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Vegetable Oils - Fuels.

What is Biodiesel?

Vegetable oils contain a lot of energy and can be used
for making fuels. The fuel is a biofuel called biodiesel.
Biodiesel comes from plants which have had their oil extracted.
Biodiesel is usually made from soybean oil or rapeseed oil.

Biodiesel can be used on its own in ordinary diesel engines
or mixed with diesel which has come from crude oil.


What are the Advantages of Biodiesel?

1. Biodiesel is renewable.
Plants can be grown at the same rate as they used to make fuel.

2.  Biodiesel has much less sulfur than ordinary diesel.

3.  Although burning biodiesel produces carbon dioxide,
it does not contribute to global warming.
This is because the amount of carbon dioxide
that the growing plants take in during photosynthesis
is the same as the amount of carbon dioxide that
the diesel engine emits when it is burning the biodiesel.
There is no extra carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere
(unlike using ordinary diesel which is a fossil fuel).


What are the Disadvantages of Biodiesel?

A large amount of land is needed to grow plants to produce
the vegetable oil. If more land is used to produce biodiesel
then less land is available for growing food. This reduces the
amount of food and therefore increases the price of food.

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