Never heard of it? I hadn’t either until Kat started telling me about it the other day. In the past decade I’ve been becoming more increasingly aware of social issues and the environment. Both are things that are important to me.
I would hope that most of you know our source of oil isn’t unending. I would hope most of you also know that a lot of emissions we put into the air are bad for a lot of things. Just look at the rate of lung disease and asthma in large cities like LA.
Some people have been converting their vehicles to run on biodiesel. This is diesel fuel created from plants. Brazil kicked OPEC out a while back and is running everything on ethanol made from soybeans. This sounds good, but to really work in the long run, biodiesel needs to be made from a crop that’s not already a viable source of food or being used for some other purpose. In the US corn and soybeans have been used for this, but we already need corn and soybeans for so many other things. Where else would high fructose corn syrup come from?
This is where Kat comes in. She went to a seminar where a guy was talking about growing algae in abandoned mines to use for biodiesel. One acre of corn or soybeans produces 100 gallons of biodiesel. One acre of this algae can produce 3,500 gallons of biodiesel. It’s not like we’re needing algae for to feed our livestock or anything. Growing it underground also helps utilize abandoned spaces that aren’t being used for anything, probably already have power running to them, and can be regulated for light, water and temperature quite easily. I hope this kind of technology takes off. If you’re interested in reading some about it, here’s an article. You can also just google ‘algae biodiesel’ and see what you find.
One thing to consider with the US Soybean and Corn crop, is that many farmers are paid to grow alternate crops or leave fields fallow with government subsidies to maintain a stable market on those crops. If they can grow a specialized crop of beans or rapeseed (canola) on those fields instead, we have a valid and profitable market for those fields.
I’m not sure of the mechanics of it, but farmers also rotate crops to maintain the nutrients in a field…meaning some years they grow something that may not be as profitable, or they may grow hay or straw instead. If they grow rapeseed or beans on the down years…yay biodiesel!
There are also biofuel crops that can be co-harvested with other crops. I know in India they are growing an alt crop…I think rapeseed to shelter a shorter crop from the sun. The biofuel crop also has a husk that acts as a natural insect repellent when it dries up, so it acts in a symbiotic relationship with the other core crop.
Did you know that a properly equipped Diesel car can also burn waste vegetable oil? They call them Greasecars. Do you have any idea how many gallons of dirty vegetable oil are dumped into landfills and sewers a year from fryers at fast food restraunts, and convienence food factories. That oil is burnable in vehicles today! We have a guy at work that fuels his pickup truck on McDonald’s dirty fryer oil.
Yeah, I know about the crazy subsidies. I come from farming families myself. It’s kinda nuts. I’ve known about the cars running on fry grease. I’ve seen a couple shows/documentaries about them and I want to say there’s somebody I know who is doing this or was going to. Free fuel would be kinda awesome.