Hi Jan and Denise >hello Denise, I think that US BD is more or synonomous with soy biodiesel >although it may be a myth.
It seems to be correct. The biodiesel the US is dumping on Europe is soy biodiesel. >US is the biggest soy producer in the world and >that is not a myth. Not a myth. It's a major agribusiness monster, much like US corn (maize). They're evil monsters, pretty much, industrialised GMO monocrops, heavily chemicalised (more so than non-GMOs), dependent on fossil-fuel inputs at every stage, the usual catastrophe. Both crops are heavily subsidised. Soy oil is essentially a by-product, the main product is the press-cake, which is used as livestock feed in factory farms (as is most US corn). A previous list discussion, maybe 10 years ago, was about the massive soy oil surplus in the US, which was stored in "the world's biggest tank-farm", IIRC. Of course, with the manipulated magic of the "free" market, it wasn't any cheaper for consumers to buy soy cooking oil in a supermarket, the unbreakable laws of supply and demand notwithstanding. The US also produces other oils, such as canola (Canadian oilseed rape), sunflower, and others, but none of them comes close to Big Soy. The biodiesel boom was an opportunity to soak up all that surplus soy oil, and maybe even make a profit out of it, especially since it meant extra tax breaks and so on for being "green". (The use of B20 has a lot to do with that.) So Big Soy set up the NBB to push biodiesel. But they're not very good at it - another long-ago discussion, several times I think, was on how very much better backyarder brewers are than the NBB at spreading the biodiesel message. What the NBB refers to as "the grassroots" have quite often generated front-page stories in newspapers, for instance, while the NBB seldom gets further than a truncated press-release downpage in the business section. The NBB privately acknowledges this, commenting that the grassroots can be useful in helping to spread the marketing message, but should be disparaged nonetheless because they make poor-quality fuel. :-) (See "Homebrew quality" <http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_vehicle.html#qual1>, "Homebrew vs commercial production" <http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_vehicle.html#commrcl>.) The NBB's marketing efforts focused on fleets, where again B20 brought the best benefits, and it was an easy hit anyway because the fleets could earn tax brownie points by using "green" fuel, and some of them were mandated to do so (eg the US military, which complains about the poor quality of the BD they buy). The NBB didn't even do anything to encourage the farmers who were growing the soy to switch to biodiesel for their tractors and combines. So, it turned out to be rather less of a boom than it might have been. There certainly was and is still a biodiesel boom at the small-scale and local level, but not with the corporate stuff. And, as a result, there's a US soy biodiesel surplus, as there'd been a soy oil surplus before it. So they dump it on other markets. Where's the WTO when you really need them? LOL! I have occasional contact with the NBB, it's cordial, I don't have any reason to fight with them. I've had a few chuckles though, like when they asked me (a grassroot) to rally round the cause and write to my Congressman/Senator in defence of the soy subsidy. :-) Anyway, Denise, I think it's quite safe to say that most biodiesel in the US is soy biodiesel, certainly if we're talking about quantities of biodiesel produced, and quantities sold commercially. It almost certainly applies as well to the total amount of biodiesel actually used, including the unknown factor of how much is made and used by the "grassroots", since most of the WVO they use is also soy oil. Sorry to hear about your BD plant. Isn't that the way they do things, though, the big agribiz interests? Always pushing production, ever more production, until there's overproduction, and a surplus, and a slump, and then when things get a little better they do it all over again. Commercial biodiesel production growth in the US between, say, 2000 and 2008 was rather spectacular, but market development wasn't as rapid. I don't think production reached the high EU levels, and EU production seems less prone to surpluses and bursting bubbles, or at least that's the impression I get. I'm not sure where you might find a list of currently operating biodiesel plants in the US, maybe the commercial biofuel magazines might have such a thing (the ones for "decision-makers and stakeholders"), but I don't know, I don't read them. Also perhaps some of the market reports produced by consultancies might help, but they can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Best Keith >----- Original Message ----- >From: "denise farley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org> >Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 11:34 PM >Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Merceds-Benz > >> Keith, >> Just out of sheer curiosity, where does the information that "Most >> biodiesel >> in the US is soy biodiesel" come from? >> >> I was wondering too, since I cannot find the information even on the NBB >> (unless I am blind which is never outside the realm of possibility), where > > might be a good source to look for a list of currently operating biodiesel >> plant? Ours closed and is in bankruptcy and of the other two in the local >> area, only one is operating. We couldn't compete even switching to animal >> fats - and all those inherent processing problems. Of course, the one >> operating is big-bucks AGP and, yes, uses soy. >> >> Hmmm. D'ya think I might have sort of answered my own question here? >> Although I will say there is a soybean processing coop south of here that >> ceased production of biodiesel in their facility for at least 6 months >> last >> I heard. They sold their soybean oil to AGP during that period. Sigh. >> >> Thanks so much! >> Denise >> >> >> On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Keith Addison >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: >> >>> >>> Most biodiesel in the US is soy biodiesel, which doesn't need high >>> pressure to oxidise and polymerise, it's a semi-drying oil, it'll >>> polymerise anyway. The IV is well above the EU biodiesel standard >>> upper limit. (See "Iodine Values" >>> <http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#iodine>, "National >>> standards for biodiesel >>> <http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield2.html#biodstds>.) The >>> biodiesel industry in the US seems to be more are less in denial >>> about this, but then the US National Biodiesel Board is a creature of >>> US Big Soy. >>> >>> Hm, I must check how the US-EU row over the US dumping cheap soy >>> biodiesel on the EU market is progressing. IIRC last time I looked >>> the US was accusing the EU of protectionism, on the basis of what >>> sounded like GMO-style "substantial equivalence" of America's soy and >>> Europe's rapeseed oil, though they're not equivalent when it comes to >>> iodine values and polymerisation. Rapeseed oil has a much lower IV >>> and is much less likely to polymerise. Nonetheless, a lot of >>> Europeans use anti-oxidant with their biodiesel, while very little >>> anti-oxidant is used in the US, by contrast. Also, in the US most >>> biodiesel is the NBB's commercial B20, a low blend with a lower risk >>> of polymerisation, so they have to care about it that much less. >>> >>> They're never going to accept that soy could be anything less than >>> ideal. I get the impression that, even if there is such a thing, >>> high-pressure polymerisation could be just a convenient scapegoat for >>> soy's shortcomings. >>> >>> Best >>> > >> Keith _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
