Biodiesel Fuel Pros and Cons

The term biodiesel refers to the diesel fuel extracted from animal fats and plant matter, which is used to operate standard diesel engines. Although, it's possible to produce this fuel from animal fat, most of it is produced from plant oil. Popular crops used in this process include soybean, canola, cottonseed, peanut and sunflower. Owing to the fact that it is biodegradable and pollution free, biodiesel is considered one of the best alternative fuels available today. While that makes it seem promising, only the evaluation of its pros and cons can help us determine whether these claims really hold ground.

Pros and Cons of Biodiesel

Like its other counterparts, biodiesel also has its own advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage is that it can play a significant role in reducing the harmful carbon dioxide emissions - a major threat to the environment. However, there do exist some drawbacks which may become a hindrance in its introduction as an alternative to the harmful carbon emitting fossil fuels.

Advantages
By far its biggest advantage is that it is non toxic and biodegradable, which makes it one of the most environment friendly alternative of power generation. A study at the United States Department of Energy revealed that introduction of biodiesel can reduce carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning fossil fuels by a whopping 75 percent. This fuel doesn't contain toxic chemicals, like sulfur, which are responsible for harmful emissions. In fact, hazards like acid rain can be eliminated forever by introducing biodiesel for our day-to-day use. You don't even have to modify the engine, as this fuel can easily operate a standard diesel engines. It can also double up as a lubricant, and help in lubricating the various parts of the engine, thus making it less vulnerable to wear and tear. It is much safer than conventional diesel. More importantly, for a country like the United States, wherein a large part of oil required for power generation is imported, tapping the resources available within the country can help in boosting the economic strength of the nation to a great extent.

Disadvantages
The energy content of biodiesel is 11 percent less than that of petroleum-based diesel, which means the power generation capacity of an engine will decline considerably when it is used. It is possible to modify the engine to eliminate this loss of power, but this modification goes against the EPA guidelines and hence cannot be executed. Owing to its poor oxidization qualities, bioldiesel can lead to some serious problems when stored. When stored for longer periods, biodiesel tends to turn to a gel like substance, which can lead to clogging of various engine parts. These biofuels may also lead to microbial growth, and thus cause some damage to the engine. As the use of this fuel will increase, more and more crops will have to be produced to satiate the requirement. This will lead to severe crisis wherein we will have to come up with one option, either food or fuel. The prices of various agricultural commodities will also soar. Due to over farming, the soil quality will also start depreciating and creating new areas to produce these crops will lead to destruction of natural habitat.

We need to take all these pros and cons into consideration before coming to any conclusion about its use as an alternative to fossil fuel. Though there exist some issues with the use of biodiesel, researchers from all over the world are working on these issues to make it more efficient. As of now, we can just hope that their research yields results, and we get the best fuel, some time soon.