Biodiesel fo' Shizzel

For those of you who don't know, Liz and I have a 2000 Volkswagen Golf TDI that we run on Biodiesel. We purchased the car in 2006 with approximately 70,000 miles. We (mainly liz) has run the mileage you to 113,000 miles. We purchase our biodiesel at the biofuels oasis, a worker owned co-operative in Berkeley. So far, Liz and I love the golf and are happy with the biodiesel. I hope to make regular comments and analysis on biofuels and biodiesel in particular. Sustainable carbon neutral renewable liquid fuels are needed to displace petroleum-derived transport fuels that contribute to global warming. Biodiesel and bioethanol are being produced in increasing amounts as renewable biofuels, but their production in large quantities is currently not sustainable. One alternative is the production of biodiesel from microalgae. Algal biomass can be grown in photobioreactors, but a rigorous assessment of the economics of production is necessary to establish competitiveness with petroleum-derived fuels. Currently there needs to be approximately a ten fold reduction in cost to be competitive with petroleum fuels, but achieving the capacity to inexpensively produce biodiesel from microalgae is of strategic significance to an environmentally sustainable society. Public and private efforts are already underway to achieve commercial-scale production of microalgal oil, but for the moment barely any biodiesel is being made from microalgae.