NETTLETON, MS – According to Dr. Richard Craven, spokesperson for Universal Bioenergy, a Mississippi-based biodiesel manufacturer, more biodiesel use could help stimulate the economy as well as help cut CO₂ emissions. 

“The benefits to the environment are substantial,” Dr. Craven said. “We’ve all seen a truck pull away from the lights in a huge cloud of black smoke, well with biodiesel that is greatly reduced. It essentially contains no sulfur, so it reduces acid rain caused by regular diesel exhaust emissions which contain sulfur. Biodiesel also produces far smaller carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other hydrocarbon emissions. And of course because you’re growing more plants from which to manufacture the fuel, there is more vegetation to consume these remaining carbon emissions anyway. It’s a closed-loop which is great news for the environment.”

This ‘green’ side to biodiesel doesn’t just impact the environment, but is a tremendous stimulant to the economy, he said. Biodiesel is manufactured from vegetable oils — American farmers’ crops — and animal fats/greases. Some of the plants used for producing biodiesel ‘feedstocks’ can grow in areas not suitable for ‘edible foodstock’ plants, therefore farmers and co-operatives can utilize formerly unused land with which to generate increased revenues. Additionally, many of these alternative feedstock crops available for biodiesel production can produce more than twice the oil yield of edible foodstock crops — which in turn leads to increased productivity and increased revenues for the American agricultural industry and its associated service industries.