Biodiesel Problems:
The Need For Clean Oil

One of the major biodiesel problems is the supply of clean plant oil from which to make the fuel.

Biodiesel currently enjoys a fairly green image. Part of this is due to the ability of biodiesel home brewers to turn used vegetable oil into vehicle fuel with very little waste.

While this is certainly a great way to deal with an otherwise useless waste product, used cooking oil is less than ideal for large scale production of biodiesel. This is because cooking breaks some of the oil molecules which affects the quality of the diesel produced. There is also the issue of cleaning the oil before turning it into fuel, which adds to operating costs.

Commercial Biodiesel

For commercial scale operations, crops of oil yielding plants need to be grown. Two plants that are good for this are canola and soy. A field of canola plants can be seen to the right.

It is immediately obvious that crops such as these require farming land. That land is no longer available for food production.

Given the growing shortage of food worldwide and the increasing difficulty of farming due to weather changes, we need to question whether getting oil from crop plants really is a good alternative to fossil fuels.

It is becoming clear that the main problem is not our dependence on fossil fuels, but our dependence on fuels as a whole, regardless of their source. Our expectation of a high standard of living is driving the adoption of inadequate measures to combat our spiraling energy use, and replacing fossil fuels with plant based biodiesel is one such example.

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