Nipping Away At Petroleum: Biodiesel

I'm feeling especially lazy today, especially as I am wrapping up my last semester of school and really turning up the heat on my job search (Editor's Note: A little known fact is that Colin Brownell will work for peanuts*).

However, in keeping with the daily nature of this blog, I wanted to touch briefly on biodiesel and the important role it is going to be playing in the near future.  As I have said before, there is no silver bullet in terms of one alternative energy acting as the sole replacement of petroleum.  However, there will be a collaborative effort with multiple sources (wind, solar, tidal, etc.) that will put a lot of pressure on the petroleum industry.

I will let the New York Times tell you why biodiesel is poised to be even more influential with the opening of the world's largest biodiesel plant being opened in Singapore just yesterday.  Copy & Paste time!

...What is being billed as the largest biodiesel plant in the world started production this week in Singapore. Operated by Neste Oil, the plant has the capacity to produce 800,000 metric tons of fuel per year. The fuel is made from vegetable oils or a combination of oils and waste animal fat sourced from the food industry. [Marketwatch]...

Aw, I don't feel bad.  NY Times stole this from Marketwatch.  Wait, there is more?

...The value of the green building market grew 50 percent from 2008 to 2010, to $71 billion, a new market report finds. The analysis, by the McGraw Hill Construction information service, predicts that the green construction market will grow to $135 billion by 2015. [Sustainable Business]

I think I am getting a hang of this blogging thing.  It seems like everyone just copies one another, and if the NY Times is just going to copy Sustainable Business and get paid for it, I am certainly not above copying them when time is short and I am looking for a job at the same time.

Obviously 800,000 metric tons of fuel is not going to be replacing our oil consumption any time soon.  I don't have the figures in front of me, but I think an American 7 year old burns through 800,000 metric tons of oil every 2 hours...that doesn't sound right.

The point is that while this one plant is not going to be replacing the petroleum industry, people are recognizing the potential of sources like this plant and are willing to invest money to begin the process of slowly replacing the use of oil with a combination of clean technologies and resources.

*Did that editor say peanuts? He meant money...definitely money.