I was reading an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association about overzealous alternative fuel producers. In Colorado, a homeowner who was making biodiesel in his home "forgot to turn off the tank's heating element and left for the weekend." The result was that the tank overheated and caused a fire. Even worse, the materials used for the biodiesel--cooking oil, glycerin, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric and phosphoric acid--seeped into the ground during the fire. A HazMat team had to respond to the fire, due to the hazardous materials.

The lesson of this article is that people who want biodiesel should buy it from a licensed source, rather than trying to produce it at home. It sounds great in theory for a person to try to avoid using gasoline in favor of a renewable form of fuel. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that even biodiesel involves the use of hazardous materials that should not be handled by a novice. Hopefully, the alternative energy market will not be an impetus for people to try to take biodiesel production into their own hands, without having appropriate education and training. Otherwise, more residential areas could be susceptible to hazardous material situations like the one in Colorado.