That being said, both you and Gavin are right. Biodiesel, regardless of the source, is street legal. Straight vegetable oil, however, isn’t and is at a “use at your own risk” stage in development. Theoretically, it can be used in diesel engines with a few modifications, but it’s generally not advised.

As for the whole “biofuels are worse for the environment than petro” thing, especially when talking about farmland and whatnot, it’s almost completely because they’re going about it all wrong. As Gavin mentioned, algae has been a consideration for oil production for a while. And for good reason. It produces something like 200 times more oil than corn does. In fact, corn and soy are the worst sources of oil. Algae can also grow pretty much anywhere and in large amounts without much effort or even space. Trying to use corn for oil production is about like trying to use trees as a water source. Keep in mind, too, that farmer’s bane isn’t lack of supply, it’s lack of demand. There are government subsidies in place to keep various crops at or above a certain price.

You then also have the issue of using only one source for fuel. Bad idea. That’s what got us into this mess to begin with. We have to be able to use more than one source (in other words, the whole corn/soy thing would not only be disastrous on an environmental level, but also on an economic level).

On a side note, flex-fuel hybrids do great on biofuels, coming in at an average of about 100 mpg, with some models getting upwards of 200 mpg.

There’s also the question of meat in the food crisis: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007940.html

But the problem of meat has been around for decades, the problem of biofuels is a new problem.

I believe the modifications to use spent fryer grease, as opposed to what you can buy at diesel filling stations, are far more expansive. Also, they’re not technically road legal. That’s not really what I was addressing in this article.

The biodiesel you can buy at biodiesel stations I believe is made from soy, and it’s demand is probably does not create so severe a problem as corn ethanol, but forests in Indonesia are already being cut for its production.

There are a number of possible future solutions that could create cleaner biofuels without the drawbacks. Algae and bacteria are a couple possible solutions. I know nothing about the bacteria solutions, but the algae ones are nowhere near economical yet - it costs something like $20-40 a gallon to produce the stuff.

There’s a ton of VC being thrown at clean energy and biofuel. Hopefully someone will eventually figure something workable out and we’ll be able to distinguish it from the snake oil.

More on the clean energy bubble:

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/03/cleantech_bubble

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908

There’s some business about making biofuels out of algae, which I know nothing about. But expect to see laughably unthoughtful comments about this in a political stump speech near you.

“It is important to specify that the Searchinger study does not say that current corn ethanol production increases greenhouse gases (GHGs). Its findings reflect land use changes tied to an increase in U.S. corn ethanol production approximately six times that of today.”

It also says that biodiesel is more effecient than ethanol.

See here: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007868.html

Many problems are still applicable, but the situation is not as dire as I thought.