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Around The Country Without Gasoline 291

Posted by michael from the take-only-pictures-leave-only-tiremarks dept.
IronChefMorimoto writes "Autoweek has an interesting write up on an Australian man's 16K mile trek around the United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an excrement-powered scooter." Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours.
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Around The Country Without Gasoline More

Around The Country Without Gasoline

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  • You're kidding me (Score:5, Funny)

    by ticbot ( 578502 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:45PM (#9847840)
    Really? He's got a pooper scooter?

  • Better Yet (Score:5, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:45PM (#9847841) Homepage
    Better yet, ride a bike around the country [crazyguyonabike.com]. Bio-powered. Some emissions, but nothing the environment can't handle. :)

    • Re:Better Yet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bs_testability ( 784693 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:46PM (#9847869)
      I would seriously try to ride a bike almost everywhere I went if I wasn't in constant fear for my life.

      • Re:Better Yet (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Al Dimond ( 792444 )
        I've lived in the burbs for most of my life so far; once after taking a bus home from college I was dropped off at a mall about 2 miles from my home, and my ride didn't show so I walked. There was no way to do this that didn't involve walking down the shoulder of a highway and running across onramps (not even a decent median to walk on). Going anywhere at all requires a car.

        On the other hand, a lot of my friends in cities with reasonable transit systems haven't learned to drive at 21 years of age.

        • Re:Better Yet (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mog007 ( 677810 )
          Going anywhere at all requires a car.

          Welcome to the United States of America... sorry that's the way it works here.

        • pedestrian czar needed (Score:5, Informative)

          by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @04:36PM (#9848281) Homepage Journal


          Here in Austin, TX, the city wanted to hire a pedestrian czar for $30k a year. This individual would review all city development plans to ensure that pedestrian and bike needs are considered. A bunch of SUV-driving tax-obsessed voters complained and now the work is done on an ad-hoc basis by volunteers.


          The reality is that in America, our cities are designed to be too dependent on automobiles. If something should happen to the Saudi Royal Family, and our access to oil is lost, America is going to be shit out of luck.

          SOLUTION:Support denser development instead of sprawl. Support mass transit systems such as light rail. Reduce our dependence on petroleum.
          • Sure, because it's not like anyone from Austin rides a bike...

            Bring on the czar!

          • SOLUTION:Support denser development instead of sprawl. Support mass transit systems such as light rail. Reduce our dependence on petroleum.

            Gimme a break. People don't want to be crammed into high density developments. They want stand-alone homes and their own little bit of land.

            Find cleaner ways to manage that and you'll have a winner. Forcing people to live like caged animals to save the environment doesn't work.

            And PS: as long as oil energy is cheaper than alternate sources, people will burn oil.

            • People don't want to be crammed into high density developments.

              And people don't want to eat healthy foods, either. The choice, however, is to feast on Pizza for 50 years and die a bloated mess from heart disease, or live many more years eating un-fun foods with a sexy body that enables you to bang more broads. Sometimes we have to take the more difficult route as a society for the greater good.

              Forcing people to live like caged animals to save the environment doesn't work.

              There are hundreds of yuppies

          • If something should happen to the Saudi Royal Family, and our access to oil is lost, America is going to be shit out of luck.


            Or Venezuela, or Iraq, or Canada...


            23,000 miles on my diesel Beetle so far, about 1/3 of it from renewable biodiesel grown by local farmers. And counting...

          • "automobile" implies "gas-powered vehicle" though it shouldn't and doesn't have to.

            Solar cars, solar stirling cars, electric cars, biodiesel cars, high-tension spring and clockwork powered cars, flywheel-powered cars; there's really no reason to limit yourself to gas-powered vehicles other than cost. I mean, everyone wants to do things cheaply, and sometimes cheapest is not best. We should be looking into these other types of mobility (and we probably would if anything were to happen to our oil supply) and
      • I must agree with you on this. If we could get bike lanes on the outer edges of of US or State Highways as well as city streets it would be great. Obviously there is not need to put them on interstate roads as you probably don't want to on a limited access road because it might be hours between exits on a bike and you be best off ridding down main street where you could stop at a whim for food/rest.

        The problem is now you have these highways here in norther OH, where people fly down them at 1.5x the speed
      • Fear of being road pizza'd by an H2 is a reasonable feeling on a bike. But there are people trying to do something about it.

        Critical Mass is a pro-bike social movement that tries to empower bicyclists. Check it out:

        http://www.critical-mass.org [critical-mass.org]

    • There's plenty of people riding round the world on a bicycle [discountasp.net].

      People [berndtesch.de] have done it on horses, by foot, balloons, boats...

      I'm going to do it the lazy American way -- gasoline powered motorcycle. But at least it's old and small.

  • He just wants to be on TV (Score:4, Funny)

    by underpar ( 792569 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:45PM (#9847848) Homepage
    I guess a world without gasoline would be nice, but the BP commercials on CNN have me feeling better about fueling up. ;)

    Anyone going to watch 13 episodes of this guy? Please say no.

  • Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)

    by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <k4_pacific@yahoo . c om> on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:45PM (#9847850) Homepage Journal
    People have been travelling great distances without gasoline since prehistoric times.

    Hell, Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean without it.
  • be a merry prankster, use hempseed oil ! CNN article [cnn.com]

  • Mileage? (Score:5, Funny)

    by infinite9 ( 319274 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:46PM (#9847864)
    excrement-powered scooter

    I'm sure it's gets shitty mileage.

  • Spurious biodiesel bashing by Autoweek (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YankeeInExile ( 577704 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:47PM (#9847871) Homepage Journal

    I found most interesting that the only vaguely technical discussion of biodiesel in the puff-piece was a bit of bashing:

    Biodiesel is more expensive than gas and eats natural rubber hoses and gaskets on older diesel engines.
    What the article neglects to mention is that the dino-diesel sold in California also wreaked havoc with older diesel engines, and all left-coasters have already done the trivial job of modernizing their fuel systems.
    • Biodiesel is more expensive than gas

      Wait, what? My mother-in-law gets processed biodiesel for about a buck a gallon (Near Eureka, Northern California, where Gasoline is over $2 per gallon and dino-diesel is less then $2 per gallon).

      Granted, I don't think her 'distributor' is looking to make a hefty profit, but he pays for the equipment, labor and some profit. Even if he raised his prices by 50%, he would still be cheaper then regular diesel.

      I think he bought a processor for over $1000, and gets the gre

      • Re:Spurious biodiesel bashing by Autoweek (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jim McCoy ( 3961 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @04:45PM (#9848357) Homepage
        I think he bought a processor for over $1000, and gets the grease for free.

        Well, if I could get raw crude oil for free I would be happy to sell you gasoline at $1 a gallon...

        The input is free in this example only because biodiesel is in its infancy, so the community refiner you reference has no competition for the used grease. Within five years you can expect that the restaurants that pay this person to take the grease away or give it to him for free will have several competing offers to pay the restaurant for the priviledge of hauling away the grease for later refining.

        This McNuggest Nation may use a lot of vegetable oil every day, but it is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of diesel fuel that is used daily (which is only a small fraction of the amount of gasoline used) so there is no way this scales up beyond proof-of-concept stages.

        Of course, this sort of leads one to wonder why the companies which are actually in the business of hauling away and disposing of the contents of the grease traps in american restaurants are not starting to produce biodiesel to increase their profit margins. I am sure it will be fairly common soon, but does anyone know of anyone doing this already?
        • You're right about the demand side of the equation, but not about the supply side. Kitchens have a natural incentive to get rid of the grease (i.e., it's trash to them); oil-producing companies have no such incentive. Therefore, the supply-demand equilibrium is still going to hit at a lower price for grease than it does for crude oil.
      • Pimental at Cornell has calculated that biofuels require more fossil fuels to grow and process into ethanol than the energy they deliver, while the promise of sustainable use of biofuels for the US would take 1/8 of all available surface area and still only account for about half of energy needs.

        Among his calculations: [healthandenergy.com]
        "An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil
    • Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel will also eat natural rubber hoses and gaskets on older diesel engines. As of 2006 all consumer diesel fuel will have to meet the ULSD standard. This is why all diesel vehicle cars manufactured for sale in the US since 1996 or so have replaced them with synthetic rubber components. Even if you have an older car, running a 20% blend of biodiesel should not result in rapid deterioration of rubber components. Or for $30-$50 you could just replace the parts... California is already
    • I suppose he also neglected to mention that diesel engines get better mileage than gasoline ones? (if you don't believe me compare a diesel Golf to a regular (non-turbo) one)

  • Not so simple... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Fux the Penguin ( 724045 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:47PM (#9847879) Journal
    I've driven and worked on passenger car diesels exclusively for the past ten years. They're robust and reliable, but you can't just fuel them on anything. They run terribly on gasoline!

    The most critical part of the diesel is the fuel pump and injectors. They run at 3000-5000 psi with very low volume per stroke, so leakage cannot be tolerated. The fuel has to be filtered extremely well (sub micron). My worry with biodiesel is that it might plug filters due to microbial growth [always a problem in diesel], or the vegatable oil hydrolyze into organic acid plus glycerol. The organic acids will cause corrosion of the injector pump plungers and injector tips. Not good at all. The fuel will also have different rubber swell characteristics, so you may get fuel leaks. I'd try this first on a imetal-to-metal Mercedes with simple to replace rubber rather than a Peugeot or VW with a fuel-lubricated pump and that main O ring soaking in fuel.

    I expect vegatable oil could be made to work with additives: a biostat, acid neutralizer plus seal swell control. But it would have to remain a separate product becauase petroleum oil and vegatable oils aren't miscible. If you wanted a blend, you'd need an emulsifier, and the results might be too viscous.

    • Re:Not so simple... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The original diesel engine as designed by Herr (Mr.) Diesel was designed for and run on peanut oil.

    • Re:Not so simple... (Score:4, Informative)

      by CapsaicinBoy ( 208973 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @04:08PM (#9848076)
      "But it would have to remain a separate product becauase petroleum oil and vegatable oils aren't miscible. "

      Except that biodiesel *isn't* vegetable oil. It is a fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) *made* from vegetable oil. Not the same thing.

      I 'splash-blend' biodiesel and petro diesel in my TDI all the time. Pour 5 gallons of B100 into the tank and then top off the rest of the tank with petrodiesel. This is standard practice in the BD community.

      And besides, then I get to wear one of these neato t-shirts.

      http://www.cafeshops.com/renewablewear/338613

    • Largely to avoid paying 80% tax on the fuel in the UK. You can use several pure vegetable oils in most recent diesels (which don't use rubber seals) with minor modifications. In fact you can buy kits and do it yourself.

    • Biodiesel is a lot like normal diesel and is no longer vegetable oil after being processed. If made right, it should not have much left over of the other materials from processing.

      Pure vegetable oil is a different thing, but can also run on an engine somewhat cleanly (I ran some short term experiments at a previous job). The problem is that it is so thick, you have to heat up the engine first. So you use some normal diesel, then switch to vegetable oil after a bit. Then before you stop the engine, you

  • Secondary article more interesting. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @03:48PM (#9847887) Homepage
    I was more interested in the second article, which theorized using electric cars's batteries as emergency "Peek hour" generators, which would help the grid prevent Blackouts.

    This would require a redesign of the vehicles as they are not capable of acting as such now, but it seemed very logical to me, and worth the relatively minimal additional cost of a better out-plug and some software to charge the utility money for using your electiricity and to prevent them from draining your battery do nothing.

    • I was more interested in the second article, which theorized using electric cars's batteries as emergency "Peek hour" generators
      Where I live, if you peek for a whole hour, you're very likely to be caught and arrested for invasion of privacy, regardless of whether you use your car to do so.
    • Batteries have a pretty limited dubty cycle. They are good enough now for electric cars as traditionally envisioned but, I would not want to go near this idea without lots of hard numbers showing the kinda impact it would have on my batery life. I supect it would cost consumers much more in maintainance then the value of the electricity they could produce. Now haveing the car more able to function as a personal generator for your own home in the even of blackout sounds like a great idea.
    • That secondary article ignores the most important point: efficiency. Attaching a million vehicles to the grid is far less efficient (and less clean) than using large, stationary plants. Our problem isn't that we don't have enough generators. Our problem is that we don't have enough fuel and we have to import it.

      The article describes a non-solution to a non-problem.

  • Ever see forest gump?

  • V2G? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pherthyl ( 445706 )
    Sooo.. I don't really see the point of V2G. The article makes it sound like the energy comes for free from the car. You're just going to be draining the battery, having to use more of the gasoline engine's power the next time you drive to replentish it. So wheres the advantage? It's probably much easier to make one big, efficient, clean generating station than rely on millions of little generators.

    Selling energy back to the grid is a good idea but only if that energy was generated in a fundementally
    • What's to stop someone from strapping a well-blanced magnet to their driveshaft and creating a coil around that? Plug that all into a spare battery you keep in the trunk and charge it up all day. Get home, plug in, PROFIT! If there's an issue with losing power to the rear wheels (as you don't get power for free), then work out a system for your wheels or any number of spinning parts on a vehicle. Hell, if it spins, make it return juice to your battery. Bah.. I'm sure there's some mis-step in my logic somew
      • I'm sure there's some mis-step in my logic somewhere.
        On this website, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

      • Re:V2G? (Score:3, Funny)

        by ahodgson ( 74077 )
        I wish someone had already thought of that charging thing. Keeping the battery already in my car charged is such a pain.

        Sigh.

    • Re:V2G? (Score:3, Informative)

      by gurps_npc ( 621217 )
      You didn't get it because you didn't read the secondary article.

      You don't sell the electricity ALL the time.

      Only in extreme peak demand conditions.

      Like when a blackout is about to occure. So instead of turning on the old, horrible polluting but instant-on generator for 10 minutes, they drain a couple million car batteries for those ten minutes, while a slightly better generator is brought online.

  • Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours.

    This is a terrible idea. Just think about where your energy is coming from and how much you are losing by converting it to electricity. This second law stuff leads to pollution and a waste of energy (unless you have some rare source of energy which doesn't pollute, like the sun).

    This is sounds clean and groovy, but just like hydrogen-powered cars, is dirty and wasteful.
    • You totally misunderstood the entire purpose of that idea. It is not a standard generator, but a peak emergency generator. Go and read the article, not just the summary.

      Basically, you plug your car into the grid and they ONLY use your car's battery power (not actually turning on the engine) and then they ONLY use it when the peak demand is so high that they have to use the WORST possible generators. I.E. when the gasoline ->electricity is a BETTER deal than the alternative.

      It's main purpose would be

      • You are right. That is interesting. I apologize; I didn't even notice that it was a link. I just figured that this was another "ooh, free energy!" argument.

        There's all kinds of stupid shit happening like that these days. My buddy met a guy from a large firm who was designing a parking garage that would generate electricity from the movement of cars. He was bragging that it would produce enough energy that it would be self-sufficient and have enough "leftover" energy to power nearby buildings.

        When m
    • This is sounds clean and groovy, but just like hydrogen-powered cars, is dirty and wasteful.

      Blah, blah, blah, I can't hear you. When I find out that it's cheaper to use my wife's car to power my house all day than it is to use electricity off the grid, I'm going to do it.

      When the automakers figure out that they can sell more cars this way, they are going to do it.

      When GE sees the market going that way, they are going to sell equipment that makes it easy to do. They will tell the US military that distr

      • When I find out that it's cheaper to use my wife's car to power my house all day than it is to use electricity off the grid, I'm going to do it.

        Don't worry, it won't be cheaper. There's a reason people aren't generating their own power from gasoline right now. The cost in fuel and maintainence is a lot higher to operate your own gasoline/diesel generator than to buy electricity from the local utility. That price gap is only going to get bigger as the price of oil goes up relative to other energy source
    • Not necesarily. If thousands of cars can be used as energy banks for the power companies to tap into during peak usage times, it means they don't have to run the big turbines all the time (as it stated in the article). So in theory your car could be topping its batteries off from non-peak energy, and then pushing back peak energy at a premium. Usage spikes in pretty much anything are terribly inefficient, this is a nice way around that.
    • The sun is a rare source of energy? That's news to me! : )

  • Cars as Generators (Score:2, Insightful)

    by deacon ( 40533 )
    From the writeup:

    Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours

    Like many good ideas, though, this one is illegal without an EPA Permit [google.com]

    What?

    You thought that environmental laws only regulated things that you believe to be "bad"?

    Welcome to the Law of unintended consequences!!!

    • Another person that comments without reading the article or understanding anything about it.

      The idea actually expressed in the article is to use the power in the battery (without activating the vehicle), making sure to not drop it below a charge sufficient for 50 miles.

      As the generator would not be in use while the car was not in motion, no EPA permit would be neccesary. The EPA has already issued regulations allowing the vehicle to generate power from the gasoline/etc. while in use.

  • Solar powered canoe? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Saganaga ( 167162 )
    As someone who's done a lot of canoeing (human-powered, not motorized), I wonder how stable the pictured solar powered canoe is. Those panels sticking up like they are look likely to cause the canoe to flip over if they were to catch a strong gust of wind.

  • Excuse me (Score:5, Funny)

    by CarrionBird ( 589738 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @04:23PM (#9848190) Journal
    I have to stop at the Taco Bell and "gas up".

  • Wide use of V2G electric-drive vehicles could generate enough power to cut the requirement for central generating station capacity by as much as 20 percent by the year 2050, says the Electric Power Research Institute, a utility industry research center in Palo Alto, Calif.

    Oddly enough this is beyond even the most rosy projections for the end of cheap oil. If it will not be economical to provide electricity from power stations which benefit from the efficiency of scale, then how will it be possible to make

    • Fairly straightforward, the batteries act as a buffer during peak hours which reduces the need for excess generating plant which stands idle most of the time but is brought online just to handle the peaks in demand.

      I'm not convinced it's a starter though.

  • Humvee replacement (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KB1GHC ( 800065 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @04:28PM (#9848223)
    the military's humvee replacement is going to have 4 electric motors, one on each wheel, a generator, and a diesel engine to power the generator, and enough batteries to drive the vehicle without the generator (for stealth)

    because the vehicle has 4 motors, it doesn't have to do a 3 point turn, it just puts one side forward, the other side in reverse, and it turns in place.

    this vehicle is also supposed to be more fuel effiecient.

    the solution to gasoline, is probably going to be hydrogen, we'll never run out. I've heard of people with hydrogen cars producing their own hydrogen from solar panels at their houses. (cheaper than paying through the grid)

    • the solution to gasoline, is probably going to be hydrogen, we'll never run out.

      Hydrogen is not a fuel source like gasoline. As a matter of fact the source of most hydrogen today is fossil fuels.

      The real solution lies in switching to existing renewable energy sources. Given that, you can even go back to running a transportation infrastructure on gasoline using thermal depolymerization. [wikipedia.org]. Although ethanol would be preferred since it requires the same delivery infrastructure as gasoline but can be used by b

    • Re:Humvee replacement (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @06:19PM (#9848991)
      Motors in the wheel. Hmm, That'll increase the unsprung weight and give poorer handling, though I suppose it isn't exactly a sports car. Having the motors in the wheels might also increase reliability problems. I think i'd have gone with a Stirling generator though, much much quieter than Diesel, more efficient than a Diesel and can run on anything which generates heat which *has* to be a benefit in a military vehicle.

      It'd be difficult to be less efficient than a Humvee.

      The solution to gasoline is probably actually going to be the Lithium Sulphur battery. It's the technology which will give pure electric vehicles ranges of 600+ miles. And yeah, yeah limited duty cycles, only 500 -> 1000 charges, but 500 * 600 is 300,000 miles, lets say 200,000 miles to account for degradation.

      • What's the power output, though? People aren't going to give up their petroleum-fueled cars if it means every trip taking twice as long. Not to mention the hazard you pose trying to drive on most freeways if you're not going 70 mph with the rest of the maniacs.

  • I hope the V2G hookups have a key on the door or require a latch from inside the car (like most gas doors). Stealing power could become a problem...so could shorting out the electrical system (similar to putting sugar in the gas tank).
  • According to the article, he uses ethanol at some points. When used in cars, it is acutally called E85, which is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline...

  • Dual-fuel in the car: common reality in Brazil (Score:3, Informative)

    by volponi ( 733838 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @05:28PM (#9848678)
    Here, in Brazil, it's common to see dual-fuel cars around. (There are commercial names like "flexpower" or "total flex").

    Gasoline AND Organic Alcohol. In the same car. Mixed together in any proportion.

    We have been using Alcohol in cars since the 70's. Nowadays, we can choose the best ($$) fuel in the gas stations.

    And it's alcohol, because of Iraq and Saudi Arabia troubles. :-)

  • Biodiesel... future... wits to grasp it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bourne ( 539955 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:17AM (#9850853)

    Or, as I'd say without the lame /. subject line limits, Biodiesel is the future if we have the wits to grasp it.

    I'm drunk tonight, so I'll speak bare truth and you can make of it what you will. I'm an American and this is my point of view, so if you're euro then I could care less, except to point out that the fucking French have more progressive nuclear and biodiesel policies than we could hope to have here.

    Biodiesel is almost as efficient an energy storage medium as dinodiesel (10% lower energy density [unh.edu]). Unlike Hydrogen (also an energy STORAGE format, not an energy SOURCE) it can be stored and distributed using EXISTING infrastructure, doesn't require high-pressure or highly expensive storage containment. When some teenage fuckhead wraps his coupe around a tractor-trailer, it's less likely to burn than gas, where a high-pressure hydroden container would be... interesting.

    The pollution issues with biodiesel are lower than with standard dinodiesel, and in 2 years when the U.S. legal limits on diesel sulfur content drop to low levels (see bullets below), car manufacturers can filter out biodiesels small issues without the filters being compromised by sulfur.

    Biodiesel doesn't release any carbon that didn't recently come out of the atmosphere. It's a net zero fuel in carbon terms, garbage out, but only from garbage recently in. When you burn petrofuels, you release carbon that's been buried for millions of years.

    Biodiesel can be manufactured in a number of ways. The original Diesel engine ran on peanut oil; almost any oil seed [slashdot.org] can be used to generate biodiesel, as can turkey guts [slashdot.org] and algae [slashdot.org]. People complain that solution X won't create enough biodiesel to meet the need, but we could make 10% come from source X, 40% from source Y, 50% from source Z and be done with it.

    In 50 years, it will become vital to have an alternative to dinofuels. The question of oil reserves pales next to the socioeconomic pressures that millions of welfare-state arabs will pose. Consider Saudi Arabia. Work is considered "beneath" everyone, so foreigners are imported to do most of the work, and unemployment among the citizens (and I use that term loosely) is rife. Converting to a productive society is almost impossible; the world bank won't fund projects because the state welfare level is too high, and any change to a dynamic (capitalist) society would threaten the current ruling caste. Young men are channeled into madrasses because there is no other path for them. If you think religion is the opiate of the masses, consider a society consisting completely of addicts.. An economist once said that revolution is inevitable once the merchant class exceeds 10% of the population. A fool could tell you that revolution, bloody revolution, is inevitable when the crop of dissatisfied young turks currently being grown ripens, and the natural reserves of oil that support a welfare state begin to wane.

    The oil economy will cause bloody flux within our lifetimes. Will it catch us by suprise or will we shift to independence before then? Biodiesel, solar power, nuclear, we've got to turn to it before it becomes a crisis if we want to survive. Of course petrofuels are cheap - they're accepting the investment of dead dinosaurs millions of years ago. You see any dinos volunteering to become fuel today? I didn't think so. It's always cheaper to take advantage of dead shit that's turned into fuel, but you can't always bank on dead shit working for you. Maybe it's more expensive to push for biodiesel today, but in 50 years when the conflagration of the Middle East makes today's wars look like sandbox games, we'll either be glad we pushed for independence or sorry we didn't.

    Okay, you

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