Hidden Dangers Of BioDiesel

Barring particularly zealous environmentalists and global-aware political activists, the average American reader has no idea who George Monbiot is. Here are the facts; he is a very liberal British columnist, he strongly opposes BioDiesel, and he is not evil.

BioDiesel has oft been hailed as a solution to our environmental woes; it is a clean burning renewable resource that can come from a variety of vegetable oils. It is readily available nationwide, about a third of the price of traditional fuels, and can run in diesel engines with little or no modification.

In its purest form, the concept of fuelling vehicles with the oil from plants is virtually flawless, but according to one of Monbiot's recent articles, widespread use of BioDiesel could do much more harm than good – it could even be Worse than Fossil Fuel.

According to Monbiot, because commercial BioDiesel is primarily produced in third world countries that have a nasty habit of clear cutting rain forests to make room for whatever the day’s most trendy crop happens to be, the so called clean burning BioDiesel is actually the "world's most carbon-intensive fuel." He elaborates, "Before oil palms… are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they've cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidizes, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm [oil] is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria."

Following this logic, widespread use of BioDiesel could be harmful to the environment, but this isn't necessarily the end of the line for the technology. The average US town already produces enough vegetable oil waste to support at least a few cleaner burning vehicles. Furthermore, palm tree oil and used vegetable oil may not be the only source of the fuel. Green Car Congress recently featured an article on GreenShift, an industrial design company that has developed a process for turning existing animal waste into BioDiesel.

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