Biodiesel is effectively a fatty ester based fuel, and it is generally manufactured from vegetable oils such as canola, hemp or soybean amongst others. It may also be created from animal fats in a special simple process and the history of biodiesel tells us that this renewable source of energy which is as efficient as petroleum diesel has been around for a great deal longer than oil commodity brokers care for us to know.

This history started with Rudolph Diesel when he designed a compression engine. He made use of peanut oil for this purpose, and he wanted to prove that this was the only fuel source which would ever be required. Way back then he knew that using renewable oil resources were a better option than using fossil fuels.

In actual fact biodiesel was used in diesel engines until the 1920’s it was only then that manufacturers decided to make use of petroleum fuel. Both methanol and ethanol are able to be produced from these fatty acids. Even Henry Ford believed in the concept propounded by Rudolph Diesel and he build a factory which was equipped to mass produce biofuels. He believed that this was the oil of the future and wanted to manufacture all his automobiles to run on this fuel.

Henry Ford even purpose built a factory to manufacture biofuels from natural oils and entered into partnerships with other manufacturers of natural oils. Soon petroleum companies started advertising their products and as they were cheaper in the 1940’s, this put paid to the idea of biofuels.

Biodiesel was originally produced with oils which did not allow a very high yield of fuel, making this fuel expensive. Then they discovered hemp oil. Hemp had been grown for a long time in the US for its many useful purposes. When tested hemp oil was found to be stable and also able to produce greater yield of fuel. Henry Ford went back to the drawing board on manufacturing fuel for his vehicles from hemp oil.

In the same breath, many oil wells had been found in the US and people were getting extremely rich from selling this oil to manufacture petroleum. They were not prepared to give Henry Ford a market share with his products and started a campaign against the hemp oil product, calling it Marijuana.

This caused panic in people who used this fuel, as possession of it required Government certification and the Government was not handing out these certificates to anyone. Petroleum oil won this war and cornered the market, and that in a nutshell is the history of biodiesel.

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