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National Geographic News November 15, 2005 Japanese scientists may have found a cheaper and more efficient way to pr oduce "biodiesel." The renewable, vegetable oil-based fuel can be used i n conventional diesel engines, which are found in about 2 percent of car s currently sold in the US and in about 40 percent in Europe. The breakthrough could be just in timeindustry experts say that demand f or the cleaner, greener fuel is on the rise. Any vegetable oil can become fuel, but not until its fatty acids are conv erted to chemical compounds known as esters. Currently the acids used to convert the fatty acids are prohibitively expensive. Michikazu Hara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have used common, inexpensive sugars to form a recycl able solid acid that does the job on the cheap. Their research is report ed in last week's issue of the journal Nature. "We estimate the cost of the catalyst to be one-tenth to one-fiftieth tha t of conventional catalysts," Hara said. The breakthrough could provide cost savings on a massive scale, he said, because the technique could fairly easily make the transition from the l ab to the refineryif interest warrants. "We have developed this material for large-scale chemical production," Ha ra said. "Unfortunately, interest in biodiesel in Japan is not higher th an in the US and Europe." Though it has been historically limited, US interest in the fuel appear s to be rising rapidly.
of productio n in 2005, and that's triple last year's production," said Jenna Higgins , a spokesperson for the National Biodiesel Board, a biodiesel-industry trade group. Higgins cites several reasons for the surge, including government incenti ves and the rising cost and sometimes short supply of conventional diese l fuel. A Minnesota law, which took effect September 29, mandates that virtually all diesel sold in the state has to be at least 2 percent biodieselprov ided local producers can match the demand.
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Photo: Soybeans, key ingredient in US biodiesel fuel Soybeans, after being processed into soybean oil, are the key ingredient in most US-produced biodiesel fuel.
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