"When I was first asked to write an article on alternate fuels for this blog, I did so to test my ability to write an article which would generate some interest, arouse some participation and stir the pot of discussion, so to speak.

I had no idea that what I wrote would stir the pot so well.

I have learned a lot reading these posts over the last few weeks. I encourage you to keep stirring, for I firmly believe that you can, one by one, piece by piece, come up with realistic approaches with meaningful ROI.

One of the early posts remarked that there is no one all encompassing solution to the alternative fuel pie challenge, rather various slices, each appropriate to a unique situation or set of constraints. I agree.

Marine Algae Biodiesel (MAB)is specific to the needs of our national transportation systems. The consumer infra-structure is already in place, needing only a change of signage on the pumps and station marquees. We could conclude that the arguments pro MAB are good and sufficient, requiring only resolution of the political and venture capital financial dog fights we are only too familiar with.

Ethanol from U.S. corn fields is a highly subsidized product requiring massive conversion of food grain acreage into subsidized corn production. The negative back lash against the status quo (AMD in case) is mounting daily and rightly so. The ROI number crunch is not friendly to Ethanol for fuel. Brazil is universally cited as a model for ethanol for transportation but hardly any mention is made of the massive and necessary technology changes in automobile fuel handling to make the system work. There seems to be too much smoke and mirrors around the concept for the U.S. to make Ethanol a meaningful fuel alternate.

Fuel cells and elementary Hydrogen are also two exciting alternatives, both of which would require massive industrial production and delivery technology changes. Both are worth further R&D and are feasible for limited specialized applications where cost is a minor factor.

Two of the most interesting alternate sources are Wind Turbines, excellent for remote power grid locations where wind is a constant reliable source, and Geothermal steam tukrbine power generators.

Of the two, Wind is a highly developed, currently in use application in remote and isolated regions globally. Its ROI based on location constraints is excellent.

Geothermal power generation is a sleeping giant currently being exploited around the world in some of the most unlikely locations. There is something almost seminal about drawing nourishment from the heart of mother earth.

The potential energy available from the hot strata deep within our crust is for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. The technology for deep well drilling is already available and currently being used. Deep strata sourcing can be drilled literally anywhere a rig can be set up.

More easily tapped geothermal sources can be made along any volcanic fault lines, of which the U.S. has several. (I used to live in Hawai'i (The comma actually belongs there) and local proposals to tap the main island volcano, Kiluea, for live steam production cum turbo electric power generation were met with controlled rage by some of the state's native Hawaian population who still cling to the pagan religious beliefs, especially those of Pele, goddess of fire and volcanos. Powerful stuff! There are more user friendly places.

Within the contiguous states, the most likely location is Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone has several good reasons for establishing a large geothermal power plant there, the obvious one being evidenced by the geysers, numerous geysers, present in what geologists and volcanologists call the Yellowstone Caldera. The geothermal source is very close to the surface there, making its use more cost effective.

There is a more pressing reason to source power there and that is the history of Yellowstone Caldera. Some seventeen thousand years ago it blew up, sending a lethal layer of volcanic ash as far east as Kansas, killing everything it fell upon. The blow up was the latest in a cyclical blast that some geologists calculate to occur every 17,000 years, plus or minus.

It would seem that we are presently due for that big bang at Yellowstone any time now. Not impressed? Due diligence, my friends, due diligence. Google: "Yellowstone Caldera volcanic activity". BTW, I am citing all this off the top of my head from data I read some years ago. Check me out, please. Don't take anyone's word for anything until you personally have checked out their credibility. Me included!

Their is an ad by General Electric, I believe, currently running on TV, promoting geothermal energy. They make some mind boggling claims. Check that out.

I believe that, using all or some of the alternate energy pie slices above, that we could be totally energy independent within the next fifteen to twenty years.

We put a man on the moon, not once but many times. We can do anything if we set a national goal and commit to making personal sacrifices till we get it done.

The only thing standing in our way is our own apathy, a "Let George do it; I don't want to get involved" national curse. My friends, it is for me a struggle of morals and spirituality against the lust for power and greed for money.

Election day is coming up next Tuesday. Do you know whose bed your candidate is sleeping in tonight? Do you approve? Tell that scoundrel next week. Demand accountability. It is your right. One small vote can make a big difference."

Aloha oe,

Pathfinder

…thanks for that Sam, interesting stuff I'm sure you'd agree. So, what do you think…?

Are you looking for somewhere to get hold of waste cooking oil to use in your biodiesel making experiments? Contact your local eating places…they're probably throwing a ton of the stuff away each day.

Check out Lucas Manteca who owns a seafood restaurant. The environmentally conscious owner wanted to make his restaurant as enviro-friendly as possible so instead of throwing out his waste oil as sewage he gives it to a company called Waste Oil Recyclers….who then proceed to go and sell it off as biodiesel and make a pretty penny.

Now of course, what you want to do is get in there first before these new companies, which are springing up all over the place, get there first!

Do you use local contacts?  I'd love to hear about it, leave a comment below…

Biodiesel Trains?

Over here in the UK, they're trialling a South West Train run on diesel, soya beans and rapeseed oil over the Exeter-London-Salisbury route.

Over the next few months they're going to decide whether it improves the speed, engine or emissions.

…bet it's still not on time though! (cheap shot I know)

Pond Life May Power Cars And Planes In The Future

A company called Sapphire Energy claims to have developed a green crude oil that is identical to regular crude oil… but which doesn't affect climate change and doesn't need acres of land to produce.

Too good to be true?

Sapphire has so far raised about $50m in venture capital recently as investors see "green crude" as the future of oil supplies.

Of course this type of algae biodiesel has been discussed on this site before but where Sapphire claim to differ is in not just concentrating on producing ethanol and biodiesel but instead creating traditional crude oil. As for what type of algae they are using Sapphire are keeping quiet although commentators say they're likely to be using a genetically modified cyanobacteria, otherwise known as blue-green algae. These organisms are capable of doubling their mass in an hour!

Sapphire hopes to be at a stage of commercial production within 3 to 5 years.

They do of course have their critics, John Loughhead of the UK Energy Research Centre argues "it's a very sound idea but…are they able to do anything practical in an efficient way" he goes on "They also have the classic renewable's problem in that you're dealing with energy from the sun…so you're only getting peak conditions around 0.5KW per square metre. You need vast, great big farms."

Algae is one alternative fuel source we here at biodieselfuelonline are optimistic about, we'll have to wait and see what the future brings. You may enjoy the algae discussion from this earlier article.

(Thanks to The Guardian UK for source material)

How did he cut his carbon footprint? By converting his sports car to run on cheese and wine.

No, really!

As the Prince states in his own annual review the car now runs on "100% bioethanol made from surplus wine".

Now the wine used is apparently "surplus" English wine which isn't allowed to be sold off for consumers. So old Charlie simply sticks it in his vehicles!

Apparently the exhaust smells like vodka and it cost Charles £5000 to convert his car.

But good on him I say, of course it helps if you have the cash to do this. Onto another alternative fuel nut…

Neil Young Loves Biodiesel

As Neil himself recently said "I feel like I have a lot to do, I really would like to work on the energy problem, on solutions to the oil need."

So what has Neil been doing about it?

He's created a prototype model called the Linc Volt, a 1959 Lincoln Continental which he's converted into an electrically powered, multifuel beast which has its own generators!

He also drives a gargantuan Hummer converted to run on biodiesel and explains his future mission thus…

"What I'm really focused on, is to work out a way to eliminate roadside refuelling and come up with a way to build a car that creates its own fuel and powers the owner's house."

To see more on the technology go take a look at www.lincvolt.com

Now it's true that we may not have the resources of these rather affluent folks but I'm always glad when famous people manage to bring renewable energies into the limelight.

What do you think?

(Thanks to The Times for the quotes)

Thinking it was some new internet slang, I asked my teen what “hypermiling” means.

He looked up from his laptop, raised a quizzical eyebrow and said, “Hypermiling? How should I know?”

The boy spends 99% of his waking time on the web. If he didn’t know the word, clearly it wasn’t related to the internet. There was nothing to do but Google it.

Seconds later, Google was showing me hundreds of links and I was discovering a world I didn’t know existed, the world of the hypermilers.

Hypermilers are motorists fixated on squeezing out every last smidgeon of power from the gas they put in their vehicles. The model of car you drive doesn’t matter here. Mercedes owners don’t rank higher than the guy driving a rusty pickup. The only status in this group comes from producing eye-popping mpg’s.

The word “hypermiling” seems to have originated with Wayne Gerdes, a man many regard as the High Priest of the new order. Gerdes clearly knows his stuff. He reportedly once got a standard issue Ford pickup truck to average better than 100 miles per gallon over the course of one long, hot summer.

Gerdes may lead the army, but it’s everyday Jacks and Jills who fill out the ranks of the hypermilers. There’s no membership pledge, no team jacket, no dues to pay. All you need to join is an obsessive-compulsive relationship with your gas tank.

True, some hypermilers see it as a competitive sport. But most hypermilers want only to prevent gasoline from gobbling up most of their paycheck.

As one hypermiler mom told me, “Gasoline rules my budget. I fill up the car first, and then head to the grocery store to spend what’s left on dinner. I never know till I see what the gas pump says whether we’ll be eating hamburgers or Hamburger Helper.”

With a nod toward the design on her T-shirt that says, “Hypermiling is just plain fuelish,” she says, “I figured I either had to learn to use gas as efficiently as possible or convince the kids their favorite dinner is cornflakes.”

Another newby hypermiler explains, “I’ve never been a gear head. Don’t even change my own oil. And I sure never gave any thought to how my driving affected my gas mileage.”

He goes on. “But I saw a magazine article on Gerdes getting 100 miles a gallon from an old truck. He explained how letting the vehicle coast could increase your gas mileage. I tried it and sure enough, it extended the time between fill-ups. That’s how I got interested in hypermiling.”

If hypermiling was born out of frustration with high gas prices, it’s being raised by people who want a lot more than just to save a couple of dollars on gas. The truly dedicated hypermiler wants to join the ranks of the small, almost mythical group of drivers who manage, like Gerdes, to Coast and Pulse and Glide their way to fuel efficiency we mortals can only dream of. Me, I’ll be all too happy if I just learn enough about hypermiling to coax 50 miles per gallon from my old Chevy.

The message screams at us from every sign at every corner gas station— gasoline prices are at an all-time high and there’s no indication that relief is anywhere in site. In fact, many experts are saying it could get worse—much worse—and that’s sending masses of motorists scrambling for ways to cut down on gas consumption.

But what to do, when old, outdated myths and outright scams are filling the airwaves and internet? Just today we saw a television news station advising drivers to fill up their gas tanks in the morning when gas is cooler and more condensed, as a way of getting more for your money.

This outdated advice may have been true once—we don’t know for sure—but we do know that today gas stations store fuel below ground in 30,000-gallon tanks. That means gas stays at relatively the same temperature and does not expand and contract with daily cycles.

We’ve seen all sorts of other bad advice that’s outdated, ill-advised or just outright fraud. Claims that devises which bleed air into the carburetor can dramatically increase gas mileage turn out not to be true when put to the test under closely monitored conditions.

Same for those fuel-line gadgets that supposedly help you save on gas by heating it before it enters the carburetor, or magnets that clamp on to the outside of the fuel line to magically change the molecular structure of gasoline, or metallic additives that claim they ionize gas for great savings. They’ve all been tested by the EPA, which found the only thing these devises reduced was the amount of cash in motorist’s wallets.

Face it—with a long-term gas crises looming ahead, there are plenty of governmental bodies and even private industries that have good reason to want to help you save on gas. Here are ten tips they all agree will really help you do the job:

1. Keep your tires properly inflated according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Under inflated tires make the vehicle run less efficiently and waste gas.
   
2. Don’t be an aggressive driver. Jackrabbit starts, tire screeching stops and speeding can lower your gas mileage by 5% on city streets and as much as 33% on highways.
   
3. Avoid excessive idling. Idling your engine for 15 minutes wastes one gallon of gas. Whenever possible, time your traveling to avoid lingering at traffic lights and reduce the amount of time you let your car warm up. In warm weather, driving is actually the most efficient way to warm up a combustion engine.
   
4. Slow down. The faster you go, the less efficiently your vehicle uses gas. 55 is the most efficient mph on highways. Go above 60 and your fuel efficiency decreases rapidly.
   
5. Remove excess weight. If you’re used to driving around with your golf clubs and a chain saw in your trunk, you’re paying a heavy price for it. Removing an extra 100 pounds from your car will increase your fuel efficiency by as much as 2%.
   
6. Don’t use premium fuel unless your vehicle manufacturer requires it. And double or triple check your automakers advice by asking true auto experts—not just shade tree mechanics—for their best advice. We’re not pointing fingers at anyone, but some automakers with ties to big petroleum producers have been known to recommend premium fuels in cases where regular would do just as well.
   
7. Have a mechanic check your oxygen sensors. A faulty oxygen sensor will mistakenly send more gas to the engine then is needed. Replacing a faulty oxygen sensor can save you as many as six fill-ups a year.
   
8. Make sure your air filter is clean. A dirty air filter dramatically reduces fuel efficiency, so don’t just blindly follow some predetermined schedule for putting in a new one. Consider your actual driving conditions. Driving on dirt roads—or just plain dirty roads—or in heavily polluted cities will get your air filter filthy a lot faster than you might expect.
   
9. Check on your “forgotten filters.” Most motorists know to check the air filter when they do a tune-up, but not many think to check on the fuel filter, the PCV valve and the breather filter. Replacing these “forgotten” filters once a year or every 12,000 miles can help improve your gas mileage by up to 15 percent.
   
10. Get a new gas cap—and make it one with a lock. Old gas caps can get out of shape. As gas fumes expand in your tank, they can escape past a faulty seal and waste precious fuel. Some studies suggest you can save as much as 17 gallons of gas a year just by replacing an old gas cap. And consider making that new gas cap a locking model because sadly, as gas prices go up, so do gas thefts.

     

Is it possible to run your car on cooking oil - go have a read and find out (I think we know the answer to that one!) Read more…

Whatever happened to the electric car? Does it have a future or is it still a pipe dream? Read more…

The hybird car - how does it work and all about plug-in hybrid cars. Any comments on hybrid cars, leave one below…

Finally, how to save money at the pump with hydrogen. Read more…

Just a bit of light reading for you today.

Any comments on hybrids, hydrogen or anything biodiesel/alternative fuel related…leave them below and let's get a discussion going…

America has not seen such a wide reaching crisis involving petroleum based fuels as we are now experiencing; not only nation wide but global in its scope.

Political concerns, according to conventional wisdom, may indeed be the root cause of fuel prices soaring out of control, but they will not be addressed in this report.
Certain obvious facts supersede political hype and present an urgent need to focus on reality. Petroleum reserves are limited. Exploitation of those reserves is controlled by foreign governments over which we have no control. The pressing question is “How does the United States change the basic ground rules into our favor? What are our alternatives?”

What are the alternatives?

Current thinking has produced a number of viable sources for domestic energy, but feasibility studies on the majority of the proposals yields striking shortcomings. For an in depth review of some of the problems encountered, I highly recommend the University of New Hampshire bio diesel study. This study was a spin off from a Dept. of Energy funded research grant exploring the carbon dioxide sequestration potential of certain marine algae. I consider the study a must read for anyone seriously interested in alternative fuels in general and bio diesel in particular.

My personal focus here is the spin off of the marine algae study, namely; bio diesel for transportation needs. After all, it is the price of gasoline for our cars and trucks that is causing a national frustration and rage amongst consumers. It is gasoline at $4.00 per gallon that is causing a massive penetration of our national apathy and sense of entitlement. What does the pump price of gas have to do with bio diesel? I don’t drive a diesel vehicle. Maybe I should! Maybe we all should.

One of the first positive results of the DOE study was finding that marine algae do indeed sequester (bind up) greenhouse gasses…. Big time! Not only did they gobble up the CO2 but they used waste water (sewage) ingredients as nutrients to produce more algae, which went to work and produced …. Etc.

The moment of serendipity, the ‘AHA!’ event, came when they discovered just what that little green micro-plant was doing with the stuff it was consuming so well. The little buggers were converting the excess-over-reproduction into lipids (oils) which have high energy content.

Upon discovering the lipid conversion feature, DOE changed the focus towards examining the feasibility of using marine algae to produce engine friendly diesel; bio-diesel. Let me point out that singer Willie Nelson has two touring busses entirely powered by bio-diesel. Which one, I don’t know; just that they run very well, thank you.

 Obviously, there are several sources of vegetable oil that work fine as diesel fuel. The problem driving most research seems to be the individual plant source return on investment. ROI is the reality all marketers have to keep in mind. Consider the following parameters…

• Cost of energy to manufacture fertilizer.

• Cost of energy to truck fertilizer to field.

• Cost of energy to plant the corn/soybeans, etc.

• Cost of energy to harvest the crop.

• Cost of energy to truck the crop to the corn oil plant.

• In short, how many ergs of energy do you have to expend to get an excess of ergs in return?

Other considerations would include the climate mandated one crop per year and four to five months laying idle, waiting for spring; which would group together all grain sources as poor starters. Probably the most sinister factor of using food grains as a bio-diesel source is that the vast majority of arable land in the U.S. would be pre-empted for fuel. Your cornflakes and Cheerios would have to be imported from somewhere offshore. Not a good idea.

Marine algae thrive in salty water; water like the Great Salt Lake where several algae ponds are currently in production. Marine algae like lots of sunlight which is plentiful throughout the South West, South Central and South East. Marine algae thrive on cheap feedstock such as city waste water. They also reproduce at phenomenal rates, becoming self sustaining, all year round.

The oil produced by marine algae is directly useable in any standard diesel engine now manufactured in the United States. There is no need to change any of our service station pumps which are already pumping diesel; merely changing reversing the ratio of gasoline pumps to diesel in order to accommodate the phase out of gasoline as a primary transportation fuel. Distribution and storage infrastructure also need no changes as pipelines, tanks and over the road delivery works equally well with diesel.

Marine bio-diesel yields have been estimated at 1700 gallons of fuel grade oil per acre/year. Extrapolating from that, it would take about 16,000 acres of pond to nurture algae and produce enough diesel fuel to replace the entire annual transportation fuel needs of the United States. The money, in billions of dollars, spent in building the production infrastructure would remain within the homeland.

 There is, of course, a down side to all this serendipity. There are varieties of algae which invade the open ponds now being studied. They can be so vigorous as to squeeze out our oil producing plants, rendering the pond useless. Current technology has developed sealed photo reactor “ponds” which eliminate the problem of foreign algae incursion. At present, they seem universally too expensive to implement on a large scale.

I contacted the project director at the University of New Hampshire, offering my services as a design draftsman in the project. I was informed of the alien incursion problem and that “We’re working on it.” UNH estimated it would take three to four years to come up with a sealed production system that would be cheap enough to build. Any such system would have to cost less than current petroleum refining systems.

 Someone once said…

 “If we can put a man on the moon and bring him back alive, we can do anything!” Personally, I like that thinking.

I've reprinted it here, I'm sure my good friends at the Guardian won't mind (after all, I buy their paper every week!)

Enjoy….

Every few weeks Gordon Elliott drives 22 miles to the Hare and Hounds pub in Marple, Cheshire, collects a barrel of waste cooking oil from his stepdaughter and takes it back to his personal oil refinery in his garage in Leigh, near Bolton. The retired construction site manager then decants the liquid into a machine and adds a few chemicals.

Twenty-four hours later the waste oil has been purified, filtered and refined and is ready to be used in one of his family's two diesel cars. Instead of paying £1.25p a litre at the local supermarket, he has paid 15p to make his own biodiesel. He says he is saving nearly £100 a month - as well as 90% of the greenhouse gases he would normally emit from driving. The cars perform perfectly, the equipment will be paid for within a year and the pleasure of making his own fuel is intense. "It's the principle. I do it for the environment and to spite the exchequer," he said.

Elliott, 79, is part of a cottage industry of people who have turned to making their own recycled "biodiesel" in response to the doubling of fuel prices in just over a year. Companies making biodiesel "reactors" report booming sales and demand for cheaper diesel is outstripping anything they can produce.

"Our business has doubled in size in just the last six months," said David Taylor of Ecotec Resources, the Lancashire company which sold Elliott his machine and which also makes 100,000 litres a year of recycled fuel.

"If you can collect your own oil it works out at about 15p a litre. Otherwise you can buy in your waste oil for about 30p, so you are getting diesel for about 45p. That's a big saving on the forecourt price." He is selling 15-20 biodiesel machines a week and has sold 800 in under a year to taxi firms, hauliers, restaurants and others.

DIY diesel is seen by many as the revenge of the little man on the government, oil companies and the authorities. No one knows how many backroom refineries there are in Britain, but a government study suggested there were around 1,400 small scale plants producing a few thousand litres a year in 2005/6. Since then the price of diesel has more than doubled and the market for machines has risen. People in the industry suggest there are 35 companies refining recycled oil commercially and perhaps 20,000 individuals making private arrangements to collect and process oil from local restaurants, chip shops and food manufacturers.

Since the law was relaxed to allow people to make 2,500 litres a year for their own use, most are working legally, but as the price of fuel rises inexorably, so criminal elements are moving in.

"There are wars going on in London to get the oil," said Tom Lasica, who runs Pure Fuels, London's largest refiner of vegetable oil. "Spanish and German companies are moving in to buy up British used vegetable oil. People are stealing it from each other and selling it abroad. We heard that one fish and chip shop in Southend was broken into just to steal the waste oil."

"A lot of people are making the diesel for new cars. A year ago most people were putting it into old cars. Now the quality of the oil is critical," said Kym Leatt, a director of Envirogroup, which collects, refines and sells 7,500 litres a week in Kent.

"If we could produce five times as much biodiesel we could sell it just like that," said Leatt. "Demand has grown exponentially. Every day we have two or three new businesses asking us. Some companies are saving £25,000 a year. Were selling it to hauliers, taxi firms, fleets of tipper trucks. In the past it would either go down the drain or go to landfill. This is true recycling." He is selling for 98p a litre compared with £1.18-£1.25 at the pumps.

"Demand is going through the roof. We're selling biodiesel machines to the average Joe, universities, schools, restaurants, taxi drivers, absolutely anyone," said James Hygate, a director of GreenFuels. "We've noticed a surge of people driving company cars. They are making their own and then claiming 45p a mile from their firms.

"It's a true grassroots industry. The better quality oil is being taken at source by the small guys. Home scale production is definitely growing fast. Groups of farmers are beginning to grow the crops and make their own diesel."

Demand is growing from institutions and local authorities. The borough of Richmond is this week putting out a tender for a £3.5m contract to run all its 300 council vehicles on recycled vegetable oil for the next three years. The council says it could save nearly £100,000 and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by several thousand tons.

Back in Marple, Elliott will this weekend be heading for the Hare and Hounds to pick up another barrel. "Everyone wants it. But if I have any left over I'll give it to the lad," he says.

Good stuff eh? 15p a litre, that's about 30 cents my American friends.

Always nice to see the little guy succeeding.

Leave your comments below…

One that's been around for sometime though is the Diesel Secret Energy.

This claims to be better than biodiesel, easier to create and more cost effective…but is it more harmful to the environment?

Here's more info on the subject… Diesel Secret Energy Review

…but if you've ever tried the stuff, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

Run Your Car On Water

Another book on how to run your car using water was released recently.

Take a look here… Run Your Car On Water

Promising to give you the knowledge to be able to create a water hybrid for less than $150!

This could save you over 40% on fuel costs.

This product we haven't tested, so again, if you have any comments to make about this product (is it a viable alternative or just pie in the sky?)…then please leave them below…

How To Make Biodiesel Video

I also thought you might like to see this…

Found it on YouTube and it shows a guy running you through his own little set up of biodiesel making kit in his garage. Take a look…

So here we go with our "weekly" round-up of biodisel goodness from around the world. I hope you enjoy it…

Safeway Go Green

The story that seems to have cropped up the most around the web this week is news that supermarket giant Safeway will now run its fleet of over 1000 trucks on biodiesel fuel across the USA.

"Our customers care about these types of sustainability issues, and we are proud to be a leader in environmental best practices," said Joe Pettus the senior vice president

China Gets Biodiesel Friendly

In the northern provnce of Hebei, around 7,000 hectares of biodiesel forest will be grown.

China is trying its best to fuel its massive and fast growing economy and its turned to biodiesel to achieve that.

Biodiesel At The Movies

Biodiesel will be featured in the upcoming film "Fields of Fuel". Josh Tickell's movie will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival this week and Tickell has used the movie to call for better support for biodiesel from politicians.

Although mainly a mouthpiece for the director's environmental preoccupations the film does offer some decent educational fodder about our favourite fuel source.

EU Bans Palm Oil Biodiesel?

Although it's Europe's aim to provide at least 10% of all vehicle fuel from biofuels by the year 2020, the EU is currently planning to ban palm oil biodiesel.

Environmentalists aruge that fuels made from palm oil are doing more damage to the environment because of the destruction of rainforests.

It seems the EU will ban any biofuel derived from "sensitive ecosystems" such as tropical forests and grasslands.

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A reasonably quiet time for all things biodiesel this week, any questions or comments please leave your message below and let's get some discussions going…