The Brazilians get a lot of press for their efforts with Ethanol, but it looks like they are also making real inroads with biodiesel technology as well. The Inter Press Service reports:

The production of biodiesel from low-quality coffee, from the oils extracted from urban runoff, or from cattle fat is a pioneering initiative in Brazil, where efforts are under way to diversity the raw materials used as clean fuels, the consumption of which is on the rise.

Under the Brazilian system for the voluntary addition of two percent biofuel to petroleum diesel (B-2), the demand currently stands at about 800 million litres annually. This mixture will be obligatory beginning in 2008, and the proportion will rise to five percent in 2013, driving up total biodiesel consumption to an estimated 2.5 billion litres a year.

[…]

Fat from cattle is another promising raw material. In this case, the technology has been imported from Italy, where it has been used for some time. The company Ponte Di Ferro is ready to begin production, but bureaucratic questions have put the brakes on the project, the firm’s director Carlos Zveibil Neto told Tierramérica.

The surplus of animal fat on the market would allow production of biodiesel that is about 10 percent cheaper than soy-based fuel, a considerable advantage in the energy market. An estimated 23 million head of cattle are consumed in Brazil each year, which could produce 350 million litres of fuel from animal fat annually.

Mandatory B-2 seems like a really good idea. Technology from Italy? What’s taking the US so long to get these types of initiatives underway? Bureaucratic questions?