Breakthrough in Biodiesel Production

MGR writes "National Geographic is reporting that Japanese scientists have discovered a way to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel with a much less expensive catalyst (between 10 and 50 times cheaper) than what is currently used. From the article: 'Any vegetable oil can become fuel, but not until its fatty acids are converted to chemical compounds known as esters. Currently the acids used to convert the fatty acids are prohibitively expensive. Michikazu Hara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have used common, inexpensive sugars to form a recyclable solid acid that does the job on the cheap.'"

Comments

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. So we're no longer dependent on desert barbarians, but instead on grassland barbarians (Khazakstan, Pampas, Kansas). We'd be trading one bunch of numbskulls who spend their energy dollar bonanza on funding crazed fundamentalists for another, all too similar, bunch of numbskulls.

So fusion is still the only way to go: not only is it emission free, it's the method that pays the greatest proportion of its cost to smart city people, and the least to backwoods morons.

Re:key word is catalyst

[ChrisGilliard]

Ok, Mr. Technical. If you want to get right down to it, Oil is Solar power as well because it came from the Sun and the Algea absorbed that energy and 'rotted' into Oil. You will probably point out that there are several other theories as to how this happened and that the one I mentioned is the wrong one, so incase you do I've mentioned that I'm aware some people think Oil came from dinosuars, etc.....In any case, if you want to be technical I should have said, photovoltaics instead of 'solar' power. So, congrats. The point is that same. That's the way to go long term.