What is Biodiesel?
The inventor of the diesel engine, Dr. Rudolf Diesel, used vegetable oil (Peanut Oil) to run his first few engines. However, due to its high levels of viscosity, he found it would choke the engine's filters after running for only an hour or so. Dr. Diesel subsequently found a naturally occurring distillate in crude oil which we now know as diesel fuel.
Biodiesel (fatty acid methyl esters or FAME) is a clean-burning diesel replacement fuel made from natural, renewable sources such as any agricultural seed oil, recycled cooking grease or waste animal fats. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. Just like petroleum diesel, biodiesel can be used in any unmodified diesel engine.
It is important to note that biodiesel itself is not new. It has been used on a commercial scale in Europe for several decades and has been tested and proven to work in any unmodified diesel engine. In the United States, currently more than 300 major fleets use biodiesel and over 65 million miles are logged annually.
Biodiesel can be used either as a blend with petroleum diesel or as pure fuel. However, due to the limited supply of biodiesel today, as well as the non-linear emission benefits of burning biodiesel, it is actually more environmentally beneficial to fuel five vehicles at a B20 blend (20% biodiesel/80% petro-diesel) than one vehicle at B100 and four vehicles on 100% petro-diesel. Biodiesel production methods have been known for over 100 years and, in Europe, biodiesel has been widely used for over 20 years. However, until the BIOX Process, the high cost of production has limited its appeal, especially in North America.
Long recognized for its environmental benefits, biodiesel is renewable, non-toxic, biodegradable and sulphur-free, emitting 80% fewer hydrocarbons, 60% less carbon dioxide and 50% less particulate matter than petroleum diesel. Biodiesel is 11% oxygen by weight and, therefore, burns more completely than petro diesel. In fact, a 20% blend with petro diesel in trucks and buses would eliminate the black smoke (actually unburned fuel) emitted during acceleration.
