The biodiesel industry has been under attack by some unusual adversaries lately and these opponents have employed some serious misrepresentations. Here are some examples:
Fallacy #1: The biodiesel industry takes food and makes it into fuel.
Biodiesel is made of oil extruded from crops such as cottonseed, sunflower, rice bran, canola, soybean etc. when these crops are extruded and the oil removed, the by-product is now a much more effective livestock feed. In the case of rice bran, the meal is made stable as rice bran decays very quickly if not stabilized (extruded). Most rice bran was lost for any use until fairly recently and brought about in large part by the bio-fuels industry.
There is also a great move toward crops with no human food uses such as Algae, Jatropha, etc.
Fallacy #2: Bio-diesel increases pollution and must have additives to be used, or mixes must be limited to 20%.
I know this one surprises everyone since biodiesel creates 48% less carbon monoxide as well as 67% less total unburned hydrocarbons and 47% less particulate matter.
However; the EPA has decided that biodiesel creates 10% more NOX than petro diesel and for that they require that only 20% blends and these mixed w/ an additive to decrease NOX be used in high attainment areas such as Houston. There is some debate as to whether this applies to b100 as it says blenders are required to use the additives.
Now why would the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. Limit the use of a fuel which cuts carbon monoxide by half? One has to wonder if they were not lobbied heavily by the petroleum industry. The ancient Greek philosopher Perecles once said that “the businessman who is not tending to politics is not tending to business”. Someone is obviously tending to politics better than the biodiesel folks.
Fallacy #3: We could never replace fossil fuels w bio-fuels.
In fact if Algae takes off like it promises, we could grow all we need to replace fossil fuels on 4% of available cropland in this country. And Algae can be harvested on land not suitable for food-crops. The American farmer is the most productive in the world and has been hindered only by our own government who pays farmers not to grow crops or encourages them to grow non-food and fuel plants such as trees which add no more oxygen than grass or crops.
Fallacy #4: Biodiesel uses as much energy as it creates.
This is the dumbest argument of the bunch. We can run our plant on diesel heat and generators and still produce large amounts of fuel with very small equipment. There has never been a study which suggests anything close to fallacy #4. However; there was one study in the 80’s which may have suggested a close relationship to energy used and created with ethanol. Biodiesel creates 3.5 times as much energy as it uses and we can totally eliminate fossil fuels if need be. Convenience has allowed producers to use fossil fuels although the use is shrinking.
In conclusion, we have to ask why these misrepresentations continue to echo through the media and government policies. I can only believe that change is difficult for many people especially government bureaucrats. It is sad that no body profits more than our countries enemies from these lies. If America becomes energy self-dependent once again, terrorism would dry up. The Islamo-terror organizations can not raise money to fund their crimes without petroleum dollars.
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