<< I have heard this many times from a variety of people bio-diesel is a way to not use any petroleum. When asked most "think" that since it is made from vegitable oils, it is a way to lower petroleum consumption. >>

You can count me as one of the people who has (mistakenly, apparently) assumed that a switch to commercially produce biodiesel means an elimination or at least a significant reduction in my personal dependency on petroleum.

I get the idea, of course, that it's petroleum in farm equipment that's helping to grow the oil crops used to produce biodiesel.

But the statements in this thread seems to imply that there's a one-for-one (or worse) exchange: one gallon of farm-equipment-fuel yields one gallon (or less) of biodiesel source oil.

Can somebody please lay out some facts in this regard?

- grey

Electric night wrote:
I have heard this many times from a variety of people bio-diesel is a way to not use any petroleum. When asked most "think" that since it is made from vegitable oils, it is a way to lower petroleum consumption.

If you're in it for the clean air aspects it doesn't matter what source of oil is used. If you are trying to reduce petroleum consumption looking to the source of the oil used might be approprate.
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hmmmm....well your a little ahead of the industry at the moment. I cant say that in all my research I have come across a single business or farmer that both produces oil crops and refines them. Not to say that it isnt hapenning, because that is the natrual progression of things, but I cant name one off the top of my head.

AFAIK a majority of the crops are harvested using dino-burning machines and sold on the general market where they are purchased and then converted to feed stock and oil base, the oil base is purchased in bulk and converted. I cant recall if I have stats to say wether most bio-diesel producers use WVO or SVO. I believe that most use WVO, because it is cheap and easy to come by and it is a form of recycling, however that being said there are oil producing crops that are not edible that have high oil yields.

So to answer your question, yes it is most likely that a majority of most food oil/converted WVO is harvested by tractors that run on dino-diesel. It is also safe to say that quite a few farmers burn biodiesel or a variant. But lets be fair the quantitiy of bio-d being produced is not at yet being distrubuted in such as fashion that it economical for a producer to use it as a fuel source unless they are producing the crop which they are using......thats all economical feasability stuff though. Lets not get into forecasting just yet.
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Cheaply depends on perspective have you priced vegitable oil it's not exactly what I would call cheap
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Well if we are going to name certain types of oils I'll go with Palmseed oil @ 5000 gallons per hectare annually. Per hecatre vegetable oil is not one of the most economical alternatives. I'd probably go with rapeseed oil, or even some of the oilier non-palatable versions of sunflower seeds before I'd be converting palmolive or whatever.....[I dont cook with that stuff I dont know what its called.]
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One of the reasons that it is priced so high has to do with the alchohol tax. I don't have the figures in hand but it seems that Ethanol was a fuel of choice until the excise tax on ethanol caused the price to jump dramaticly overnight, when origionally inacted the law didn't distinguish distinguish between beverage or fuel/industrial use. In the last 20 years or so that has changed some.
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Maybe you dont remember, or maybe you are too young. But the problems with ethanol are more than a silly tax. They fought the oil companies and lost. The feds own all the major oil pipelines in this country. the only cheap way we distrubute oil in this country is the oil pipeline that runs across the country. the only way to get your stuff from here to there is to get some "time" on that pipeline. the only way to do that is the federal govt., they alone control the fate of the biodiesel economy, well that and the lobbying groups for the oil companies.

biodiesel is going to come up when auto manufacturers and the oil companies work out an accord, the big foreign diesel manufacturers are lined up to come into the USA to do business. but they gotta get much much cleaner before they can hope to impress EPA. Biodiesel is fast way to do it. But they have to address the particulates and high Nox emissions first.....

In the meantime your going to watch a whole lot of companies that sell biodiesel price themselves right out of the market.
Its nice to have a loyal local subscriber base, but the real money is in mass consumption and fleets and truckers arent going to go for those prices.
I mean come on $3.00 a gallon. I realize there is an oil crunch and all but you can get d2 at half that price. Semi-truck drivers are one of the major consumers of diesel they are running a business and like anyone else they are going to find the cheapest price. Why pay higher and take a 5% decrease in performance. Thats stupid.

what most ppl dont realize is that all gasoline is the same, the only thing that makes it exxon or shell is the additives they mix into the tanker truck right before they deliver it to the local stations. suprise surprise the feds tax the oil while its in the pipeline, a major contributor of tax, this is why our economy is oil based. (ok partially, i'm really simplyfying it)