The History of Biodiesel and How it May Effect Our Future

Amid all the panic regarding the diminishing supplies of fossil fuel as well as its expense. What would you say, if I told you that the history of biodiesel tells us that the knowledge of this renewable energy source has been available for hundreds of years? They are just as effective as petroleum and they are manufactured from renewable sources such as peanut, canola, hemp and soybean oil.

This history started with Rudolph Diesel when he designed a compression engine. He made use of peanut oil for this purpose, and he wanted to prove that this was the only fuel source which would ever be required. Way back then he knew that using renewable oil resources were a better option than using fossil fuels.

In actual fact biodiesel was used in diesel engines until the 1920’s it was only then that manufacturers decided to make use of petroleum fuel.

Both methanol and ethanol are able to be produced from these fatty acids. Even Henry Ford believed in the concept propounded by Rudolph Diesel and he build a factory which was equipped to mass produce biofuels. He believed that this was the oil of the future and wanted to manufacture all his automobiles to run on this fuel.

When he commenced with this, he was in the top of his market and embarked on partnerships with natural oil companies. However in the 1940’s petroleum based companies started advertising and as petroleum fuel was cheaper at the time, this fossil based fuel soon became the number one best seller.

Biodiesel was originally produced with oils which did not allow a very high yield of fuel, making this fuel expensive. Then they discovered hemp oil. Hemp had been grown for a long time in the US for its many useful purposes. When tested hemp oil was found to be stable and also able to produce greater yield of fuel. Henry Ford went back to the drawing board on manufacturing fuel for his vehicles from hemp oil.

In the same breath, many oil wells had been found in the US and people were getting extremely rich from selling this oil to manufacture petroleum. They were not prepared to give Henry Ford a market share with his products and started a campaign against the hemp oil product, calling it Marijuana.

This campaign was supported by the newspapers of William Randolph Hurst and he had a great amount of sway with the US government. This campaign got the Marijuana Tax Act brought into legislation and people who used hemp oil products were afraid to use it as a certificate was require for any products of this nature. The Government would not issue certificates to anyone and as far as the history of biodiesel goes, this is where the manufacture of this renewable energy source came to an end.