Bio Diesel
Biodiesel is a biofuel (made from non fossil fuels) that can power regular diesel engines without any need for engine modifications.
Many makes and models of diesel vehicles on the road today will happily run on biodiesel. In fact biodiesel actually lubricates the engine better and leaves less deposits in the engine meaning that your engine should last longer when using biodiesel.
Another great aspect of biodiesel is that you can easily make it yourself and you don't need to be a scientist to do so. Biodiesel can be made from vegetable oils or animal fats. You can read our guide on how to make biodiesel to see how easy it is.
Common crops for making biodiesel include oil seed rape (rapeseed), soybean and sunflowers. These crops are put through oilseed presses to extract the vegetable oil which is used to make biodiesel.
Because biodiesel is derived from recently living organisms that were plants / ate plants there is no addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from the use of biodiesel. This is because the plants that the biodiesel derived from took carbon dioxide out of the air. This makes biodiesel carbon neutral. Depending on what crop is grown to make biodiesel from, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere can actually be reduced.
Unlike the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, biodiesel does not give off any sulphur dioxide.
The exhaust fumes given from biodiesel are much cleaner smelling than regular diesel. It also has a other cleaner characterisics such as less carbon monoxide, unburned hyrdrocarbons and soot particles.
Diesel engines are a lot more efficient than petrol engines and so less energy is wasted if we use biodiesel rather than petroleum.
Biodiesel can be and is already mixed with regular diesel to form biodiesel blends. These blends are already sold at many filling stations. These blends can be in any proportion but you will often find 5% biodiesel to 95% fossil fuel diesel.
Government recognition for biodiesel as an alternative fuel
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has recognised that biodiesel has a major part to play in our future energy needs and at a seminar at one of its research centres Floyd P. Horn stated that "The program is part of a federal effort to reduce reliance on petroleum and create new markets for US crops", he continued "Crop-based diesel burns cleaner, less sooty. One of our goals is to increase the federal government's purchases of bio-based fuel and other products by 10% per year over the next 5 years. We want to encourage the private sector and local governments to do the same.".
Biodiesel is officially recognised by European governments. France have a policy of all diesel containing between 2 and 5% biodiesel. There is an increasing number of biodiesel filling stations in the UK and over 1500 biodiesel filling stations in Germany.
What biodiesel is not
Some people use unprocessed vegetable oil to power their engines. This is NOT biodiesel. Vegetable oil is used to make biodiesel but it must first be processed before it can be called biodiesel.
Unprocessed vegetable oil is commonly known as Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO). Normal diesel engines will not run on SVO without some kind of engine modifications so do not confuse SVO with Biodiesel or your vehicle may behave very irregularly!
For more information, visit our Biofuels Blog website or our biofuel debate (forum) for more biodiesel and alternative energy coverage!