Minnesota soybean growers are pushing for a mandate of the use of soybean oil in diesel engines.

The growers want diesel powered vehicles to carry a 2 percent soybean oil blend in their tanks beginning next year and 5 percent by 2006, according to a report in the Minneapolis Star Trubune. If the legislature and the governor approve, Minnesota would be the first state to require the alternative fuel.
"We're trying to create a vision and a new industry for an alternative fuel for the country," a lobbyist for the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association told the paper.
Advocates say that there could be a market for a 375 million-gallon national surplus of soybean oil, which has surpressed the price of Minnesota's most widely grown crop. And the soybean oil could help diesel engine operators move toward a dramatic reduction in sulphur emissions that will be required nationally by 2006.
But opponents emphasize that while biodiesel does reduce three key air pollutants, it increases emissions of nitrous oxide. Opponents also say biodiesel hasn't been adequately tested and could be costly. "We're not willing to pay for the privilege of being a test subject," Bill Frank, vice chairman of the Minnesota Trucking Association, recently told the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
While the cost difference between biodiesel and petroleum diesel has been narrowing, the wholesale price of a gallon of soy-based biodiesel, the most common commercial version, was $1.50 last week, about twice the cost of petroleum diesel, the Star Tribune reports.
Biodiesel backers say that a new federal producer subsidy should make the price of biodiesel more competitive, and that production would probably spring up in Minnesota once a market were created - as it did with ethanol. But the rail and truck interests argue that even a penny's worth of difference in the price of diesel would put Minnesota at an economic disadvantage.
Legislation sponsored by Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy, and Rep. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, avoid subsidies, though a bill introduced more recently by Rep. Ted Winter, DFL-Fulda, would offer $4 million in incentives per producer over 10 years.