BioDiesel: How Did We Go So Wrong?

The diesel engine was invented in the 1890's by Rudolph Diesel.  He presented the engine at the World's Exhibition in Paris in 1900 as an engine capable of running on peanut oil. Yet it is only in recent times, more than a century later, that the benefits of biodiesel are now being realized.

Rudolph Diesel was an astounding visionary.  After struggling for years on the design of the combustion engine in the late 19th century, he finally invented what was to be called the diesel engine. But it didn't run on fossil fuels. It was his ambition to show that peanut oil was a far better fuel than the steam engines powered by coal and other fossil fuels. One year before his death in 1913, Diesel said "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." Convinced by Rudolph Diesel's peanut oil technology, Henry Ford started up a factory to begin mass production of biofuels.  Henry Ford was so enthusiastic that the Model T Ford engine was designed to use various biofuels. Unfortunately, the problem with peanut oil was the small quantity of output, resulting in high production costs.  The same could be said for soybean oil.  But then along came hemp.   Hemp grew naturally in the United States and it was soon found that it was the ideal substance for creation of biodiesel products. In the meantime oil entrepreneurs were getting rich from oil exploration and production.  They began spreading rumours to discredit hemp oil producers by referring to hemp as Marijuana in newspapers.  William Randolph Hurst created fears that resulted in the Marijuana Tax Act being introduced.  This prevented anyone from owning marijuana without a government certificate.  The hemp-based biodiesel industry failed soon after the introduction of this act. Biodiesel is now resurfacing as a viable solution for our vehicle carbon dioxide emissions problems.  As most of us know, carbon dioxide is one of the most significant greenhouse gases contributing to climate change / global warming.