While you might be excited about buying biodiesel for your car or truck, there are important things to keep in mind before purchasing this kind of fuel. First, it's a good idea to have an expert verify that your engine can handle biodiesel, and also determine what ratio of biodiesel to petroleum would work best. Otherwise, make sure that the biodiesel blend you buy contains no more than twenty percent biodiesel (that is, B20 or lower) because twenty percent biodiesel is the highest concentration of biodiesel guaranteed to work in any diesel engine. If you buy the right biodiesel blend for your vehicle, you can be assured it will deliver the same engine performance as any other kind of fuel.

In addition, you must be sure that your biofuel has been properly treated and manufactured, so only buy from a distributor with a solid reputation; do not buy homemade biodiesel. Distributors will prepare whatever blend of biofuel you like, and they can offer this fuel in large quantities, which makes them a convenient option for people who need a lot of biodiesel fuel, farmers, for instance. There might also be a gas station near you that sells biodiesel fuel. Hundreds of stations across the country sell biofuel, websites like the National Biodiesel Board's site offer searchable lists of these places and more and more establishments add biodiesel to their product lines all the time. And if there's a gas station you like that doesn't sell biofuel, try asking the owner to start carrying it, and get your family members and friends to do likewise. Once gas station owners start to see a demand for this product, they'll be much more likely to start offering it to their customers.

Buying biodiesel fuel doesn't make you feel good just because you're helping the environment. It can also provide significant tax breaks. In 2005 Congress passed the Alternative Fuel Refueling Infrastructure Tax Credit (which came under the umbrella of laws known as the Energy Policy Act of 2005), and in 2009 they passed the Biodiesel Tax Incentive Reform and Extension Act. Both bills represented historic legislative efforts to boost green technologies in general and alternative fuels like biodiesel in particular. These laws have established what is known as the volumetric blender tax credit, which offers deals to those who buy and use biofuels especially blends containing biodiesel levels of twenty percent or more. For example, if you fill out the Internal Revenue Service's Form 4136, you can get federal tax credit on the money you spend on biodiesel. (Even more savings are offered to those who make and distribute biodiesel: if you register as a biodiesel producer by filling out the IRS's Form 637 an involved process, to be sure you will see major tax savings.)

In addition to tax incentives, by buying biodiesel you'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you were an energy pioneer, on the forefront of biodiesel technologies that revolutionized American industry and helped to clean up our atmosphere once and for all.