Where does the 'bio' in bio diesel come from?

Question

In other words...is it corn? I realize Ethanol is corn based, how is bio diesel different from Ethanol? How much of bio diesel comes from used cooking oil? Or is it mostly bio mass food...that is corn, sugar beets, etc? I am not in favor of the corn subsidies and Ethanol being what the government proposes as the solution to energy problems, but how is bio diesel different or the same in terms of costs to land use, efficiency of what is produced, etc? Ethanol is rather inneficient, no? So what of the production for bio diesel? Is it coming from more energy efficent sources, or is it mostly corn? Thanks.

Answer 1

biofuels are based on oils pressed from organic sources such as palm trees and the same plants that give us coking oils like soy or canola.

ethanol is mostly the processed food products you mention but can also include sugar cane or inedible switchgras, both of which are more eficient (but less politically defended and government subsidized) than corn.

the real global problem with using food sources as fuel is that you pit the driving desires of some 800 million people against the subsistence food needs of roughly 2 billion humans.  

subsidies are only a way for governments to mask the true cost of energy or food or transportation infrastructure or anything else that does not reflect the true cost in the selling price.

Answer 2

its made from waste fats from vegetable oil to animal fat.

A variety of oils can be used to produce biodiesel. These include:

    * Virgin oil feedstock; rapeseed and soybean oils are most commonly used, soybean oil alone accounting for about ninety percent of all fuel stocks;[12] other crops such as mustard, flax, sunflower, canola, palm oil, hemp, jatropha, and even algae show promise (see List of vegetable oils for a more complete list);[13]

    * Waste vegetable oil (WVO);

    * Animal fats including tallow, lard, yellow grease, chicken fat,[12] and the by-products of the production of Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil.

    * Sewage. A company in New Zealand has successfully developed a system for using sewage waste as a substrate for algae and then producing bio-diesel.[14]

    * Thermal depolymerization is an important new process that reduces almost any hydrocarbon based feedstock, including non oil based feedstocks, into light crude oil.

Answer 3

The term "bio" just means "life".  Bio-diesel is normally commercially made from soybean vegetable oil.  However, bio-diesel can be made from animal fat or most any kind of vegetable oil.  If you look on the web you can find recipes for converting the grease from grease traps or vegetable oil into bio diesel.  Bio-diesel is very efficient.

Ethanol right now is about 90% as efficient as gas.  However if ethanol can be made out of plant stalks and grasses like what scientists on working on the processes to create, it could make ethanol very cheap and a very eco friendly fuel since the CO2 that the plants consume to make ethanol would offset the CO2 produced by the fuel when it is burned.

Answer 4

Bio refers to Biological. And it is made out of vegtable oil.

Answer 5

Many of your observations about ethanol are point on.  {Editorial comment -- we would actually save substantially more fuel by raising gas mileage standards than by manufacturing ethanol.  Ethanol will probably prove to be a farm belt boondoggle}.  Diesel engines can actually run on a varierty of vegetable oils, like soybean oil, but there are some technical issues about "lubricity" and vegetable oils turning to a gel-like consistentcy in cold weather that makes them hard to use without heating them up to make them flow into the combustion chamber.  The "bio" in bio-diesel comes from mixing a vegetable oil with diesel fuel.  The mixtures seem to be about 10% veggie and 90% petroleum distillate.

Answer 6

The amount of alcohol used is only about 20% in most alternative fuels if used on existing engines.

It is indeed unsatisfactory to use food materials to create fuels. However companies like Daimler-Benz are working on fuels from non-edible seeds like the seeds of the Jatropha and other tropical trees.

The major advantage is that these plants grow in arid or semi-arid zones, require less attention and are not competing with human or animal food crops. They do not need much water, nor high quality water.

The green cover may also have a beneficial effect on the climate.

They can generate employment  for the disadvantaged people and improve their quality of life.

If the research is successful, it can be a win win solution.

Answer 7

I agree ethanol is a boondoggle, biodiesel is not.

Here's a comparison

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/ren...

Simply put,  to make a gallon of biodiesel, you must heat 1.1 gallons of material to 130 degrees F.   But to make 1 gallong of ethanol, you must >>BOIL<< at least 7 gallons of "mead".  

Boiling takes a tremendous amount of energy (see "latent heat of vaporization") ... which is why the energy inputs to brew ethanol are over 100 TIMES that to brew biodiesel.  

(Remember, making fossil gasoline also involves boiling and distillation; that's what happens in a refinery fractioning column.)

Corn is a relatively poor choice of crop for biodiesel.  That's putting it nicely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel#Y...

Answer 8

Biomass. That's renewable resources like corn and soybeans.

Answer 9

"Bio" means life. It implies that this kind of diesel is derived from organic substances such as coconuts, corn, etc. This would mean lesser exhaust emissions and more abundant sources for fuel. It's only a matter of time before biodiesel is developed to an extent that it becomes as efficient as fluorescent bulbs.

Answer 10

A variety of oils can be used to produce biodiesel. These include:

* Virgin oil feedstock; rapeseed and soybean oils are most commonly used, soybean oil alone accounting for about ninety percent of all fuel stocks;[12] other crops such as mustard, flax, sunflower, canola, palm oil, hemp, jatropha, and even algae show promise (see List of vegetable oils for a more complete list);[13]

* Waste vegetable oil (WVO);

* Animal fats including tallow, lard, yellow grease, chicken fat,[12] and the by-products of the production of Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil.

* Sewage. A company in New Zealand has successfully developed a system for using sewage waste as a substrate for algae and then producing bio-diesel.[14]

* Thermal depolymerization is an important new process that reduces almost any hydrocarbon based feedstock, including non oil based feedstocks, into light crude oil.