends.

Biofuels are better than "fossil" fuels because rather than dig or pump carbon out of the ground and then burn it dumping new CO2 into the atmosphere, biofuels use organic material that recently absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere and burns it - returning the CO2 to the atmosphere.  Biofuels could be called the recyclable fuel, but....

Making it from corn and other grains is less good because it diverts these crops from food to fuel.  This is driving up food prices for corn, bread, .... and meat since cows, pigs, and chicken use grain as feed.  We're burning the food supply for all six billion of us.

Making it from cellulosic plants - like corn stalks, switch grass, and wood chips is better because these aren't food crops.  But the technology for this needs more advancement to lower costs.  

Growing biofuels also takes more land out of a natural state and into agriculture which has environmental impacts.

Reducing use of these fuels altogether through better gas mileage, more efficient travel planning, and ultimately switching to truly renewable power supplies (e.g. solar) is even best.

Answer 17

Well you have your pro's and con's.

Pros are the following:

They don't emit merely as much emissions compared to fossil fuels.

They are more dependable

It comes in more forms

Wars won't be caused over them

Cons would be:

The use of corn for Ethanol in the past year used 1/3 of the U.S.'s corn crops, if that trend continues, we will face a corn shortage.

While they don't emit bad emissions, they do emit CO2 because that is how plants grow, its what they consume.

I would much rather use Bio in the long run

Answer 18

it's bad when it takes food out of people's mouths.

Answer 19

More power,higher mpgs.Cleans I.P. injectors,rings,valves.Lets diesels hit the million mile mark.

downside they sell it so high,and using wvo to make it,it should be $2.50 a gallon and no more.

Answer 20

It's great with Romaine lettuce and cucumber..not so good on tacos.