AM Minnesota Today Biodiesel

Biodiesel will be the topic on today's AM Minnesota Program. My guest will be Mike Youngerberg with the Minnesota Soybean Growers. Mike has worked with Biodiesel for more that 30 years. In fact recently Mike was recognized at the National Biodiesel Conference with a Nation Award for his work with Biodiesel. The vast majority of biodiesel used in the United States is made from soybeans. When the soybeans are crushed you have soybean meal, mainly fed to livestock and soybean oil.

Some of the soybean oil is used for human consumption. However, there is not enough demand for soybean oil compared to the demand for soybean meal. Many years ago Minnesota soybean growers were looking for a way to increase the demand for soybean oil and began working to develop the biodiesel market. Biodiesel can be made from soybean oil. In fact when Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine it ran on peanut oil which is another vegetable oil. At that time there was no petroleum based diesel fuel.