BIODIESEL BOOM TO BUST: IT'S A WONDER FUELTHAT ADDS VALUE TO BEANS, RECYCLES COOKING GREASE, AND CLEANS THE AIR, BUT EPA AND CONGRESS COULD KILL NEARLY HALF ITS PRODUCTION

摘要

Biodiesel doesn't get the attention of ethanol or its bashing in the media. At an EPA hearing in Washington, D.C., last December, environmentalists were still using old data to incorrectly claim that ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces.Biodiesel remains fashionable, with the aging country music icon Willie Nelson still promoting it. It's undeniably green, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 86% compared with petroleum diesel, according to the EPA.Maybe biodiesel's lower profile is due to ethanol's bigger market — about 13 billion gallons of production in 2013, using 35% of the U.S. corn crop for the fuel and distillers' grains. Biodiesel last year grew to 1.8 billion gallons and used about 14% of the soybean oil from the U.S. crop - a smaller share partly because about half of the fuel is also made from animal fats, used French fry grease, and even cooking oils washed down the drain, separated by sewage treatment plants and sold as brown grease.