Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a simple concept. Plants have oil in them. To get the oil out, you squeeze them. This oil, just like petroleum, is combustible and can be made to operate cars, lawnmowers and all the machinery we like in our 21^st-century western world, yes even those nasty Hummers. If we could get enough of this plant oil, we could say good-bye and best-of-luck to the Saudi’s and the air would be full of the smell of French fries and donuts.

Some of the pro’s from singer-turned- (plant) oil baron, Willie Nelson’s website:

• Biodiesel reduces carbon dioxide exhaust emissions by up to 80%.
• Biodiesel produces 100% less sulfur dioxide than petroleum based diesel, and sulfur dioxide is the major component of acid rain.
• Biodiesel reduces exhaust smoke (particulates) emissions by up to 75% so the usual black cloud associated with a diesel engine can be eliminated.
• Biodiesel is much less dangerous to put in a vehicles fuel tank as the flash point of biodiesel is ± 150°C (300°F) as opposed to petroleum diesel which is at ± 70°C (150°F).
• Biodiesel degrades about 4 times faster than petroleum diesel after spillage, with most of a spill broken down after just 28 days.
• Biodiesel provides significant lubricity improvement over petroleum diesel fuel so engines last longer, with the right additives engine performance can also be enhanced.
• Biodiesel does not require any changes to the existing storage infrastructure so can be used in any tank or storage facility right away.
• A diesel-engined vehicle does not need to be modified in anyway to use biodiesel.

So what’s the hold-up? The problem has been that, depending on the plant, it would take a crop size larger than the country in question to meet the energy needs of that country.

From the translated article by Olivier Danielo, An Algae-Based Fuel[pdf], in the French Biofutur, No.255/May 2005. “Marc Jancovici, an engineer specializing in greenhouse gas emissions, [said] it would require a sunflower field 118% the size of France to replace the 50Mtep of petroleum consumed each year by the French for their transportation needs (104% of the size of France for rapeseed, 120% for beet, 2700% for wheat).”; not very practical.

That is, unless you consider algae-based biodiesel. Some of the benefits of algae:

• They grow fast; therefore have a much faster turnaround time compared with terrestrial plants. “It’s possible to complete an entire harvest in a few days..” (Danielo, p.2.)
• Being unicellular, they have much more surface area exposure, allowing greater access to each cells’ juicy interior.
• Floating in their nutrient bath of water, CO₂, minerals and sunlight, they are much more efficient than terrestrial plants at producing oil. In fact, these “…microscopic algae are capable according to NREL scientists (John Sheehan, et al), “of synthesizing 30 times more oil per hectare than the terrestrial plants used for the fabrication of biofuels.” (Danielo, p.2.)

So how much less land space would we need to replace all the oil we use in the U.S. with algae-based biodiesel? The U of NH Biodiesel website has a good summation:

“…to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification -I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.”

On the other hand, the arid regions of the country provide the sunlight needed for maximum algaeal growth and these lands are relatively impractical for any other use other than as a nature preserve. (Boy, that sounds exploitative doesn’t it?)

I will have more to say about this as I learn more. You know, it’s not that there are no options for us to overcome Peak Oil, it is just that, like Kunstler and others have been indicating, we need to move now. While petroleum is still relatively cheap, we can build the infrastructure for biodiesel manufacture and the host of alternative energies sources out there.