Thursday, March 18 is National Biodiesel Day. The biodiesel industry chose this date to honor and recognize Rudolf Diesel’s birthday – the fella with the foresight to recognize the valuable role of vegetable oil-based fuel.
Diesel originally designed the diesel engine in the late 19th Century to run on peanut oil. Only later did petroleum become the standard. In a 1912 speech, Diesel said “the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time.”
Are people really using biodiesel?
According to the National Biodiesel Board, the 500 million gallons of fuels produced by the US biodiesel industry in 2007 nearly offset 12 million barrels of oil.
You might be thinking that’s not all the much oil, but according to a USDA/DOE analysis soy-based biodiesel reduces lifecycle carbon dioxide reductions by 78 percent (this includes planting the soybeans to delivering the biodiesel at the pump). An update to this same study found that for every unit of fossil energy it takes to make biodiesel, 3.5 units of energy are gained.
Finally, for folks who are more interested in the current economy, the US biodiesel industry supported over 21,000 jobs and added over $4 billion to the US gross domestic product (GDP).
Are you interested in learning more about biodiesel and its production? MdBioLab offers and hands-on activity to measure the amount of free fatty acids in waste vegetable oil, the first step in creating biodiesel. You can learn more online at www.mdbiolab.org or visit our partners at Biodiesel University.
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