Biodiesel Fuel

Reiko called my attention to an article from the Seattle PI about biodiesel fuel, a product made from vegetable oil. It sounds like methanol has to be used as part of the process of producing the fuel, but the vegetable oil can even be used cooking oil from restaurants.

Some Seattle enthusiasts are brewing their own fuel for use in their diesel cars. In the Seattle area, there are only a few filling stations available, and the cost is more than for gas, but that could be a matter of ecomony of scale. If the product ever caught on and started to be produced in great quantities, availability should increase and the price drop.

I suspect gasoline, despite all the environmental and political drawbacks, still reigns as motor vehicle fuel more because of economically self-interested corporations than because of any inherently higher quality of gas as fuel. Lead, with all its known dangers, was added to gasoline to control engine knocking for over 60 years before being made obsolete by environmentally mandated catalytic convertors for air quality, even though a safer and more economical alternative, ethanol, was known. The reason for this was that Dupont had lead to sell and Dupont acquired a major interest in Genertal Motors, and they worked in co-operation with Standard Oil to keep using lead. An interesting article on this history is at: http://www.indiapolicy.org/lists/india_policy/2000/Jun/msg00092.html.

The article on biodiesel can be read at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/212626_biodieselfans18.html