Biodiesel (again)
I'm going to make some wild, possibly ridiculous claims about the things biodiesel coudl do for the world. For those of you unfamiliar with biodiesel, it's a vegetable oil based fuel that has been 'cracked' to make it less viscous, so it has all of the properties of mineral diesel.
Biodiesel requires little or no modification to your diesel engine. It only releases the carbon dioxide that is fixed in growing the plant you get the oil from. It releases few other emissions. These are the world problems I think it could solve.
1) Global warming. Whether you believe this is happening or not, less carbon dioxide emissions can be no bad thing. But if you do believe it's happening, it coudl stop a fifth of the world's population from drowning.
2) The fuel crisis. Oil prices are going up all the time, people are having to shoot other people to secure oil supplies (sorry, any opportunity to take a shot at Bush), and eventually, whether in ten or a thousand years, supplies will run out. So let's start growing our own now!
3) Urban pollution. If Asia's swelling economy is based on this entirely renewable fuel, then the Chinese won't need to start wearing dust masks in the big cities, like the Japanese do in Tokyo.
4) The political instability of the Middle East. Not just a dig at Bush, but if we've got an alternative to oil, people like Saddam won't be able to throw their weight around nearly as much.
5) The Common Agricultural Policy. Don't pay people not to farm, pay them to grow diesel!
It won't solve the traffic problems of course. But other than that, I can't see a problem with it. So how do we get everyone driving vegetable-oil-fuelled cars? And why hasn't it happened already?
Biodiesel requires little or no modification to your diesel engine. It only releases the carbon dioxide that is fixed in growing the plant you get the oil from. It releases few other emissions. These are the world problems I think it could solve.
1) Global warming. Whether you believe this is happening or not, less carbon dioxide emissions can be no bad thing. But if you do believe it's happening, it coudl stop a fifth of the world's population from drowning.
2) The fuel crisis. Oil prices are going up all the time, people are having to shoot other people to secure oil supplies (sorry, any opportunity to take a shot at Bush), and eventually, whether in ten or a thousand years, supplies will run out. So let's start growing our own now!
3) Urban pollution. If Asia's swelling economy is based on this entirely renewable fuel, then the Chinese won't need to start wearing dust masks in the big cities, like the Japanese do in Tokyo.
4) The political instability of the Middle East. Not just a dig at Bush, but if we've got an alternative to oil, people like Saddam won't be able to throw their weight around nearly as much.
5) The Common Agricultural Policy. Don't pay people not to farm, pay them to grow diesel!
It won't solve the traffic problems of course. But other than that, I can't see a problem with it. So how do we get everyone driving vegetable-oil-fuelled cars? And why hasn't it happened already?
don't bother with all the lefty-hippy-crap. You got me with 5.
any mention of the CAP boils my blood. grrr.
and let's not pay people for growing it, let's make it economically viable so that people can make money from growing it - that way we don't have the false 'collective farm' economy that the CAP and its subsidies create...
profit not subsidies a sustainable market maketh...
Posted by
Ben |
Thu Apr 27, 12:14:00 pm
No, subsidies pay people to grow nothing. Businesses pay people to grow fuel. Governments shouldn't be paying them at all - I'm completely with you. No need for subsidisation if they're growing something we need, and that we can pay for.
And you've got to concede there's something in points 1-4. Once you filter out the lefty-hippie crap, that is.
Posted by
Matt |
Thu Apr 27, 01:00:00 pm
1, rubbish. Hippy crap and a manefestation of the post-christian guilt complex. Climates change, that's what they do. If a climate didn't change we wouldn't notice it was there - wouldn't even have a word for it.
2 and 4, if we can provide an alternative to the dependancy on the middle-east for oil the pressure would be on the sultans and shiekhs to sort their houses out - ie stop exporting their civil wars to the West/stop encouraging radical islam as a means of cotrolling the population.
3, good point.
Posted by
Ben |
Thu Apr 27, 01:36:00 pm
I'm glad you're with 4 out of 5. I would suggest for pedantry's sake that 'Climates change' is like 'Animal species die out'. I'm sure a couple of hundred years ago people who said 'Stop hunting the Dodo' were talking hippy crap too.
Anyway, we're clearly on the same page as to whether biodiesel is a good thing. Now we need to talk about why no-one is using it. Another post or continue here?
Posted by
Matt |
Thu Apr 27, 05:32:00 pm