Crafting with Kids

The adoption of biodiesel and its integration within our society face a number of complex, interdependent or exclusive challenges. We are restricted by a limited amount of comprehensive data research, but nevertheless many factors are in favour of biodiesel fuel. Just 10 years ago, widespread adoption of biodiesel as an alternative fuel mode seemed unlikely, but that situation is certainly changing fast.

We are all becoming very aware how traditional fossil fuels have caused damage and become a great concern for the future. When petroleum is made, greenhouse gases are guaranteed and we now know how this is affecting the planet’s average annual temperature. Climate change is already leading to weather pattern alterations that could potentially cause devastating problems to future generations. Changes must come and we must cut down our reliance on fossil fuels, even though this change is slow to materialise sometimes. We often do not like changes and challenges to the way that we exist and we certainly do not like additional economic costs associated. However, adopting alternative energy production processes and consumption patterns may put us at competitive disadvantage compared to countries that do not.

Environmentalists assure us that unless we act now, harm will become irreversible. Consequently, governments are starting to consider taxation of carbon itself, forcing organisations through market pressures to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and increase their energy efficiency. For biodiesel, this could help to balance the playing field. When traditional fuels become more expensive due to this carbon tax, biodiesel fuel will become more attractive.

Further to that, as society becomes increasingly more worried about climate change, it is likely to turn toward measures and solutions that are seen as being far “greener.” Biodiesel fuels may represent a premium over alternatives and may be more difficult to find, but nevertheless a trend toward them will begin. Ways of making biodiesel will be explored and commercial solutions will begin to spring up in more and more places.

Farmers have been worried about declining demand for their products in recent times. These days, homemade biodiesel can be made from vegetable oils and surplus oils, together with animal fats and soybeans, for example could easily provide the raw material needed to produce the fuel. Wouldn’t it be nice to keep the revenues from production and sale of our fuels within our communities and keep them from flooding overseas? By the 2020s, fully two thirds of the revenues associated with fuel purchase could be filtering its way to foreign countries, unless we’re careful.

As we enter the new decade, it seems that more and more people and organisations are going to focus on the need to be sustainable. The biodiesel industry will be very much to the fore. With so much at stake, not only with respect to the long term financial stability of our country, but also the priceless global sustainability which could be achieved, can any of us really afford to continue to wait until someone in power makes a decision?

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