Veggie Car

Soybeans can be processed to make biodiesel.

Think about the last time you were stuck in traffic behind a big-rig diesel truck, fumes seeping into your car, making you gag. Now imagine that instead of toxic gas smells, you smelled french fries or popcorn. Imagine how much nicer your drive would be. If you were behind a biodiesel truck that is exactly what you would smell.

Although it seems far-fetched or like something out of a children's book, biodiesel is becoming more and more common. Organizations ranging from a coffee company in the northwest to school districts on the east coast are chucking their diesel oil for biodiesel. Even the United States Army is a huge consumer of biodiesel.

So what is biodiesel, and why does it smell so good? Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be made out of anything from organic canola oil to used cooking grease from Burger King. It is made from plant products, not fossil fuel, which means it is renewable. Unlike gasoline, which is processed from oil that is pumped from the ground from a limited supply, biodiesel is processed from vegetable or soybean oils. Biodiesel is literally fuel that you can grow. It does not have to be drilled out of the ground, we do not have to fight wars in Iraq to get permission to drill for it, and we do not have to rip up the national parks in Alaska to get fuel. It can be grown right here, in your backyard, and it smells pretty much like whatever you make it out of.

The process of changing the veggie oil into biodiesel is a relatively simple scientific process that strips the oil of glycerol (which can be used later to be made soap). Ester is left and processed further to make biodiesel. Amazingly enough, the whole process can be done in your own home.

History Lesson

Mayor Jason West

In a Fall 2003 interview with RiseUp Radio, New Paltz , New York Mayor and Green Party member Jason West discussed biodiesel. He spoke about how in New York (and elsewhere) "we can have biodiesel rather than petrodiesel and support this newer technology that is a cleaner burning fuel." Mayor West is correct in pointing out that biodiesel is cleaner burning, but he is wrong to state that it is a newer technology. In fact, biodiesel is not at all new, but has been around for almost a century.

When Rudolph Diesel initially designed the internal combustion engine, it was made to run on peanut oil. The original Fords, beginning with the Model T in 1908, ran on ethanol (another biofuel). It wasn't until the 1920s when car engines were modified to use fossil fuel-based gasoline, which was being sold at cheaper prices than biodiesel.

Things are now starting to come full circle with people getting back to the basics of biodiesel. The current biodiesel movement is big and getting bigger. Biodiesel is being revived by people from all over the political and environmental spectrum. From those who are concerned with the environment to the genetically modified soybean industry looking for a bigger profit, people are increasingly trying to get biodiesel in use. Cooperatives have sprung up all over the country and more and more people are learning about this alternative product.

"I'd say there are a couple of biodiesel movements happening in this country; the movement of the small producer and that of industry interests," explains Johanna Shultz, the Director of Environmental and Social Policy at Northern California's Thanksgiving Coffee. A small independent business, Thanksgiving has used biodiesel in their trucks for a year, and it is one of the many things they do to cut down on their emissions. "We started using biodiesel right around when the U.S. starting bombing Iraq last year, and were overjoyed that there's a renewable fuel that can be produced domestically by small businesses to fuel our fleet, and that we can support a solution like biodiesel."