I too have been excited about the prospect of Biodiesel. Indeed, I have been so excited I’ve actually been planning on getting a diesel engine passenger vehicle once they become more readily available in my home state of NY state.
However, that excitement has been damped by the catastrophe of Ethanol. I began doing some reading around, and I have come to the conclusion that while Biodiesel stands a better chance of succeeding than Ethanol ever had, it still suffers from the same economies of scale that Ethanol does, just at a lower level.
Essentially, while both Ethanol and to a greater extent, Biodiesel are fantastic solutions for individuals and small communities for fuel cost and concerns, once you start attempting to deploy this technology on a wide scale the entire model falls apart.
Why? Because both Ethanol and Biodiesel DEPEND on a massive over-supply of the organic material required to make them. As we have seen with Ethanol, this becomes a problem when attempting to implement large-scale production, as there really isn’t that much extra organic material around. Yes, there is massive amounts of waste in our system, but NOT at the levels required to create Ethanol.
Biodiesel has the same problem. While it can be made MUCH more efficiently than Ethanol, and can even be made from waste food-oils (old fryer grease, for example) it too still runs into the raw materials supply chain problem than Ethanol. Just a bit further along.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still excited about Biodiesel, particularly for my own personal fuel needs, as it can be manufactured AT HOME without a special license (we’ll see how long that lasts in NY). Like Mr. Truckess, I also think that Diesel and Biodiesel are good long-term solutions to our fuel issues. Unlike Mr. Truckess though, I don’t think we are at a point where we can reliably create Biodiesel on the massive scales required to fuel America. Not yet.
