User:Mike Young/Sandbox5

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[edit] US study

The study "US Life Cycle inventory of of Biodiesel and Petrolioum Diesel for use in an Urban Bus" [1] has often been quoted in this article. This is a detailed study that contains many useful calculations. However it does contain an error, and some of the conclusions that it makes are dependant on this error. The error occurs on page 211 to 220 in the calculations of the Life Cycle Energy Demand and the Life Cycle Emissions of CO2. The actual omission is that the calculations on these pages use data for energy and Carbon produced in generating a Tonne of Soy Beans and apply that to a Tonne of Soy Bean Oil. 1 kg of Soy Beans will only produce about 170g of Soy Bean Oil. This means that the study has underestimated the cost of producing Biodiesel by a factor of over 5. This is why the study's conclusions (e.g. that Biodiesel reduces the Carbon by 78%) are at variance with many other studies.