Biodiesel Booming to Billions

The U.S. biodiesel market tripled in 2005 and could be grow to 10 billion gallons per year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

*"If everything went right, I would think that in 10 to 15 years ... you could possibly produce 10 billion gallons of biodiesel in the United States," said Robert McCormick, leader of biodiesel utilization research and development at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the federal Department of Energy. *

But McCormick says entirely replacing the 60 billion gallons of diesel used annually with the renewable fuel isn't possible. However, a concerted effort to reuse the waste fry oil could help the cause tremendously.

Biodiesel reduces CO2 emission by 78 percent and soot emissions by 32 percent according to an NREL study. The health, economic, and political motivations for switching to biodiesel make the switch pretty convincing, although we must weigh the impact of the additional agricultural resources consumed.