johnsdiesel brought another point to mind. There is a difference between biodiesel and soy-diesel when people talk about them. Bio-diesel is an esterfied vegetable or animal oil. To be classified as esterfied the crude vegetable oil must be mixed with an alcohol and a catalyst that will neutralize the fatty acids and sugars. These fatty acids and sugars would be catastrophic to an internal combustion engine. The common definition of a soy-diesel is just a filtered and clarified crude vegetable oil. This form of soy-diesel is not recommended and will cause damage to an engine.
Our tests were run with a soybean oil biodiesel.
I agree with being able to recycle waste products, but I don't think it is a matter of having to grow the crops to produce soydiesel. The crops are going to be grown, as farmers we are trying to find a market for our product. Imagine at your job, that you never received a raise in the past 10-20 years, but everything else has inflated prices: bills, vehicles, about anything you can think of. As a farmer, that is the way it has been, prices for crops have not increased much at all over the past 10-20 years, we are still getting paid the same price per bushel of grain as we did back then. And for a farmer to stay in business, he'll just have to produce more crops to at least break even in finances. It's a vicious cycle and we are just trying to find more outlets for our crops to be used, and soy-biodiesel, as we see it, is a great opportunity.