Ask the REA Expert about biodiesel

The weekly Renewable Energy Access "Ask the Expert" question covers a wide variety of topics and yesterday's question once again swings the topic to something car-related: biodiesel. REA's Meghan Murphy, founding member and now acting president of Ithaca Biodiesel, tackles the question of just how biodiesel is made, and just how oil-dependent the process is (American farms used 3.5 billion gallons of diesel fuel in 2005). She writes that if all the biodiesel that is expected to be produced in America in 2008, 1.7 billion gallons, were to be sold to farmers, it would almost cover half of the fuel needed to grow this country's crops. So there's a way to go to make a dent in U.S. diesel usage.
Murphy has a lot more details in her article and says she'll cover biodiesel from algae in her next column. Stay tuned.

[Source: REA]