Veg oil vs. biodiesel

Veg oil versus bio diesel

For the keen environmentalist, running a vehicle on veg oil should be preferred over bio diesel. The reason being that vegetable oil, as a fuel, has greater carbon neutrality. To make bio diesel you start off with vegetable oil and then put it through a chemical process that requires energy and other chemical reactants, some of which are usually produced from fossil fuel bases. So when vegetable oil is such a good fuel, why go through the bother of chemically modifying it?


Bio diesel has the advantage over veg oil in that it can be used by any unconverted diesel engine, provided that the fuel lines are of synthetic rubber. Bio diesel is corrosive to natural rubber. Because bio diesel can be used essentially like conventional diesel it seems more likely to become the environmentally fuel of the average motorist. In fact some EU countries are encouraging a standard percentage of bio diesel in all mineral diesel. So motorists may soon be using bio diesel whether they like it or not. It is clear then that like veg oil, bio diesel also has an important role in attempting to make motoring more carbon neutral.