Alternative Energy Expo and Biodiesel

So I stopped by the Energy Expo Saturday morning to see if I could find anyone who I might be able to interview for my hemp article that is due later this week. There were two "booths" dedicated to biodiesel: this company Roadrunner Biodiesel and the Arizona Biodiesel Board. The guy at the Roadrunner booth was telling me that their company is the one that sells the biodiesel to gas stations. He said there is only one such gas station in Tucson and it is the Go Go Mart at 2200 E. Broadway Blvd. He said that at the time it is going for about $3.29 per gallon, about 70 cents higher then regular gasoline. He was also telling me about cars that currently can run on the fuel. He said that all diesel engine cars, such as the Volkswagen Jetta, a few Mercedez's and a couple Jeep models can run on biodiesel. The difference between biodiesel and regular diesel is that biodiesel comes from biological sources, such as corn, hemp, and vegetable oils, and regular diesel has been processed from petroleum, which is also what makes up our regular gasoline.

I was not quite sure at the time I was talking to the guy from Roadrunner, but I wanted to know why dont all diesel cars run on biodiesel. It can be made from corn oil, and right now is a great time for that considering the heavy subsidies the government is currently paying farmers in the midwest. There is a great article here that talks about the good and bad effects of using government subsidized corn. A quote from the article: "For years we were criticized for having cheap corn that was encouraging obesity," Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union, said at a news conference. "And then this last year when corn got to $4 (per bushel), it switched to, 'You're causing people to starve around the world.'"

This is a very hot topic in America at the moment like I said. I honestly thought about trading in my car for a diesel-powered car to see what I could do with biodiesel. The guy at the booth said biodiesel has about 50% less Carbon Monoxide emissions then its petroleum based counterpart.

He also talked to me briefly about how they are starting to use algae as a method of creating biodiesel. On the biodiesel page on Wikipedia they have a chart about how many gallons of oil are produced for each hectare. Corn was the absolute lowest at 18 gallons/ha, hemp came in at 39 gallons/ha, but algae was off the chart in comparison. I dont know how accurate the chart is but it says a hectare of algae produces a whopping 819 gallons of oil! So just how are they turning algae into biodiesel fuel?

Algae is pretty intense. The Department of Energy Aquatic Species Program says that algae is the only feasible method of world-wide dependence on petroleum based gasoline. This is so because of algae's ability to grow in just about any condition, high reproduction rate and extremely high harvesting results compared to alternatives. Algae, like hemp, is high in protein and can be used in foods, and, this is probably the most intriguing thing about mass-algae production is that it can be fed carbon dioxide in its growth process. The guy at Roadrunner mentioned to me that an industrial plant (I dont remember where or what company) was feeding its carbon dioxide emissions directly into a algae-growing plant. So not only is algae a renewable source of energy but it can also reduce worldwide CO2 emissions! Pretty amazing stuff if you ask me.