UC Santa Cruz: New chemical process makes biodiesel production easier, less energy intensive

[NNadir]

6. I'm a chemist. I've made methyl esters of fatty acids in the lab many times. In the old days, it was a standard...

...procedure for analysis of fatty acids by GC. To a large extent it's been supplanted by modern LC/MSⁿ, we just don't need to make FAME (fatty acid methyl esters) for analytical purposes.

Of course, on a microscale, the source usually doesn't matter, but it is true that there are literally thousands of ways to conduct transesterification, none of which are particularly better than any other.

In any case, the energy requirements are trivial for transesterification of fatty acids to make FAME.

Anyone who wishes to represent however that sources do not matter for industrial processes is probably completely indifferent to what is and what is not sustainable.

I see the type often; they pull up some lab procedure pushed via a university press release designed to support applications to generate grants, and gush all over it, totally ignoring the difference between benchtop chemistry and industrial processes.

What would the point of the OP be? That biodiesel is now "sustainable?"

In my opinion it isn't. Biofuels have failed, like the rest of so called "renewable energy" to address the extreme global heating we are now observing, and in fact, the extreme global heating will increasingly make them - and for that matter food - less and less available.