Biodiesel fuel and petroleum-based diesel fuel have similar histories. The transesterficiation of oil – or the use of chemicals to alter oils that are organically based, such as peanut oil – is a process that can be traced to the latter end of the 19th century. Initially, the process was used to make glycerin-based soaps, until two byproducts, ethyl and methyl were discovered.
Methyl, which is wood-based, and ethyl, which is grain based, are the two main components of biodiesel fuel that are used for mass production today. However, just about any complex fatty acid can be used, from animal fats to regular vegetable-based cooking oil, even if it has already been used. Ethanol, the more commonly used biodiesel fuel, is less toxic than Methanol, which produces a more predictable reaction.
The fuel, diesel, was named after Rudolph Diesel, the man who first introduced the compression engine. The compression engine is different than traditional ignition engines and was introduced at the World’s Exhibition in Paris in 1898. Until the 1920s all diesel engines ran solely on vegetable oils, which primarily included peanut oils. However, it was during the 1920s that the makeup of the engine model itself was altered in its design to allow for the use of a petroleum-based product. This is commonly known as Diesel #2.
The initial designs of the earliest car models were made to run on biodiesel. However, petroleum-based diesel proved to be much easier and cheaper to obtain and mass produce. Soon biodiesel became a thing of the past. It seemed as though there was a chance for a revival of vegetable-based diesel products when hemp burst onto the scene as one of the most industrious plants ever discovered. Production plants were reopened and the manufacturing of cars and fuels began again on the belief that there had been the discovery of a material that could be as mass-produced as petroleum with the same efficiency in engines. However, even then, the struggling industry could not withstand the massive social, economic and political attacks from people with more money and more power whose interests were invested in the booming petroleum fuels industries.
As hemp became associated with the illegal drug Marijuana, powerful oil tycoons pushed for legislation that placed a heavy tax on the importation of the plant and soon, businesses hoping to revive plant-based biofuels were forced to close under the heavy scrutiny and eventual prejudice of a society that was against the use of the plant.
Simultaneously, as the petroleum industry continued to explode, so did the production of cars and other machinery that used the Diesel #2. It wasn’t until the oil embargo of the 1970s that biodiesel and other biofuels were again reexamined as a potentially viable source of alternative fueling methods.
Since that time, there has been a major shift in the public consciousness about the use of biodiesel fuels. Hundreds of major ship lines in the US now use biodiesel when moving cargo. Now that the primary element required to make the fuel has shifted to soybeans, biodiesel fuel has been embraced by a much wider group of people.
