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Old 10-06-2004, 12:38 PM
phidauex's Avatar
phidauex phidauex is offline
BioDiesel Hopeful
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 806
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toblin
What am I missing here? I thought the main attraction of biodiesel was its lower price. Sounds to me like these prices are higher than regular diesel fuel. If you just want the lubricant quality I think you'd be better off by just adding a qt. of motor oil with each fill-up.
Potential costs of biodiesel are less than petroleum diesel. Its just economies of scale and government subsidization of petroleum that makes dino-diesel cheaper.

Think about it.. If diesel is 1.90 a gallon with all the economy of scale and government funding, and biodiesel is 2.90 a gallon without any of that, then it is doing pretty good. Considering that petroleum diesel production is orders of magnitude larger than biodiesel production, if its only 1.00 a gallon cheaper, then its not doing so well.

The main benefits of biodiesel (in no particular order, and not all inclusive):

* Better lubricity
* Lower emissions (except for NOx, which there are some clever fixes for)
* No dependence on foreign oil (and all the problems we've seen THAT cause)
* Made in the USA by American workers out of American crops (or if you aren't in the USA, then it can be made out of your local crops by your local workers, which is good no matter where you are)
* Less toxic
* Less annoying smoke
* Closes the carbon cycle (growing the plants to get the oil consumes as much CO2 as the biodiesel releases)
* Can be made at home very cheaply if you get wasted fryer oil for free, and don't mind a little effort
* Can be made commercially very cheaply as economies of scale begin to take effect

Currently 'lower cost' is not really on that list. However, in time it will be lower cost, since it will only get cheaper as production goes up, and dino-diesel will only get more expensive as oil reserves dry up and opec controls pricing. One day in the not to distant future, you'll find biodiesel costing less than dino-diesel. In the meantime, we pay a bit of a premium in order to support all the above listed benefits.

B2 (2% biodiesel in 98% dino-diesel) is a very economical way to get the lubricity benefit, as well as lower emissions a bit (because biodiesel's inherent lubricity means you can leave out sulfur and other additives from the fuel). Thats why most of Europe already uses B2. In the end, it would be great if we were all using B100, but I'm comfortable with 'baby steps' as the industry grows.

peace,
sam
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