The adoption of biodiesel and its integration within our society face a number of complex, interdependent or exclusive challenges. We are restricted by a limited amount of comprehensive data research, but nevertheless many factors are in favour of biodiesel fuel. Just 10 years ago, widespread adoption of biodiesel as an alternative fuel mode seemed unlikely, but that situation is certainly changing fast.
We are all becoming very aware how traditional fossil fuels have caused damage and become a great concern for the future. Greenhouse gases associated with the production of petroleum and our other energy needs are causing a highly detrimental change to our planet’s average temperature. This type of climate change is leading to results that we can already see and we can be very worried about the problems that could face future generations. We know that we must make changes and reduce our reliance on these traditional forms, yet to this point change has been slow to come. Challenges to the very way that we exist are difficult to contemplate and if we must make changes, we prefer to do it without incurring additional economic costs. However, adopting alternative energy production processes and consumption patterns may put us at competitive disadvantage compared to countries that do not.
Environmentalists assure us that unless we act now, harm will become irreversible. Consequently, governments are starting to consider taxation of carbon itself, forcing organisations through market pressures to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and increase their energy efficiency. For biodiesel, this could help to balance the playing field. If traditional petroleum fuels become even more expensive due to carbon related costs, biodiesel fuel will become more palatable.
Further to that, as society becomes increasingly more worried about climate change, it is likely to turn toward measures and solutions that are seen as being far “greener.” Biodiesel fuels may represent a premium over alternatives and may be more difficult to find, but nevertheless a trend toward them will begin. Ways of making biodiesel will be explored and commercial solutions will begin to spring up in more and more places.
Our agricultural producers have been worried about a decline in demand for their goods in recent years. As homemade biodiesel relies on vegetable oils or surplus oils and animal fats, crop producers could find a ready market for soybeans, for example providing the raw material essential for the production of the fuel. Wouldn’t it be nice to keep the revenues from production and sale of our fuels within our communities and keep them from flooding overseas? By the 2020s, fully two thirds of the revenues associated with fuel purchase could be filtering its way to foreign countries, unless we’re careful.
Sustainability is going to be a very hot topic during this new decade. The biodiesel industry should ensure that it’s front and centre to this argument. With so much at stake, not only with respect to the long term financial stability of our country, but also the priceless global sustainability which could be achieved, can any of us really afford to continue to wait until someone in power makes a decision?
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