Introduction

I had to dig way back in my Gmail archives to figure out how it was that I first interacted with Choren. I had written several articles on biomass gasification in 2006, and when I announced that I would be moving to Scotland in early 2007, I received an e-mail from Dr. David Henson at Choren. David, at that time in Business Development at Choren and now the President of Choren USA, said he had been reading some of my essays, and he extended an invitation to visit the biomass-to-liquids (BTL) plant that Choren was building in Freiberg, Germany.

As some of you may know, I am writing the renewable diesel chapter for a book on renewable energy. My submission is due at the end of July. The chapter is well underway, but I have a nagging feeling that I am forgetting to address something. So, I wanted to share the outline I have, and see if anyone has any comments. If you know of a substantial feedstock that I have missed, or can think of some things you think should be covered in a specific section, let me know.

For instance, in the section on environmental considerations, I am going to point out that tropical forest is being cut down to produce palm plantations for palm oil. On the other hand, biodiesel, unlike petroleum diesel, is non-toxic. What else? Are there specific, little known facts about rapeseed oil that I should include? Just things like that. Basically, if you were reading a comprehensive story about renewable diesel, what specifically would you hope to see covered? To my knowledge, what I am writing has not been comprehensively covered before. I don't know of any other work that has an extensive compare/contrast between biodiesel, SVO, green diesel, etc. I think many people hear "biodiesel", and think it's all the same.