One of the list-serves (discuss@hm.swapspace.com) I belong to has an interesting thread on bio-diesel in the wake of the opening of a B-20 station in Troy:

[Jim W]: Well that was easy. We needed only to state our intent to facilitate
the establishment of a bio-diesel station in the Capital District and
like magic one appears. For those who didn't see the Story about the
John Ray and Sons station in Troy in this morning's TU or local
news broadcast on channel 13 here it is.

[George M]: I don't like to eat much soy anyways...

[Steve B]: George raises a good question, and I must also rain on another facet of the good news from Troy.

The biodiesel lobby in this country is made up mostly of soy bean farmers from Missouri and Iowa. They have a trade association. I think the site is . This is industrial monocrop ag at it's largest-scale: energy-intensive, and chemically dependent.

While there are other conventional, commercial oil-laden crops from which biodiesel might be refined (canola for one, peanuts for another), the soy bean farmers are out in front.

You sustainable ag and peak oil folks will realize the myriad problems here.....

(1) Why can't we first use all the "yellow grease" (used commercial fryer oil and animal by products) available before we move to planting/using crops for biodiesel?

A commercial collection system already exists for yellow grease. Some truck literally drives to your local McDonald's to take its used oil (business models differ; some collectors get paid for carting it away, and again when they sell it to end-users). It's mostly turned into animal feed. So it's already a decent case of reuse. But my sense is reusing it for biodiesel would be better.

(2) why is it only B-20 for sale in Troy? Will a higher percentage BD be available soon? There's pure 100% biodiesel available commercially (it's what Will[y] Nelson sells at his station in Texas).

[Jim Z]: Steve B wrote: "(1) Why can't we first use all the "yellow grease" (used commercial fryer oil and animal by products) available before we move to planting/using crops for biodiesel?"

Answer from Corporate America: Not enough profit in it and it would involve recycling (which is not as "sexy" as starting a whole new industry and claiming its a deep shade of green).

I have a friend with two "Greasers" (www.greasecar.com): a diesel Mercedes and a diesel Ford F-350 behemoth. I personally don't support the notion of continued happy motoring on alternative fuels or with increased fuel economy/efficiency. I feel they just perpetuate the notion of lower-density, less-human scale development patterns akin to suburban sprawl, while fostering the neo-classical economists' argument of substitutability with regard to automotive fuels. I favor conservation of precious petrofuels thru proximity planning. Make non-human-powered transportation more the norm thru rezoning, localization of commercial economies, and much better planning principles. The land use patterns and private property and tax laws that are seen as sacrosanct in the US are simply unsustainable irrespective of what energy source we power our systems with (renewable, non-renewable, or any combination thereof).

I think bio-diesel and yellow grease are great fuels for onsite distillation at local farms to power any machinery used in the production, and possibly dissemination of their organic food.

Another problem with the industrial monocropping efforts needed to produce the methadone equivalent for our heroin-like addiction to oil is that so much of it would be needed, it is likely that Genetic Engineering will attempt to come to the rescue and soon we'll have Monsatan and ADM playing God with soybeans and canola (already a GMO of rapeseed) to create more "efficient" strains of crops for fuel production. The probability of windborne or spilled contamination a la Percy Schmeiser could spell the end of guaranteeing GMO-free food for us.

Localization is a great way to build local economies, to reduce demand for the importation of precious resources that may exist locally, and to minimize waste in the form of excess consumption and byproducts of the combustion of all fuels. These benefits will not come about thru alternative fuels and/or better fuel economy.