Biodiesel - Ups and Downs

Biodiesel.

It sounds particularly nice and amazing and green. Sometimes that's all that's necessary to make a product actually succeed, but in reality biodiesel is definitely not a permanent, end-all solution to environmental safety.

Biodiesel itself is just vegetable oil or animal based fat diesel fuel - making the process of acquiring, at least using conventional wisdom, fairly light on the environment. The comparison is made to fossil fuels - and the truth is that in creating biodiesel, it is must more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels.

What people sometimes forget is that creating gasoline from crude oil requires quite a deal of energy - and these processes expel Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Biodiesel can be better, but only if there is enough effort placed at the production level to reduce these emissions. Those factors include the source of the fuel, as certain sources will produce less environmentally friendly results. If unregulated, it could also lead to deforestation by planting the feedstocks that will become the fuel.

Overall, biodiesel is an acceptable alternative, if, and only if, it is produced properly.