Vegetable oil instead of petroleum

By Wolfgang Löser 23 January 2026

Vegetable oil can replace petroleum

And we have already proven it. To this day I keep hearing this sentence: “Vegetable oil in relevant quantities? That’s impossible.” Only recently, during a discussion, a farmer said he would like to run a combined heat and power plant on vegetable oil. He would need 100,000 to 200,000 litres a year for it. The reaction was reflexive: too much, not feasible, unrealistic.

This is exactly where the problem begins – because this statement contradicts the facts and our own history.

Agriculture in Germany needs around four billion litres of diesel a year. When the tax exemption for biofuels was adopted in the early 2000s, many farmers began to rethink. They consistently replaced fossil diesel with pure vegetable oil.

Around 700 farmers’ vegetable-oil pressing cooperatives were formed. By 2004 they were together producing about four billion litres of vegetable oil – enough to cover the entire fuel requirement of agriculture. Self-sufficient, regional and without fossil dependence.

These structures were successful. So successful that they doubled their production by 2008. More than eight billion litres of vegetable oil and biofuels were produced and used not only in agriculture but also in truck and bus fleets. More than 70 specialised conversion companies adapted vehicles to run on vegetable oil. A functioning value chain emerged – from the field to mobility.

Diesel consumption fell – and that became the problem

From 2008, massive lobbying by large corporations set in. Under the political course of the federal government at the time, a tax on vegetable oil of 37.6 cents per litre was adopted, which came into force in 2012. This made vegetable oil artificially uneconomical – with dramatic consequences:

almost all oil mills closed
conversion businesses disappeared
logistics chains collapsed
around 100,000 jobs were lost. Not because the system did not work – but because it worked too well.

Yet the potential is still enormous today. Worldwide, vegetable oil could replace petroleum, and with only around 2.6 per cent of the global land area. In our climate zones, yields of about 1,000 litres per hectare are realistic, in regions near the equator even up to 10,000 litres per hectare.

Of course, I say clearly: photovoltaics and wind energy must have priority. But biomass – and thus also vegetable oil – is the ideal balancing and back-up energy, storable and usable on demand. There is well-founded scientific work on exactly this, for example by Prof. Ernst Schrimpff from Weihenstephan, with whom I was able to give talks at the vegetable-oil symposium in Aachen back in 2004.

The real question today is no longer whether vegetable oil is an alternative. The question is: how much longer can we afford fossil energy at all?

I think we can afford it neither economically – in view of finite resources – nor ecologically, with regard to climate protection.

Sources:

“The solutions are there. We already had them in our hands once. Self-sufficient, regional and effective. It is up to us to allow them again.”

Wolfgang Löser, energy pioneer

Who am I?

“Austria’s first energy-self-sufficient farm” since 2002, with talks and seminars

Address: Untere Dorfstrasse 23, 2004 Streitdorf Austria

Phone: +43 (0)2269 2317 Mobile: +43 (0)680 1113363 Email: w.loeser@aon.at | www.energiebauernhof.com

Link to the book (German): Wolfgang Löser – Der Energierebell – Stocker Verlag

Link to the film: Enerkey – Who holds the key to the energy transition?

Think about it today: wind, solar and photovoltaics with POWER STORAGE, e-mobility and combined heat and power as balancing energy