Biodiesel Prices Rise Alongside Petroleum
by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 06. 9.08
High prices are causing a rethink of biodiesel policy in Seattle. As reported in the Seattle Times, Imperium Renewables has had its contact with King County Metro Transit put on “indefinite pause”. In doing so, the city cited multiple concerns—the effect of biofuels on world food prices, potentially greater net CO2 output than conventional fuels—but one of the most clearly visible ones is the rising cost of the fuel itself.
Currently mineral diesel costs an average of $4.80 per gallon, while biodiesel is selling for nearly $6 locally. This is almost double the price biodiesel commanded a year ago. Input costs are at the heart of the matter: Currently it costs $4.66 to simply buy enough soybeans for a gallon of biodiesel. Add in manufacturing and distribution costs and, even with a $1/gallon tax credit, biodiesel becomes a comparatively expensive proposition and one which consumers—individuals and the municipality alike—are unwilling to pay for. This is born out by Washington State Department of Licensing statistics which show that monthly biodiesel sales fell by 66% in the past year.
To counter rising costs Imperium is looking to other feedstocks, such as the tropical shrub Jatropha curcas, which are less expensive and currently less prone to criticism on the grounds of displacing food crops. Whether this proves to be a good strategy remains to be seen. Commercial production of Jatropha oil is in its infancy, and while Jatropha can grow in marginal conditions to truly thrive it requires adequate moisture and soil conditions. If rising costs of soybeans push biodiesel producers towards Jatropha there is little to prevent farmers from switching over from food production to Jatropha production.
via :: Earth2Tech and :: The Seattle Times.
photo courtesy Imperium Renewables.
I don't get it. Someone is lying. Before big bio-fuel plants (today), there was too much food? Then practically overnight, there isn't enough? Which suggests soooooo much food oil is being used for fuel, that the world is going hungry. If so, and we stop using bio-oil for fuel, everyone will be fed? And the price will go down even though the price of fuel will rise because there is less on the market to transport the food?
No. Someone is lying. And the media apparently just posts what they hear these days. No research to realize the wool is being pulled over their eyes. Treehugger, you have an army of smart greenies at your disposal. Do the math, look at the food quantities vs. population. The food is there. Soy is a little low, but everything else is above average. Let's see some heroic journalistic investigation instead of cut & paste.
P.S. which mineral does "mineral diesel" come from? Crude oil is organic too.
Mineral: As in having to be extracted from rocks or dug from the earth. Yes, crude oil is ultimately organic in origin. Perhaps the use of the word mineral is a little loose, though I think illustrative of the point that biodiesel comes from organic sources which are replenishable in a human time scale whereas crude oil and its derivatives take much longer to develop.
Hmm...Diesel is 4.99 at best in Edmonds, WA near Seattle unless you really look. I just filled my tank with retail biodiesel for $5.30 a gallon as well. Not exactly a $1.20/gallon difference is it? The biodiesel was from Whole Energy (http://www.whole-energy.com/).
Biodiesel in my neck of the woods (Charleston, SC) has been steadily climbing as well. The pump that I buy from sources their biodiesel from a plant using rendered chicken fat to produce fuel. I understand the rising cost of virgin soybeans, but the rising cost of chicken fat? The company I purchase from told me that the chicken waste has now become a commodity. Is there any truth to this statement?
Hear hear! This does merit a lot more investigation.
First off, let's stop painting biodiesel and ethanol with the same "biofuels" brush. There's a huge difference in those two fuels' energy needs for processing (and therefore carbon footprint) and how they affect food prices.
My biodiesel source recently switched from virgin soy to rendered fat as well, I found this out when I tried to pour it at 55F. But it's selling over $5 a gallon. Most places still pay to get rid of used fryolator oil.
The numbers for how much fat is collected from restaurants and food processors are huge. Around here this "yellow grease" is shipped to China for animal feed after it's filtered and de-watered. Talk about unsustainable, it should be high priority to turn that into biodiesel for local use.
Tee
PS How about "petrodiesel"?
Soybeans and other food crops are SO last year. Algae is the best hope for biodiesel. Algae based biodiesel is being produced RIGHT NOW by a few companies now (research Petrosun and Originoil).
It just simply amazes me how incompitece and incapability of our (government run)school system to educate students properly about how our system of economics works in this country. What is even more amazing the the amout of ADULTS who are ignorant about this and their unwillingness to learn.
Basic economics teaches us that when the demand for a product goes up and supply stays the same or falls the price is GOING TO GO UP!!!!
The problem happens when our leaders try to manipulate markets and "fix" things.
Most of the time the way they (the government) fix things is to cooerce the publice to give them more power(taxation and regulation)for a solution to the problem. It just so happens that their solution doesn't fix the problem, they just create more problems to be solved which requires more taxation and regulation which gives them more power. A never ending cycle of freedoms being taken away from us every day.
Healthcare, social security, medicare, medicade, and now even energy management is all about govenrment getting more power not solving the problem.
The solution for our energy problems is NOT taking our food supply and using it to make fuel (I wonder how many pencil pushing college educated government workers came up with that idea???) Solutions will come from free people who use their creativity to solve problems not from some government mandated program.
Well want to stiff the machine you could always take used food grade oil from resturants for free by pumping it out of the resturaunts waste oil vat set up a local bio diesel commune that turns the waste oil into diesel for a fee. Ofcourse the only way it would really work is if people donate there time to supplying waste food oil to the collective. And considering bio diesel is bio degradeable setting up tanks for it on privately owned land would take less red tape and hazmat restrictions.
Well want to stiff the machine you could always take used food grade oil from resturants for free by pumping it out of the resturaunts waste oil vat set up a local bio diesel commune that turns the waste oil into diesel for a fee. Ofcourse the only way it would really work is if people donate there time to supplying waste food oil to the collective. And considering bio diesel is bio degradeable setting up tanks for it on privately owned land would take less red tape and hazmat restrictions.
Well want to stiff the machine you could always take used food grade oil from resturants for free by pumping it out of the resturaunts waste oil vat set up a local bio diesel commune that turns the waste oil into diesel for a fee. Ofcourse the only way it would really work is if people donate there time to supplying waste food oil to the collective. And considering bio diesel is bio degradeable setting up tanks for it on privately owned land would take less red tape and hazmat restrictions.