Why no Congressional love for biodiesel?

An article in The Houston Chronicle talks about a new 45-million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant being built on the Houston Ship Channel.

Interesting – building a big biodiesel complex in Houston sounds about as popular as opening a vegan restaurant in the middle of a meat market.

Anyway, the article goes on to talk about the challenges facing the biodiesel industry. One issue raised was that ,while ethanol enjoys specific mandates from Congress, support for biodiesel is currently uncertain.

Why is ethanol so much popular in Washington? Well, for one thing, its backed by large corn producing states, giant companies like Archer Daniels - and lets face it - the corn lobby is a little stronger than the vegetable oil lobby (the basis of biodiesel).

There are many problems with both bio-fuels - mainly, most people don't own vehicles with E-85 engines that can burn highly concentrated ethanol gas, or diesel engines that can burn biodiesel.

But all things equal, biodiesel sounds like the horse to bet on. First off, biodiesel has roughly the same energy output as regular diesel, while ethanol 85 produces less energy than gasoline (you get between 10% to 30% fewer miles per gallon burning E 85). Biodiesel is also easier to distribute using the existing infrastructure, while ethanol is so corrosive that it needs to be shipped in special trucks, be refined in special plants, be poured out of special pumps, and be stored in special fiber-glass tanks. Lastly, there is already a huge glut in ethanol because of over production, and distribution obstacles. Check out this older Blog for more info. If there is already too much of the stuff, why is Congress encouraging even more production?

Both fuels, however, need to be researched and improved before they can be considered a true alternative to good old dirty gasoline. The greatest challenges are finding a source for the fuel that will not dramatically increase the cost of food supplies (as is the case with corn in ethanol production and soy in biodiesel production), and finding energy efficient ways in converting the bio into fuel.

Maybe Congress should steer money away from subsidies and tax breaks for ethanol, and pump more cash into R&D of future fuels - Just a thought.