To determine if biofuels are a viable option to displace petroleum based fuels for the transportation industry in the United States, many variables must be taken into account, including environmental impact, production costs, ability of existing infrastructure to use them, available subsidies, legislation, and the cost of oil.
Each biofuel technology has benefits and drawbacks that can alter the total cost to market and net effect on the environment. Since market conditions can vary by geography, and historical market data for competing petroleum based diesel (PD) is available, the following posts will focus on the economic viability of biodiesel (BD) production in the United States. Each of the immediately following posts will provide a brief explanation of why the particular aspect is important to the market viability. Further posts will discuss additional details of BD production using soy beans as a source because there is already market data and information from real world use.
Because of the market price variability of soybeans, and the fact that production output of BD from soybeans is inherently limited by the amount of arable land available, market viability of BD from algae will also be discussed.
