savebiodiesel.org

An important new campaign lead by our friends Robin and Michele at Dogpatch Biofuels. Please take a moment to check out the website and sign the petition. This issue has the potential to spin out of control and cause great damage to the emerging biodiesel industry. Please act now!

****

Hello everyone,

Please check out a new campaign website: savebiodiesel.org !

We sent out an e-mail about a month ago regarding the compatibility issues arising with biodiesel and new diesel vehicles. To quickly re-cap: the method in which many engine manufacturers are handling new emissions control systems (year 2007.5 and newer) involve in-cylinder injection of fuel late in the engine cycle. This has been shown to lead to engine oil dilution which is exasperated by the use of biodiesel, in blends from B5 to B100.

In order to make it easier to gather support (and at the great suggestion of some of our customers) we have created a website detailing the issue and an online petition which will go out to engine manufacturers along with the California Air Resources board and the EPA. The idea is to build grass roots support from us, the consumer, to demonstrate why biodiesel needs to be a viable option for all diesel vehicles.

We invite you to browse the website (savebiodiesel.org) to learn more about the issue and please add your name to the petition.

In addition please contact us if you have ideas about how to build this campaign. And please share the website with anyone you think would be interested.

Thank-you for your support!

Robin & Michele
Dogpatch Biofuels
765 Pennsylvania Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94107
ph: (415) 643-3435
http://dogpatchbiofuels.com

Forbes Biodiesel Article - Good, but missing a key peice of the story

A recent article in Forbes about Imperium's struggles generated a lot of discussion on one of the regional biofuel email lists that I am on. It prompted me to post a comment on the forbes.com website about the need for waste feedstock biodiesel and regionally appropriate biodiesel plants. The biodiesel industry needs to focus on its future if it is to be successful and that future is waste feedstock biodiesel . . . . leading eventually to non-food crop biodiesel from crops like Jatropha and algae.

Article and comment can be found here.

Biofuels Bloodbath

The stream of ethanol and biodiesel failures seems unending.

Today brought us the news of Aventine's demise: http://www.reuters.com/article/deborahCohen/idUSWEN701420090408

A couple weeks before that was NOVA BioSource. NOVA probably has the best biodiesel plant in the country - state of the art, multi-feedstock, low cost and scale, but with debt equal to their assets and no working capital, they could not keep the ship afloat.

Before that it was VeraSun, the country's largest independent ethanol producer.

Our friends at Salon.com have pick-up on this trend with an ongoing series they call "Biofuels Deathwatch." See latest here: http://www.salon.com/tech/giga_om/clean_tech/2009/04/05/biofuels_deathwatch_pacific_ethanol_nova_biosource_join_the_bandwagon/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/giga_om/clean_tech

Who will benefit from all of this? Certainly not the investors who piled into biofuels during the boom years from 2005 to 2007. Large Ag, vertically integrated and with a diverse source of revenues, certainly benefits. As does Valero who picked up several of the VeraSun plants on the cheap. And I would guess, some very smart visionary investors will begin picking up these plants at distrissed asset prices and make a princely sum. For now, they all seem to be sitting on the sidelines though, waiting to find the bottom, which shows no sign of having been reached.

The journey continues . . .