Basic History of Biodiesel Fuel
Biodiesel fuel has been around since 1853. However, it was not fully used commercially until the early millennium. It is credited to E. Duffy and J. Patrick and it was recorded that the very first diesel-propelled machine ran on August 10 of 1893. Thus, the same day was aptly named International Biodiesel Day.
There is this German man named Rudolf Diesel who made an engine that was propelled by peanut oil. This was his experiment on biofuel for machine usage. Although peanut oil is not qualified as a biodiesel fuel because it did not undergo the actual process of making biodiesel fuel, it was viewed as the future of the power of natural feed stock to be used as an alternative to fuel based on petroleum. However, Rudolf was successful in running an engine using this type of biofuel.
Another person who should take the credit for biodiesel is G. Chavanne. It was in 1937 when he received a patent for a process called transesterification. This is the process used for converting feed stock to biodiesel. The blends of biodiesel fuels are marked on the percentage of blends. A 20% blend is called B20. A 30% blend is called B30. The B stands for blend.
Basically, biodiesel is made from animal and plant fats that are then mixed with methyl or ethanol. Glycerol is also used. Called fatty acid methyl or FAME, biodiesel has gains popularity of its practically year in and year out. The number of countries that have heavily invested in this have grown since the 1970s.
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[...] commonly used in Europe and Asia, historical biodiesel fuel prices dictate that this is very much dependent on the availability of feedstock. This is because [...]
We are trying to get historical pricing data on B100 in the Wilmington, NC area. Where would we go to retrieve this information?