TD5 Engines and BioFuel

[EdF]

Talking today to a friend who's a Disco TD5 owner and telling him that I'm looking for another (an old TD5 auto under £8k if anyone has one for sale). He mentioned he knows a guy who has started a BioFuel production plant (from crops, not a chip shop). He said he was worried about the future of his motor as he understood from the BioFuel producer that BioFuel is going to be added to diesel in increasing quantities over the next five years to help alleviate our dependency on crude oil. He's worried as he believes TD5's won't run on Biofuel (or a mixture) at all due to the injector design. Can anyone throw any light on this?? Should we all revert to TDi's?

A side topic is - why is the government paying farmers not to use land (set-aside) when it could be put to good use growing crops for making BioFuel? Or is it that no government dept. could organise it efficiently?

[discojmz]

the set aside program (at least for us, but i believe widespread) ends next year. at the end of this summer all our set aside will be cultivated and cropped. there is an ever increasing demand now for sugar beet for ethanol and rape seed for biodiesel so things are moving, finally!

as for a td5 running on biodiesel. i see no reason why not. properly engineered biodiesel should have the same viscous and combustibility properties as dino diesel or at least very similar. its main advantage it lubricates the engine better too.

think what you may. if i believed everything i read, i would never have believed my 200tdi would run on the strong mixture of veg oil it does currently/biodiesel when i can be bothered to actually make it