While byproducts of biofuel production such as DDG (in the case of ethanol) and biodiesel leftovers can be fed to animals, there are limits -- they cannot be substituted into an animal's diet in unlimited proportions. As DDG is often starch-depleted (while rich in fat and protein), and as biodiesel wastes are oil depleted (while richer in protein and starch), they may be able to complement one another, increasing the amount of biofuel byproducts that can be fed to livestock.

"It is wasteful and immoral to use food to fuel vehicles.

According to who?

C'mon. Biofuels are a better alternative than petrol fuels. Your comments suggest the opposite is true.

Renewable fuels are better alternatives than petrol. Biofuels should use agricultural wastes instead of edible produce. Already, natural habitats worldwide are being destroyed to grow crops in massive scale that will disturb the ecosystem. Too much agricultural fertilizer runoff and contamination due to pesticides, with too much water table depletion in semi-arid areas.

Solar and wind would be far more sensible in massive scale than dedicated fuel crops.

Biofuels may actually help the poor and starving in the world. The indistialized countries currently subsidize thier own crops, but may no longer do so if demand for biofuels is sufficient. That opens markets for other countries. In addition, the crops grown locally can be converted to energy locally rather than depending on a few limited, capital intensive producers of petroleum. That also opens the opportunity to grow crops for energy rather than cutting down trees to burn directly as fuel to cook -- biofuels being stored for the off season. The outcome may not be as dire as one would think.

All cogent arguments. It would seem that energy in renewable form is the goal. Immediately we have millions of diesel engines that empower the petro industry which reaps windfall profit with minor reinvestment in alternatives or community. Biodiesel is renewable, low in pollutants, simple to produce and returns revenue to entirely new markets: farmers big and small, third world ag business, start-up refineries. Revenue in the hands of global villagers empowers them to buy food and grow economies.

Just as the hybrid is a bridging technology demonstrate viable electric cars, biodiesel bridges us out of petro into a renewable right now. It gets us into sustainable thinking faster than speculation on all the potential alternatives. Wind, solar, wave, geo, all play a part along the way. H2 from bioreaction seems logical for clean H2 production. Diversity in energy resources is just as valuable as diversity in community. The more choices we have the less the monolithics can dictate.

If vegetable oils normally used for food are used as fuel, the reduced vegetable oil supply will cause an increase in global food prices.

There may or may not be more farm jobs created depending on how much extra farm help is needed. If the farmers have some idle capacity they may not need to hire many more workers. I also wonder who the farmers sell to. Do they get a fair percentage of the profits from selling their seeds for oil processing, or does the bulk of the profit go to the oil processing companies?

While biodiesel is a good step in reducing fossil fuels it still does not address the need to get away from using non-renewable resources. Growing plants requires so much water, that if farming were scaled up to meet the full demand for fuel there would not be enough water. The fertilizers needed to grow the plants are also non renewable. So while farming may appear to provide a renewable energy source, it uses many nonrenewable sources to be successful.
I see biodiesel as a way to get the public to at least be aware about getting away from fossil fuels. There is a paradigm shift happening away from fossil fuels, and many people are just now realizing and admitting that gasoline prices will not go down and stay down much below current price levels. Fossil fuels will not meet the world demand. The only solution that will last the test of time will be renewable energy sources.

If all the money, time and human energy currently spent developing and manufacturing biodiesel, ethanol and other plant based fuels were instead focussed on improving the manufacturablity and efficiency of renewable energy sources the costs would become low enough for rapid adoption of PV solar, wind, and passive solar water heating energy sources.

I too am concerned, that merely switching our consumption to biofuels, from petroleum, will lead us down a dangerous path - whereby as petroleum resource become increasingly scare, countries (and governments) with power will demand more biofuels... and therefore, yes, people will be outta food. Of course, add to this the enormous energy requuired to get food to market in the first place.

It is naive to think biofuels will solve our problems. If we do not REDUCE our pattern of consumption, we are achieving little if anything.

Therefore, as much I support biofuels, I far more support us using less energy. That means driving smaller vehicles, like my (bio)diesel smart car, or even better, driving not at all.

I think governments should focus more on increasing fuel economy and penalizing larger vehicles (fairly).

Keith

I am convinced that BioDiesel with 7% alcohol added is the way to go. The oil can come from many non-food sources.

In fact the most promising oil sources are not food crops.

Solar and wind energy have nothing to do with liquid transportation fuel. Same with nuclear, hydro, coal, and NG. Without viable carrier (like currently hypotetical hydrogen or battery electric), we can flood the country with wind turbines and still will have to buy oil for our cars and trucks. I am kind of tired to repeat this weekly.

Great Comments Here...

The real soution is a combination of all of the above proposed solutions. I predict that there will be Diesel Hybrid vehicles available in the next 3-5 years that will run on electric only for the first 10-25 miles of use, allowing for daily city commutes to leave the diesel engine unused. Milage on Diesel power for a small to mid sized sedan, like a VW Jetta should easily be above 60 mpg, as they are already in the 50 range right now.

There are lots of ways to use wind and solar to generate electricity that can be stored. An easy way is to use them to pump water to a higher elevation and then use the flow of the water back to the lower elevation, which is easy to control, to generate the power for the grid. Then this power can be used to recharge the Hybrids mentioned above at night.

For home heating in cooler climates, solar heated fluid pumped through lines in the slab foundation (i.e. basement) of homes will continue to radiate heat all night long. The concrete is a greate heat sink to store that energy captured in the daytime. This works, even in the cloudy and overcast Pacific NW of the U.S.

These are just a few examples, it has to be a "many solutions" approach. The problem has been that in the past these solutions didn't make sense given cheap energy that we had. Now, things like solar heat and hybrid cars are financially beneficial , so they will become more commonplace.

W

This whole Bio Fuel will take food away from the hungry is total CRAP ! This is pure propaganda by the petrol industry to maintain market share and dominate the world financial markets as part of the new world orders plan for global domination , they will say or do anything to maintain that . Wake up we subsidize millions of acres a year in this country {USA} alone to not have crops grown on them to keep the food prices artificially high , and ton s and tons of food sit in storage all over the world controlled by greedy people that manipulate world governments with food , there is PLENTY of food on this planet . Wake up do some research . And of course go within for your truth . Hemp could also be used for bio fuels , good for the soil and livestock , come on don't be fooled . Peace.