Wake up and smell the biodiesel

Often when I tell people that my car runs on biodiesel they'll ask if it smells like french fries.  Lots of people know that there is a way to run a car on waste vegetable oil, but they are not as aware of the availability of processed biodiesel that can potentially fuel any diesel engine.  This is what we pump at the Baltimore Biodiesel co-op.

Biodiesel is delivered either as 100% or in biodiesel/petrodiesel blends. 

• 100% biodiesel is referred to as B100, while
• 20% biodiesel is labeled B20
• 5% biodiesel is labeled B5
• 2% biodiesel is labeled B2

 Most of the biodiesel available today comes from soybeans, which can lead environmentally conscious people to argue that using food as a machine fuel contributes to world hunger.  However there are lots of schemes out there to create biodiesel from non-food sources- algae, fungi, and, my favorite, coffee grounds.




NYT article on making biodiesel from coffee grounds:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/science/16objava.html

Food Chemistry article on biodiesel production from coffee grounds:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802487s