April
1, 2005: If you haven't yet given much thought to
biodiesel, put Greg Pahl's Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy
Economy near the top your reading list. My advice is
to start not with the introduction--you're probably already
familiar with why and how urgently we need develop alternatives
to petroleum energy--but to jump in pretty much anywhere else,
and then sample your way around the chapters as the feeling
grabs you. Apart from the first few pages, this is an inspiring,
startlingly positive tale, and one that could potentially
do more to change Americans' energy use habits than any of
the "end of the petroleum age" titles currently
crowding the booklists.
Perhaps the best index of biodiesel's viability is that its
current use exceeds its public recognition. Unlike hydrogen,
which is hyped by the White House and in full-page glossy
magazine ads from General Motors, biodiesel is a fully practicable,
ready-to-go alternative fuel technology that doesn’t
require a total overhaul of our energy infrastructure. Unlike
ethanol, which has received strong government support for
decades, biodiesel actually yields more energy than it takes
to create. Biodiesel produces significantly lower carcinogenic
tailpipe emissions than petrodiesel, "is more biodegradable
than sugar," in Pahl's words, and "less toxic than
table salt" (7). It is benign enough to be shipped by
UPS, but it can also be readily blended with petrodiesel in
any proportion from one percent biodiesel (known as B1) all
the way up to 99 percent biodiesel (B99). It can be used in
any diesel engine with few or no modifications. Maintenance
people for truck and bus fleets that have shifted to biodiesel
report improved fuel economy and reduced servicing costs.
For all of these reasons, you may very well have already
directly or indirectly consumed energy generated by biodiesel.
Although the current biodiesel trend only dates from the mid
1990s (after a scattering of experiments earlier in the century),
global biodiesel production now stands at 750 million gallons
a year. Most of that is in western Europe—especially
Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Spain—but there
are strong nascent biodiesel movements in eastern Europe,
South Africa, India, Thailand, and Brazil, among other countries.
In the United States, biodiesel has been used successfully
for several years by the U.S. Postal Service, the National
Park Service, and all four branches of the U.S. military,
as well as by dozens of municipal and school bus systems.
Biodiesel is also currently available at around 300 retail
filling stations across the United States and is beginning
to be offered by home heating oil companies.
Advances like these mean that biodiesel is bound to shed
its low profile before long, and Pahl's handsome, capable
book from Chelsea Green will make an excellent part of the
new PR package. Pahl has written an accessible, comprehensive
introduction to the who, what, where, when and why of biodiesel:
"Technically a fatty acid alkyl ester. . . [which] can
be easily made through a simple chemical process from virtually
any vegetable oil, including (but not limited to) soy, corn,
rapeseed (canola), cottonseed, peanut, sunflower, avocado,
and mustard seed. . . . [or] from recycled cooking oil or
animal fats" (6).
Pahl opens with a brief account of Rudolf Diesel's development
of the diesel engine and his hopes that it would serve as
a tool of agricultural development by running on vegetable-oil
fuels. (The book's epigraph quotes a speech Diesel delivered
in 1912, in which he declared that "The use of vegetable
oils for engine fuels. . . may become, in the course of time,
as important as petroleum[.]") Pahl goes to describe,
briefly and clearly, the technical aspects of biodiesel production
and consumption, including post-Diesel improvements in fuel
processing and engine tuning, the relative value of the various
feedstocks, and other practical matters such as the development
of international biodiesel quality standards and the willingness
of engine manufacturers to warranty their engines for use
with biodiesel.
Part Two of the book is devoted to a survey of biodiesel
developments around the world, while Part Three focuses on
activity in the United States—not, Pahl notes, because
the U.S. has been a leader in the biodiesel industry (it hasn't),
but because "it plays such a key role in the energy dilemma
currently facing the planet, [so that] anything the United
States does to try to clean up its act will have a significant
impact on the rest of world" (149). This is not a manual
for brewing your own biodiesel or converting your diesel engine
to run on straight vegetable oil—there are other resources
for that, which Pahl points to—but it will give you
a good solid understanding of the basics of biodiesel and
its potential role within a more sustainable energy future.
I should emphasize that Pahl is no wide-eyed, naïve
enthusiast. He does justice to the frictions within the biodiesel
community, notably between the decentralized, grassroots emphasis
on running used-fryer-oil (UFO) in vehicles converted to run
on straight-vegetable-oil (SVO) and the more ameliorist, mainstream
strategy to shift as much diesel usage as possible to a B5
or B20 blend. He duly notes that although much of the early
support for biodiesel in this country came from the American
Soybean Association, which implemented a soybean checkoff
program in 1991 and directed some of the funds toward biodiesel
research and legislative efforts, soybeans yield less oil
per acre than peanut, safflower, canola, and sunflower (not
to mention palm oil, coconut, and jatropha, an inedible tropical
shrub). Finally, he stresses that even the most optimistic
alternative energy analysts argue that we can probably only
replace about 25 percent of our collective diesel usage with
biodiesel.
It's interesting to reflect on the parallels between the
growth of biodiesel over the past decade or so and the growth
of organic farming. Although the overall numbers are still
small relative to the conventional/petroleum sector, the current
rate of expansion is in the double digits, and major players
are starting to sit up and take notice. Both Cargill and ADM
have invested in biodiesel processing plants in Europe. As
with organics, legislative and regulatory encouragements for
biodiesel use are beginning to take effect--Minnesota, for
instance, has passed a law requiring that all diesel sold
in the state after June 30, 2005, contain 2 percent biodiesel.
And of course the rising cost of petrodiesel—like the
rising awareness of the external costs of conventional foods—provides
the best incentive of all. One hopes these parallels can be
strengthened into a common platform for sustainable agriculture
and sustainable energy. Who knows? perhaps biodiesel can serve
as an end use for the otherwise unmarketable GMO-contaminated
corn, soy, and canola crops of the future.
A final word of caution: I guarantee this book will start
you thinking about trading in whatever it is you currently
drive, getting your hands on an inexpensive, second-hand diesel-engined
vehicle and asking your local greasy spoon what they do with
their used fryer oil or harassing your nearest filling station
about carrying biodiesel. Last time I checked, Chelsea Green
was giving away free "Boycott Iraq: Grow Your Own Oil"
bumper stickers. Have fun.
Laura Sayre is senior writer for NewFarm.org.
|
