Control Engineering

Peter Welander

Replacing oil 2: Biodiesel
July 8, 2008

Last week the Chicago Tribune ran a dense article on the topic of biofuels, concentrating on developments in biodiesel. It discusses experiments at UOP (a division of Honeywell International) to turn crop oils into something that is indistinguishable from standard diesel fuel. This last bit is important so it can be mixed with and sent through the same pipelines as standard diesel, eliminating the need for new distribution infrastructure.

While UOP has developed the necessary chemical processes, it has yet to lower the cost to a competitive level. That's probably only a matter of time, so the more problematic issue is finding sufficient feedstock. With present farming technologies, we simply can't produce enough crop oil. Consider this: Soybeans produce less than 100 gallons of fuel per acre. Corn is better at 300 gallons and palm oil reaches 450 gallons. (Based on data from yesterday's article, Brazil produces about 525 gallons of ethanol per acre annually from sugar cane, and that is rising.) Weigh that against diesel fuel consumption of 60 billion gallons per year. The article points out that replacing even 20% of our gasoline and diesel consumption would involve "planting soybeans, sunflowers and rapeseed in every acre of California, Indiana, Nevada, and Michigan."

Not a promising picture. More tomorrow.

Posted by Peter Welander on July 8, 2008 | Comments (0)