Back during the Clinton administration there was a push for ethanol to be a revolutionary new fuel. The thinking then was that we would grow our own fuel from corn and it would be a source of domestic energy. Unfortunately, the physics just didn't add up. No matter what process is used, it take more energy to create ethanol that it will ever provide. Therefore, using ethanol as an additive in our fuel has made us MORE dependent on fossil fuels. The same situation is occurring now with bio-diesel. Taking vegetable oil and 'cracking' it with methanol to produce fuel requires sodium hydroxide, an expensive, toxic, and energy intensive chemical. Not only that, methanol comes from fermented trees and requires intense energy use to make as well. Bottom line, after all is said and done, bio-diesel, ironically, only intensifies our need for energy and thus makes us even more dependent on fossil fuels!
However, there is a way around this. When Rudolf Diesel invented his engine more than a hundred years ago, he envisioned that straight corn oil or sunflower oil would burn efficiently in his engine. This is actually true. A diesel engine can handle 20% straight vegetable oil. The energy put into harvesting and crushing oil rich seeds is much less than the energy we would extract. Now, we're talking! If we modify diesel engines to burn 100% vegetable oil, this would be an efficient solution to eliminating our need for fossil fuel oil. No one ever pursued Diesel's idea of converting his engine to 100% vegetable oil, because the oil that comes out of the ground was so cheap back then. As we all know, things have changed and it now makes sense to revisit this issue.
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