Another industry magazine looking at biobased lubes. From Machinery Lubrication (a trade magazine): "Soybean Oil offers Higher Performance, Low Environmental Impact."
Soy and other vegetable oils have a long way to go before they displace mineral oil based products. Of every measure except maybe biodegradability and maybe lubricity as a fuel additive mineral oils far out perform the emerging biobased lubricants.
Remember I'm very pro-biobased product/substitute technology. Regardless, every time I've looked at biobased lubes I have yet to see the A-game I would need to bring the product to market and start developing markets for it.
In particular they always lack the API specification donut as well a warranty. I've also never seen any mention of the ability to pull oil sampling with a traditional lab (not saying it can't be done, I've just never seen it mentioned).
Without the ability to determine the wear and tear an engine is going through, without a warranty to back up an engine going down due to a lubricant failure, and without a promise of adherence to API standards recommended by the Original Equipment Manufacturer these products become a tough sell. By far an away tougher than biodiesel has ever been.
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