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According to The Brock Report, soybean oil prices are too high to allow profitable production of biodiesel, causing a high percentage of plant capacity to go unused.
The National Biodiesel Board says the industry currently has an annual capacity of 1.85 billion gallons. However, in 2007 the U.S. produced only about 400 million gallons of biodiesel. This production total is down from 580 million gallons in 2006 and represents only 22% of production capacity.
Meanwhile, Brazil has legislated that as of Jan. 1, all diesel fuel sold in-country has to contain 2% biodiesel. About 90% of Brazil's biodiesel is made from soy oil.
