In 1993 when we were first investigating running power for outdoor events, we studied the feasability of using a vegetable based diesel with ordinary diesel generators. A lot of oil seed rape is grown in mainland Europe and processed along with sunflower oil into such a substance. It is used in ordinary unaltered diesel engines for agricultural tractors and the like. The biggest critisism vegetable based diesel has is that you have to grow an awfull lot of it to make a dent in diesel consumption, the greatest argument for it is that you actually use up more CO2 growing the crop than is created when the fuel is burnt; a net reduction of 3.5%.

Apparently it is even possible to process used cooking oil into a diesel type fuel.

In November 1992 Reading Buses ( in U.K.) conducted a trial in which three of their vehicles ran on the fuel, the results were very encouraging but this fuel costs twice as much (before tax) as ordinary diesel, other European countries offer tax advantages making the fuel a more competetive product.

Biodiesel is biodegradable and will degrade by 98% in just three weeks when spilt. The fuel is sulphur free and so will not produce sulphurous oxides. Emissions of carbon monoxide are reduced by 30%, hydrocarbons by 40% and particulates by 40%, exhaust smoke levels are also halved.

The fuel is made by crushing rape seed to extract the oil, the residue can be used as animal feed. Methanol is then added and the mix is heated in the presence of a catalyst to produce rape methyl ester.

below is a spec table sent to us by the manufacturer of Diesel-Bi, Novamont, an Italian state owned company (or at least we were told it was when we enquired at the time of our investigation).