Biodiesel is usually made by combining methanol and lye with vegetable
oil, animal fat, or recycled cooking grease. It can be blended with ordinary
diesel to reduce vehicle emissions or used in its pure form. And it can even be
transformed into a kerosene-like jet fuel. Unfortunately, the world doesn't
currently have enough vegetable oil or old grease to make sizable quantities of
biodiesel. Even if the United States were to devote its entire annual crop of
soybeans to producing biodiesel, it would barely make a dent. But no nation
would ever do that, because food production is still the No. 1 use for soybean
oil. Algae, on the other hand, need not present such a conflict.
Algae fuel might be an alternative to fossil fuel and uses algae as its source of natural deposits. Several companies and
government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs
and make algae fuel production commercially viable. Harvested algae, like fossil fuel,
release CO2 when burnt
but unlike fossil fuel the CO2 is
taken out of the atmosphere by the growing algae.
