Biodiesel University's Director of Education Megean Garvin, our Senior Advisor Steve Boyd and I have just returned from the National Biodiesel Conference in Orlando.  We were there to keep up-to-date with the industry and to meet industry players, potential partners and sponsors.

Two obvious trends at the conference were noteworthy: One is that rising feedstock prices have put tremendous fear in the hearts of investors and producers, and the other is that sustainability has finally come into its own as an industry focus.

The rising cost of the agricultural products traditionally used to make biodiesel, coupled with sharp attention on the food versus fuel issue, have shifted the industry's hopes onto algae and waste streams as the feedstocks of the future. The hope is that these alternatives will become commercially viable quickly enough to avoid real disruption in the growth of the industry, which has seen a doubling to tripling of production for the last several years.

Sustainability was a constant refrain at the conference; people were discussing the sustainability of feedstocks themselves, the sustainability of biodiesel production processes, the sustainability of logistics that move feedstocks and finished fuel across great distances. The entire convention gave a long standing ovation when the chairman of the National Biodiesel Board (the industry's trade association) announced the formation of an official sustainability committee at the top level of the Board's structure.

We also got to spend a little time with actress and environmentalist Daryl Hannah, an avid biodieseler and co-founder of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, talking about the great traction sustainability is finally experiencing within the industry.



Check out Daryl's great website and videos about her biodiesel and sustainability efforts.

Jay Leno's amazing full-custom GM-built 650HP biodiesel-powered jet supercar was on display at the conference. Here's a video from Popular Mechanics on the car's unveiling. (One correction, Jay: Biodiesel isn't made in any significant quantity from corn oil - it's way too expensive.)



As a technogeek myself, I love this concept car. It's fun, sexy, and eye-catching. From a societal and environmental sustainability perspective, I'm concerned that the message this and other big, high-horsepower renewable fuel vehicles (for example, Hummers running on a biodiesel and hydrogen blend) send to the public is "Hey, drive as big a car as you want - renewable fuel technology will make it OK." But it's not OK. Burning anything creates emissions we'd be a lot better off without, and burning them flagrantly and unnecessarily in oversized personal vehicles is woefully short sighted.

People like Armory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute, and many others, who are rethinking the personal transportation paradigm and designing smaller, lighter vehicles are headed in the right direction. Driving smaller and driving less is where we need to start.

The mantra of sustainable renewable energy is "The cheapest and cleanest energy is the energy you don't use".