December 2007 | Green Scene
Biodiesel
The Good, the Bad and the Imported
By Paul Constant
“I love using biodiesel in my truck,” says Matthew Cacho, a sustainable business consultant in Seattle. After researching the biodiesel option for years, Cacho finally invested in a biodiesel-friendly 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser last summer. “I don’t notice any loss of power, and I think the engine runs smoother,” he says. “There’s a lot more torque. It gets 23 miles per gallon on biodiesel, and it only got 12 miles per gallon on regular gas.” He sounds like a man in love with his ride: “I’m hoping to have this vehicle forever.”
Although Cacho put a lot of study into the type of biodiesel vehicle he wanted, when it comes to purchasing biofuel for his truck, convenience is king. “I mostly go where it’s convenient for me,” he admits. “I wish biodiesel were available everywhere, but it’s not.” Cacho isn’t sure where his biodiesel comes from. “As for who sources what where, I wish I kept better track. It’s something that I’m interested in doing. Just getting biodiesel has been a huge step in the right direction.” For now, Cacho still has a slew of questions and the desire to learn more. “I want to make sure my values are still congruent with what I’m actually doing.”
Biodiesel — a clean, renewable resource, with none of the carbon emissions or political baggage of the fossil fuel industry — is the fuel of the future. Or, at least that’s what most people think. But as biodiesel breaks big in the public consciousness, the green movement’s chosen fuel is at an ethical crossroads. Can it remain a sustainable source and still meet increasing consumer demand?
Unlike fossil fuels, biodiesel can be harvested from many different sources, not all of which are created ethically equal. The most environmentally sustainable option, experts agree, is used cooking oil from restaurants. In Oregon, where biodiesel enthusiast Chris Hagerbaumer is Director of Programs for the Oregon Environmental Council, each man, woman and child is responsible for creating a gallon of waste oil a year. But “waste grease is a valuable commodity,” points out Hagerbaumer, and most of Oregon and Washington’s waste grease gets shipped to Japan and other Asian nations. While Lyle Rudensey, a homebrewing biodiesel expert known to the blogosphere as “BioLyle” asserts that restaurant grease is best, he admits that even if all restaurant waste grease was utilized locally, “Generating biofuel from used restaurant oil would probably match only 3 to 4 percent of our diesel needs. We need to look at other sources.”
Biodiesel, of course, can be grown as a crop. All kinds of different plants can be transformed into biofuels, including switchgrass, timothy hay, corn and soybeans. That’s what leads critics to contest that widescale use of biofuels would divert too much farmland ordinarily used for food crops, resulting in food shortage — a worry that experts like Hagerbaumer and Peter Moulton, the new Bioenergy Coordinator for Washington state, poo poo as hype generated by Big Oil.
According to Moulton, the more pressing concern in biodiesel farming should be which crop is most sustainable. “The biofuels industry is currently driven by corn and soy, neither of which is optimal,” he explains. Corn-based ethanol tends to drop a car’s mileage by 20 percent, and it has an energy balance of roughly 1:1, meaning that it requires up to a gallon of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol. Further, it takes 26.1 pounds of corn to produce that gallon, making ethanol the highest yield of any of the major biofuels. As Rudensey explains, better choices would be “canola, which serves as a cover crop for winter wheat, or we could get oil from plants that grow where other crops don’t grow,” maximizing both profitability and sustainability for small farmers.
But ask virtually any biofuel expert, and they’ll agree that the worst biodiesel crop environmental offender is palm oil — the main source of most imported biofuel. “If palm oil was grown sustainably, it would be a great fuel. A third of all vegetable oils are palm oils,” explains Moulton. The problem is that to meet happy green consumers’ increased demand for biofuels, Central and South American farmers are burning forestland, including rain forest, to grow palm oil crops. How many biodiesel drivers picture burning rainforests when they pull up to the pump?
“The real issue is fighting the deforestation practices, and creating sustainable forest management,” says Moulton. While international bodies are working on palm oil standards, no standard yet exists.
Thanks to low workers’ wages and property costs in developing countries, it’s still cheaper to farm palm oil and ship it in (using copious amounts of fossil fuels) on huge tankers, than to produce biodiesel locally. Cheap, foreign palm oil has already attracted larger conglomerates to the biodiesel market.
This is exactly the kind of irresponsible, corporate thinking that created the ecological problems which are inspiring consumers to choose biodiesel in the first place, says Rudensey. The general rule of thumb with fuel, as with food, is that local is best. Rudensey sounds elated at the prospect of local fuel: “It’s an exciting thing to go to the source and make your own fuel. I’d like to see [biofuels] go the way of the food movement, more like farmers’ markets.”
Moulton adds that biofuel farmers are in a unique situation to make up for past mistakes of the farming industry.
“Suddenly, being a farmer creates a chance for economic growth, for the first time in decades,” he says. “How we go about the farming is key.”
![[Send]](http://consciouschoice.com/sendlink/send.gif){kind=small}
Recommend this page to a friend
Top Ten pages recommended to friends:
