As most people probably know, common products can be adapted and used to make fuel, specifically diesel and ethanol. Biodiesel, as this type of fuel is called can be easily made from vegetable oil. Many laws now in several nations require their fuel to contain a certain percentage of biofuel. Biodiesel, once manufactured is a clean safe ready to use fuel that will work in any diesel system. Making biodiesel is a relatively safe and uninteresting process. It is a simple chemical reaction between a lipid, aka the vegetable oil, and an alcohol. Most often, biodiesel is blended with petro diesel and only makes up for less than twenty percent of the fuel in order to avoid any possible need for modifications or damage to the engine.
Another type of biofuel that is very common is bioethanol. Bioethanol is a form of renewable energy that can be produced from common agricultural crops such as sugar cane, potato, manioc and corn. Bioethanol is a mixture of ethanol, an alcohol, with these common crops. Much debate is raised however, over the actual effectiveness of this fuel. It is consumed much quicker than ordinary fossil fuel. Also, due to the subsidies the government pays farmers to grow these crops to be used for bioethanol, the price for those crops in the grocery stores has risen considerably. The government also requires a minimum percent of bioethanol to be mixed in with gasoline which raises the cost of gasoline even further. In addition, although this renewable resource reduces the use of fossil fuels, it requires a tremendous amount of farmland and creates incredible amounts of pollution while planting and fertilizing these crops. Therefore, the debate on the effectiveness and helpfulness of bioethanol is still very much up in the air.
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