Summary: The concept of using biofuels to power automobiles is very old. Rudolf Diesel and Henry Ford had designed engines to run on vegetable oil or ethanol, respectively and vegetable oils were used for diesel fuel well into the 1940s. Below is a more detailed history of biofuels in general, and biodiesel in particular.
History of Biodiesel
- Scientists E. Duffy and J. Patrick are credited with creating a fuel from vegetable oil through transesterification as early as 1853.
- Rudolf Diesel demonstrated a diesel engine running on pure peanut oil at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900.
- During the 1920s, diesel engine manufacturers altered their engines to utilize the lower viscosity of petroleum diesel because of its lower price.
- Although less popular in the United States, Belgium, France, Italy, the UK, Portugal, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, and China all tested and/or used vegetable oils as diesel fuels during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, but experienced problems with its high viscosity.
- On August 31, 1937, G. Chavanne of the University of Brussels, Belgium was granted a patent for a \"Procedure for the transformation of vegetable oils for their uses as fuels.\" This patent describes using methanol and ethanol in transesterification of vegetable oils to produce esters.
- The first pilot plant for biodiesel was started in November 1987 by Gaskoks, an Austrian company, with the first industrial-scale plant opening in April 1989. That plant had a capacity of 30,000 tons of rapeseed per year.
- In August 1982, the first International Conference on Plant and Vegetable Oils was held in Fargo, ND, dealing with a range of matters including fuel cost, the effects of vegetable oil to fuel additives, and extraction methods.
- In 1992, the EPA passed the Energy Policy Act (EPACT), increasing the amount of alternative fuel used by US government transportation fleets to reduce dependency on foreign oil. In 1998, the law was altered to allow the government to instead of purchasing alternative fuel vehicles.
- By 1998, the Austrian Biofuels Institute identified 21 countries with commercial biodiesel programs.
- 100% biodiesel is now available at many service stations across Europe.
- In September 2005, Minnesota became the first US state to mandate that all diesel fuel sold in the state contain at least 2% biodiesel.
- These is a $5 million plant being built in the US with the intent of producing about 3 million gallons of biodiesel from chicken fat produced at a local Tyson poultry plant. Check into this project