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Apparently, many people are still confused as to the difference between biodiesel and ethanol fuels. As an advocate for biodiesel and alternative energy sources, writer Clayton Cornell outlines and dispels twenty-one biodiesel myths in an attempt to improve understanding. The most significant points to take away are that:
- biodiesel and ethanol are produced by different mechanisms
- biodiesel runs on stock diesel engines while ethanol needs special components
- biodiesel contains nearly twice the energy of ethanol
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Energy/Carbon Balance by PowerPointSamurai :: NR0 :: Show
I don’t know what the site cited says, but the University of Minnesota found that biodiesel is at least 93% net energy positive, and 43% carbon negative using soybeans as the feedstock. There are a lot of better feedstocks, with the best being algae, which could produce enough biodiesel on 2% of US land (any area, not farm land) according to the National Renewable Energy Lab’s report on the DOE’s "Aquatic Species ":http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/biodiesel_from_algae.pdf program. Of course, this assumes all engines go over to diesel to run it.
I’m betting on a mix of electric cars for commuting, and biodiesel for long hauls with cellulostic ethanol spackeling the gaps.