There is an ongoing shift in the biofuels market toward more renewable diesel, which at some point will start to put a squeeze on traditional biomass-based diesel. The distinctions between the fuels are subtle but important. In fact, it’s important enough that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will be changing its data collection and reporting to distinguish between biomass-based diesel and renewable diesel instead of lumping them together as they currently are in its statistical reporting. Biomass-based diesel is made with fats and methanol, a process called transesterification, and thus is sometimes referred to as fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). The production process introduces oxygen into the resulting fuel, which...

TAGS – Biofuels, North America