Perhaps one of the things we here at BIODIESEL MAGAZINE do not cover enough or at all sometimes is small scale, local, community based biodiesel production. The magazine was founded on serving the industrial production sector, and while we intend to keep doing that, maybe it's time to consider broadening the scope of BIODIESEL MAGAZINE by including more news coverage and information specifically for the micro processor. To the big producers and industry trade organizations, the concerns of promoting home brew and small scale production-and I do understand that home brewers and small scale producers are not the same thing-revolve around two major issues: product quality and safety. If the world is going to be serious about energy conservation though, we all need to start reconsidering how we do things.

In Grand Forks, N.D., we have a couple of bakeries and cooperative stores that buy and sell local, and one day I overheard someone say "local is the new organic," meaning buying local is a growing trend in food purchasing. If you could buy organic and local, perfect. But how does it make sense for a state to raise a bunch of hogs, sell them out of state and internationally to large food processing companies, leaving that very hog producing state as a net pork importer? It seems silly but it happens.

In renewable fuels production, one may notice ethanol production is centered in the Midwest, but its major consumption centers are largely on the coasts, where the population centers are. Biodiesel production and consumption areas are more in line with each other than ethanol's-and it's been like that since I can remember. But by the nature of the U.S. industries and the national transportation fuels consumption, biodiesel is smaller scale than ethanol; the diesel fuel market is about a third that of gasoline market in the U.S., and for passenger vehicles, a diesel contingent is almost unmentionable today. Also, oils, virgin and waste, are available in smaller quantities than starch. So it only seems natural to want to provide more coverage of small, local community based biodiesel production. Let us know what you think. If you've got some other ideas to share on what you would like to see in the magazine more often, let us know…