One of the more well established and tested feedstocks for biodiesel production is the oil that comes from beautiful, lush, yellow fields of Canola. Canola is actually a contraction of "CANadian Oil Low Acid", because it was synthesized as lower erucic acid containing 'strand' of the more common Rapeseed plant in the late 70's by Canadian selective breeders. Canola also sounds a whole lot more pleasant than 'rapeseed', at least in English. Both Canola (seeds) and it's grandfather Rapeseed have enormous potential as a biodiesel feedstock due to their low free fatty acid content, low moisture content, among many other positives. However, as is the case with almost all of the 'oil-seed' feedstocks, the cost of (planting, growing, harvesting, seeding, oil-extraction) leads to biodiesel production costs that are relatively high when compared to current petro-diesel. This cost obstacle is common though in new technologies, and we can all rest assured many teams are hard at work trying to find cost effective ways of canola oil extraction, and its use in biodiesel production of the future

That's the name of the first plant we'd like to profile for all of us interested in future fuel growth. Jatropha is a genus of around 150 different plants, shrubs, and trees. Go Diesel USA wants to examine just Jatropha curcas, because it's been posited by many to be a future front-running feedstock in biodiesel production. The lush, yet rather dull looking plant can grow up to around 20 feet tall, among other feats. What curcasdoes best though, is growing in a wide range of climates and soils. The hearty plant can grow and produce yields (the seeds are most important for their high oil content used for biodiesel production) even in desert climates, and rocky soils, although the more stress put on the plant to survive logically diminishes the yield of the plant. There is still quite a bit of controversy surrounding the pros and cons of growing Jatropha curcas, specifically it's cultivation in 3rd world nations, it still has an awesome chance to prevail as a leader in future bio-fuel production. Jatropha Oil is obtained by pressing the seeds of the plant. Many diesel vehicles can potentially run right off of (non-transesterfied) Straight Jatropha Oil (SJO), but much of the oil is put through a process of transesterfication by biodiesel production facilitities, which allows a 'cleaner' more efficient burning in diesel engines.

That's right, REGfuel, or the Renewable Energy Group, has just released a study made by them into the viability of various types of feedstocks for biodiesel production. The study and subsequent report tested a number of characteristics of 36 of the most common, and not-so-common feedstocks from around the world. This is a big step forward towards finding ever-newer sources of bio-fuels for our future use, and we all hope this sparks the creativity of those with dreams of either producing newer bio-fuels, or working with them in the near term.

The PDF can be found here

Update on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 12:42PM by The Green Synapse

Jatropha, Fish, Coffee, and Hemp were among some of those tested :)