Bio-Diesel has good and bad points.
Biodiesel: The Good and the Bad - AutoObserver - I personally don't like the fact that land used for food production or reforestation would be changed over to bio-diesel production.
Right now Bio diesel produces about a half day of fuel consumption in America. In the future it might go up to 1.2 days worth of production. It is not a big player and won't be...
I agree with you Sober that Americans should be given a choice. The regulations should be relaxed and the marketplace will dictate the success of the vehicles.
It wont be a "big player" as long as it has to compete with petroleum-sourced diesel that is being sold for less than its
true cost.
If Americans were forced to pay the
true cost for fossil fuels at the pump...which would include a tax to offset the entire cost of the war in Iraq and our continuing military presence in the Persian Gulf...gas would be $7 or $8 a gallon instead of only $4.
Biodiesel does
not have to compete with food crops for farmland. It can be produced using crops such as rapeseed or hemp that require very little water or pesticides and that can grow on land that is otherwise unsuitable for food agriculture. Even
more promising is the the use of
algae to make biodiesel, which could be grown in the deserts using brackish saltwater or even untreated sewage for irrigation.
Synthetic diesel can also be made from
coal...a resource that the US has in abundance. The technology for converting coal into diesel fuel is not new, the Germans did it during WWII to fuel their war effort when the Russians overran the oil fields in Romania that were Germanys only source of crude oil.
These technologies...biodiesel and diesel synthesized from coal...arent cheap and right now they cant compete with crude imported oil. They
could compete if (A) there were enough vehicles in the USA that were compatible with these fuels and (B) if the full costs of the war in Iraq, our military presence in the Persian Gulf and the enviormental cleanup from disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Exxon Valdez were all being paid for
at the pump instead of being passed down to our great grandchildren in the form of debt.
Imagine how different things would be if we here in America could buy hyper-efficient diesel hybrid cars that got 60 or 70MPG on biodiesel made by
American farmers or synthetic fuel made from coal dug by
American miners. Imagine
not having to pay billions of dollars per year to Saudi oil shieks and corrupt Persian Gulf dictatorships for their oil. Imagine
not having to meddle in the political affairs of other nations. Imagine
not having to send our kids off to die in wars for cheap oil.
We made the atomic bomb in 1945 without the benefit of
any modern technology or computers. We put a man on the moon in 1969. If we can do those things, we can become energy-indepentent also.
