This site is not meant to be a single source for information on soy-based biodiesel. I created it to present information that is missing from the internet and to correct common but false assumptions. Like every other energy source, biodiesel has its good and bad sides.

I would like to first thank those few critical thinkers out there who have given me permission to plagiarize their words (and calculations). It is my hope that those who wish to debate the environmental destructiveness of soy-based biodiesel will link to this site and use the reality checks listed on the first page for polite, rational debate. For example, the next time an enthusiast tells you that soy-based biodiesel is carbon neutral, refer him or her to Fact #2 on this site--www.biodieselrealitycheck.com. Be forewarned that biodiesel enthusiasts can be some of the rudest people you will ever have the pleasure of trying to dissuade. The calculations on this site will be in flux as it is reviewed by others offering valid critique. Consider all calculations as reasonable approximations instead of hard unchanging facts. That is how the real world works anyway.

Engineering is the art of compromise. The difference between an engineer and a clown is that one juggles bowling pins while the other juggles variables like weight, cost, durability, functionality, maintainability, and safety. The environmental benefits of soy-based biodiesel have to be weighed against the environmental damage done by it before you can conclude that it's a good idea. I have looked into it in detail and have concluded that the immediate measurable environmental damage done by growing extra soybeans to feed to our cars far outweighs the advantages obtained by doing so.

The present biodiesel mania has many of the elements seen in an old fashioned gold rush--there are a lot of people hoping to get rich. An even better analogy was the tulip craze that sent the price of tulip bulbs through the roof before the hype died, along with the market for the bulbs. I realize this sounds dramatic, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of George Monbiot (who you will meet soon) biofuels (and specifically, biodiesel made from soybeans) may soon evolve into one of the most environmentally destructive fuels on earth. Click on this link for a picture of a soybean field in South America where earlier in the century there was actually an intact ecosystem. A soy or corn field is just one species away from being just as biologically impoverished as a mall parking lot. Several South American countries are hoping to capitalize on this rush to make biodiesel from soybeans as noted here, here, here, and here. However, they are learning some harsh economic realities as shown here. Hopefully, the meddling in the free market by our government (huge subsidies for soy and corn, mandatory usage of the fuels, and a tariff on ethanol imports) will not one day lead to similar problems for American consumers and farmers.

Deforestation is the second leading cause of global warming and the conservation reserve land in the U.S. is presently acting as a giant carbon sink. The United States is actually absorbing 15 to 30 percent of the CO2 than it is emitting at this time thanks to those carbon sinks. Using that land to grow more corn and soybeans for biofuels will not only destroy wildlife habitat, it will also destroy these carbon sinks.

An analogy is a runaway nuclear reactor. You have a mix of elements: farmers, oil refiners, and oil distributors all looking for profit, and politicians, looking for votes and glory. Missing from the scene are the control rods; the environmentalists who have traditionally slowed the destruction of the environment for profit. Where are they? Well, they are on the same bandwagon, largely because they don't know any better. They are ignorant because critique of soy-based biodiesel is almost nonexistent in the lay press and on the Internet. The Wikipedia article on biodiesel is in a constant state of change where critique of the fuel is quickly eliminated or downplayed by enthusiasts who have managed to gain a measure of control over the site. The emperor has no clothes on.

For example, did you know that anyone who drives a car using 100% biodiesel made from soybeans is usurping about 7 football fields worth (9 acres) of vegetable oil annually to feed their car? That is about an acre every 5 weeks. To get a feel for the immensity of 7 football fields, go stand in the middle of just one. Ever hear of a thing called an ecological footprint test? It provides a rough feel for how much of the planet you are claiming as your own. The average American is purported to have a score of about 24 acres, which as you might guess is the highest in the world. Go ahead and take it (keep in mind that the average American drives 240 miles per week). The average American would have to add all but a few of those 9 acres mentioned earlier to the mobility part of their test score if they drove a car that uses 100% biodiesel made from soybeans, which would increase their score from 24 acres to about 38 acres, which is an increase of over 50%.

This is one of those rare arguments that can be backed up with simple math and a handful of clear cut references. Go here to see those references and check the math for me. Vegans who use biodiesel made from soybeans are usurping 48 times more land for their cars than their beef eating counterparts are for their cows. Go here to see notes and calculations.

Most of us environmentalists are aware by now that soybeans are the least efficient crop used to produce biodiesel. However, there is a subset of environmentalists out there (I call them the biodiesel enthusiasts) who are convinced that biodiesel is a miracle fuel and they are not real concerned about what it's made from. They have a righteous cause and do not take kindly to critique of their object of worship.

I began questioning biodiesel made from soybeans about a year ago. Unbelievably, I appeared to be the only person on the entire internet doing so. This was a bad sign. As we all know, the internet is rife with fruitballs who have developed an obsession with one issue or another. Was I one of them? Was I the mirror image of the biodiesel enthusiast? Then one day I stumbled onto an article by George Monbiot and realized, much to my relief, that at least I was not alone. There were two of us. Monbiot had also run into this quasi-religious behavior when he wrote his article critiquing biofuels:

"I received as much abuse as I have ever been sent for my stance on the Iraq war [he was against it]. The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon."

Because biodiesel enthusiasts (like any religionist) know they are right, anyone critical of their object of worship is assumed to have ulterior motives, evil ones, like being shills to big oil. Imagine if the internet existed at the time of Galileo and he was the only one posting that the earth circled the sun. At least non-believers like myself are no longer burned at the stake or put on permanent house arrest. Some of the worst rants I have seen dished out to critics have come from biodiesel distributors, which is certainly to be expected because not only do most of them "believe" in biodiesel, they are also hoping to get rich off it. They are especially sensitive to critique.

I sometimes hear from well meaning prostelizers admonishing me to stop critiquing biofuels. They try to alleviate my obvious ignorance on the subject and tell me about the miracle of biodiesel, saying things like, "You can actually drink it (but you might get sick)," and "Join us in the new world paradigm." Exchanges start off well enough because, like any religionist, the enthusiast knows he or she is right, and is armed with what he or she thinks are indisputable facts. However, as the e-mail exchange continues, and as more and more of his or her "beliefs" are threatened by information they had never heard before, they become angry, their remarks invariably dissolving into abusive, accusatory, and sometimes threatening rants. Although, I did manage to convince one enthusiast. She lived near a supplier who used recycled oil and finally agreed that anyone using biodiesel made from soybeans was doing the planet a great disservice. But she was the only one.

I am often admonished not to throw the baby out with the bath water. That analogy is meant to imply that if the good outweighs the bad, you shouldn't throw out the good just to get rid of what is bad. It's a bad analogy for biodiesel made from soybeans. In other words, that isn't a baby floating in the bath water.

As you might guess, biodiesel enthusiasts who drive cars fueled by soybean-based biodiesel , even when confronted with this data still support soybean-based biodiesel (by continuing to buy it). Admittedly, I sure would not want  to hear that the car I bought specifically to burn biodiesel might actually be worse for the environment than the gasoline version I traded in. Who would? Most people I know (and maybe even myself if the shoe were on my foot) would not accept this easily, or at all, regardless of the evidence, because that is human nature.

I don't have much trouble getting enthusiasts to at least acknowledge that "soybeans may not be the best thing to make biodiesel out of, but...." What then follows is an argument that we must support it anyway because by doing so we will facilitate the development of better biofuel technology, and at the same time, crush big oil and on, and on (never mind that big oil companies are rapidly taking control of the biofuels industry). That mindset is not the result of a lot of research and careful thought. It is more the result of a lack of information coupled with a lack of critical thinking.

The weak link in their argument is that growing soybeans to make biodiesel may actually hinder research into and the development of infrastructure for future improvements in biofuel technology. In short, you cannot use the same infrastructure (crushing and drying facilities and the railroads leading to them) to make the same fuel from say, switch grass (in the case of ethanol)or algae (biodiesel). You would have to tear it down and start all over because without further massive subsidization, soy and corn will not be comptetitive. Can you imagine politicians from States that have invested billions in infrastructure to make biodiesel from soybeans actually voting in a manner that would dismantle that infrastructure? The bigger this soybean-based biodiesel industry gets, the harder it will be to bring down, and the harder it will fall.

The present day dollar-a-gallon subsidy for biodiesel (regardless of what it is made from) may eventually be switched to a subsidy just for biodiesel made from soybeans in an attempt to keep it competitive with more efficient means of making it. And that, as all of you who have taken Econ 101 know, will suppress competition from more efficient methods of making it.

The argument that soybean oil is a waste product (not the same as "by product") and that soybeans are not grown specifically as feedstock for biodiesel refineries is dashed by the fact that soy oil is increasing in value along with the production of soy-based biodiesel. The other standby argument that biodiesel made from "food" crops like soybeans or rapeseed do not compete with "food" has also fallen by the wayside as the price of food oils on the futures market (both soy and that bottle of canola in your kitchen cabinet) are slowly being driven up by competition from biodiesel.