"If all starch, sugar, fat and natural oils were used to make liquid biofuels and none went to food, feed or other industrial uses (...) biodiesel could meet 8% of diesel demand."
Tony Regan, principal consultant with Singapore energy consultancy Nexant, told a gathering held by the British Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. Current world demand for diesel is around 14 million b/d. With the various pressures on biodiesel feedstocks, which in southeast Asia include palm oil -- a critical food crop and a target for environmentalists angry at rainforests being felled for fuel -- it is likely that only a small fraction of the world's total potential biodiesel production will ever be realized.

Updated: November 9, 2007