Introduction
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What is biodiesel? Biodiesel is a renewable, clean burning alternative to diesel that is reducing the use of oil shipped in from other countries. This is producing more jobs and helping our environment. What is it made of? Biodiesel is made from a mix of cooking oil, soybean oil, and animal fats. How does it produce energy? Biodiesel produces energy from being burned and then we use the heat to produce the energy.
ProsThere are many advantages and disadvantages with every energy source. Here are a few about biodiesel. Biodiesel is a safe non toxic substance since it is only made of cooking oil, soybean oil and animal fat. It is biodegradable which means able to break down naturally. It is also environmentally friendly. Biodiesel cuts down in the use of oil shipped in from other countries which in return is creating more jobs because we are not depending on other countries for oil but instead making our own biodiesel.
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Cons Just like how there are pros about biodiesel there are also cons. Such as biodiesel is 10% less powerful than regular diesel. Biodiesel also isn't as cost effective or easy to get as other fuel types. It negatively affects the food supply because instead of growing crops for food we are growing crops to use the oil for biodiesel.
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Environmental Impact
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Like many other energy sources biodiesel has an effect on the environment. Sometimes it is good and other times it is not. Here are a few examples. Biodiesel causes trees to be cut down to be replaced with crops like corn to be used for biodiesel. Biodiesel also produces greenhouse gases, but it doesn't produce as much as other fuels like petrodiesel. Biodiesel also produces 50% less pollution than diesel that is made from fossil fuels. According to Berkley Biodiesel.org “Biodiesel fuel is the only alternative fuel that has effectively passed the Health Effects Testing requirements of the Clean Air (1990).” This is shocking to me that biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to pass the Health Effects Testing requirements because.... This shows that biodiesel is heading in the right direction.
Cost
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Biodiesel ranges from around $4.00 to about $8.00. In comparison to regular diesel which ranges from around 3.00 to a little over $4.00 biodiesel is expensive. The plant usually costs around $100,000,000. This makes me think that since biodiesel is more expensive than regular diesel it might be hard to expand and get people to start using the eco-friendly alternative
Fun Facts
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- You can purchase your own biodiesel plant starting at $3,000 at Aliba.com
- The Europeans Biodiesel Board states that France, Germany, and the United Kingdom produced over a staggering 2.64 billion gallons of biodiesel
- People used vegetable oil to run the first internal combustion engines
- Biodiesel is mixed with oil to improve engine life
- Everything can be used to produce biodiesel as long as the plant has oils and fats.
Bibliography
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