Biodiesel | Green Living Ideas

Biodiesel Blues: Car Manufacturers Say No to B100 in New Diesel Vehicles

Posted on Jun 03, 2009 by Jennifer Lance.

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A few years ago when we bought a new truck, we specifically purchased a diesel so we could use biodiesel in it. We had no intention of making our own fuel, but we were able to buy B99 at a local gas station. If you are new to biodiesel, the number refers to the percentage of biofuel in the mix. B100 is pure biodiesel. B20 is more common, as the percentage of biofuel is so low it does not congeal in cold weather.
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GTR: The Zero Carbon Car with Author William Kemp

Posted on Jul 23, 2008 by Sean Daily.

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Podcast: Add to | | Download (24.6MB)

GreenTalk Radio Host Sean Daily discusses the zero carbon car, high
fuel efficiency vehicles, and alternative fuel technologies with William Kemp, Author of the The Zero Carbon Car and other books about alternative fuels and renewable energy.

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Biodiesel Fuel

Posted on Oct 22, 2007 by GLI Editors.

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Biodiesel fuel is a replacement for standard diesel fuel. This alternative fuel is used only in diesel engines and as a substitute for standard gasoline or standard combustion engines. Biodiesel is a product of the transesterification of vegetable or nut oils into a fuel to be used in automobiles and even home heating.

So what is transesterification? Simply stated, it is the process of neutralizing the free fatty acids and removing the glycerin of the oil used as a base for the fuel to create an alcohol ester. This process is important for two reasons:

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Fueling a Biodiesel Nation

Posted on Oct 16, 2007 by GLI Editors.

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The year was 1996, and I was a college student on a semester abroad in Europe studying agriculture and energy—the two cornerstones of American society. While working on a small organic farm in former East Germany, I saw something that changed my life. We were harvesting fields of yellow flowering plants and crushing their seeds to extract vegetable oil, which was taken to a large stainless steel machine owned cooperatively by local farmers.

Inside of that machine, something incredible happened: the vegetable oil that we had pressed from the yellow rapeseed was transformed into a fuel that could run in any diesel engine. The farmers called this fuel biodiesel. To the farmers, the process was simply a routine operation, but to me it represented a complete revolution in thinking. If we could simply "grow" our own fuel, then why was America so fixated on petroleum?

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