Biodiesel: tomorrow’s fuel
“The
use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such
oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and coal
tar products of the present time.” Rudolph Diesel, German Engineer (1912)
Biodiesel is among nature’s most environmentally-friendly fuels. Biodiesel can be produced by following a simple refining process using raw ingredients like cooking oil, abattoir waste or crops such as canola.
In the United States, annual biodiesel production capacity stands at 900 million litres.
While Australia lags a long way behind the US, environmentally-conscious energy users here are paying increasing attention to this clean, green fuel.
Shifting a diesel vehicle or generator over to using biodiesel requres little or no modification, and biodiesel can be a near-complete replacement for petroleum-based diesel. France (the world’s largest producer and user of biodiesel) mandates 5% of biodiesel in every litre of ultra low sulphur diesel sold. Why not Australia?
At present, Australia has everything needed to become a signficant producer and consumer of biodiesel. The country has large, untapped supplies of waste vegetable oil and a large agricultural and livestock industry with huge potential to feed biodiesel refining.
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