Production

                Similar to other bio-derived fuels, vegetable oil originates from

plants. Unlike ethanol which is only feasibly produced from starchy plants,

vegetable oil can be extracted from a wide variety of plants.  Plants that produce

seeds and beans that are high in oil content are prime sources of vegetable oil.

Popular vegetable oils include soybean, coconut, palm, rape seed, and canola.

Vegetable oil is extracted from plants by compressing its seeds/nuts and then

extracting the oil with steam or hot water.  In the year 2000, 2.9 billion gallons of

vegetable oil were produced in the United States[WIKI- Vegetable_fuel ].  Of

course, most of this vegetable oil was not used as fuel, but rather to as cooking

oil in deep fryers.  Since vegetable oil is not a very popular fuel, it is not mass

produced for thispurpose[Bruzek 1]. As previously mentioned, the continuing

expansion of ethanol based fuels and President’s endorsement of ethanol, has

resulted in the ignorance of

the benefits of vegetable

fuel oil.  More on why

vegetable oil production is

overlooked is explained

below.