A Viable Biofuel?

natural rah writes "A laboratory in India has developed a process for making diesel fuel from an inedible plant which grows in barren wastelands. Although biofuels are mass produced and used in USA and EU, they have been traditionally derived from edible oils like soy bean and rapeseed. Using edible oils to make fuels is evidently not an option in a country like India. This fuel is "carbon neutral" (at least theoretically), has potential to make good use of barren wastelands, is clean and sustainable. Read more here -- could you have a SUV and not put excess carbon into the air?"

Comments

Re:Ummmm...

[jaakkeli]

Rapeseed is a plant that made an oil that was too bitter to eat. Rapeseed oil was commonly used to lubricate steam engines until the 1940's. Recently, Canadian farmers have bred the bitterness out of the oil to make an edible product called Canola. (Canadian Oil).

I see reading a few bits from Wikipedia and answering without actually knowing anything about the subject now gets you modded up. See the article on rapeseed to actually learn something about the subject; it's less nonsensical.

Rapeseed oil has traditionally been the most important cooking oil in many countries, especially here in the north where you can't grow corn, peanuts, soybeans, palm trees or pretty much anything (I live in Finland...). You need some processing to make it edible, but it's been one of the most significant sources of vegetable oil long before Canola was bred. Most of the world hasn't even heard of canola oil but is happy to eat rapeseed oil. I just fried some stuff using some.