Biodiesel from the perspective of Turkey: Past, present and future

Energy is an indispensable factor of today's developed and developing societies. However, supplying most of the energy need through nonrenewable fossil fuels has come to the threatening position for both the energy demand and the sustainable development in the future. For this reason, most of the developed countries have started to reduce the foreign dependency in order to stabilize their economies and head towards more environmental and renewable resources. Particularly, economic fluctuation and environmental damages depending on the oil need which increases day by day raise the importance of biofuels. Biodiesel developed as an alternative of diesel fuel has reached up to 17.6 billion liters of production amounts over the last 20 years. It is predicted that this increase would be much more rapid in the next decade and reach up to 42 billion liters. EU, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and the USA supply the 93% of the biodiesel production of the world. Turkey, which is 78% foreign-dependent in terms of energy and imports its 93% of oil need, supported biodiesel production in 2000s in order to close its current deficit and prevent oil's environmental damages. However, the desired aims could not be achieved and many biodiesel facilities were shut down. Along with the amendments in the legislation of petroleum products by the end of 2011, it is aimed that the biodiesel sector would be boosted through arousing interest in biodiesel again. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.