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What is Biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a perfect and complete replacement for petroleum diesel. It is made from a chemical process called transesterification using vegetable oil and alcohol.

The vegetable oil can come from a variety of sources including corn, soy, peanut and palm, just to name a few. The alcohol can be methanol, commonly called wood alcohol, or ethanol, a grain based alcohol (the alcohol in whiskey). These ingredients are renewable. This means that the fuel used in a vehicle can be made from commonly grown American crops, and this frees us from dependence on foreign oil.

An amazing fact is that the oil used does not have to be fresh from the press, it can be waste oil from fryers in restaurants, for example. This is a fantastic use of a waste product that otherwise ends up in a landfill. Another interesting note is that the only byproduct of producing biodiesel is glycerin, so after the transesterification process you end up with fuel and soap.

Biodiesel is...
a perfect replacement for petroleum diesel
a renewable and sustainable energy source
made from agricultural plant sources
biodegradable
nontoxic
cleaner burning
safer

Benefits of Biodiesel
Top 10 Reasons to Use Biodiesel

1) Biodiesel is friendly to our environment
2) Biodiesel is made from renewable and sustainable resources
3) Biodiesel eliminates sulfur emissions
4) Biodiesel drastically reduces unburned hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and particulate emissions
5) Biodiesel contains no harmful aromatics
6) Biodiesel emits the same amount of CO2 the plants that produce it absorb, so net CO2 emissions = 0
7) Biodiesel provides better lubrication than petrodiesel in engines
8) Biodiesel is nontoxic
9) Biodiesel biodegrades quickly
10) Biodiesel is safer to store and transport than petrodiesel

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