entially limitless, because it is a renewable source of energy. The timeliness of development of biomass energy is good, in that it could provide a major proportion of the nation's energy needs within 10 years from the point of development implementation.
Biomass fuel is viewed as an alternative to diesel fuel (Humer, 1992, pp. 5, 11). This alternative fuel is made from esterified vegetable oils, and is being tested in transit buses in Sioux Falls, North Dakota. The fuel is created by reacting crude vegetable oil and methanol in the presence of a catalyst to yield methyl ester. Both rapeseed oil and soybean oil are used as vegetable oil sources. Environmental advantages of the fuel are no sulfur emissions, no increase in carbon dioxide over diesel fuel, a flashpoint twice that of diesel fuel, and biodegradability (Humer, 1992, pp. 5, 11). The alternative fuel has already passed European emission testing. The fuel alternatives on which this current study focuses are methanol, alcohol gasoline m
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