Vegetable oil economy deals with the potential of vegetable oil to replace fossil fuels in the economy and how it compares to other potential replacements. Vegetable oils are the basis of biodiesel, which can be used like conventional diesel. Some vegetable oil blends are used in unmodified vehicles, but straight vegetable oil needs specially prepared vehicles which have a method of heating the oil to reduce its viscosity and surface tension. Another alternative is vegetable oil refining.
The availability of biodiesel around the world is increasing, although still tiny compared to conventional fossil fuel sources. There is significant research in algaculture methods to make biofuel from algae.
Concerns have been expressed about growing crops for fuel use rather than food and the environmental impacts of large-scale agriculture and land clearing required to expand the production of vegetable oil for fuel use. These effects/impacts would need to be specifically researched and evaluated, economically and ecologically, and weighed in balance with the proposed benefits of vegetable oil fuel in relation to the use of other fuel sources.
Read more about Vegetable Oil Economy: Future of Energy For World Economy, Net CO2 or Greenhouse Gas Production, Safety, Generation and Storage, Type of Vegetable Oil, Transportation, Electricity Generation, Market, Cost, Price, and Taxes, Production in Sufficient Quantity, Environmental Effects, Food Vs Fuel Debate, Algae For Vegetable Oil Production, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words vegetable, oil and/or economy:
“There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once,—for the root is faith,—I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)