July 20, 2006

• another option
• I believe you can use vegetable oil in an unconverted diesel if you thin it down a bit*. There was a case a while ago where some supermarket in Wales found it was selling ten times more oil than any similar shop - it turned out a number of locals were putting the stuff in their cars. This bloke uses old oil from fish and chip shops. The snag (in the UK, anyway) is that if you use vegetable oil in your car it becomes liable to excise duty, albeit at a lower rate. *Try this at your own risk.
• old oil from fish and chip shops. Nothing like being followed by most of the dogs in the neighborhood. (and Petebest)
• Nifty link and one of my favorite alternative fuel topics jeraboam! GramMa, will you buy me this lithium ion bike? But I waaaannnt iiiiiiiiit! *whines, chews up GramMa's slippers*
• Even if the US devoted all its corn to ethanol and all its soybeans to biodiesel production – which would cause widespread food shortages – the resulting biofuels would cover less than 5% of US gasoline and diesel fuel needs The math is easy. A gallon of vegetable oil has about 30,000 Calories. That is enough food to feed you for two weeks or to allow you to drive 20-40 miles. If we all stopped eating for a month, we could use the saved biomass to drive to work a few times. It's a great use of used fryer oil, don't get me wrong, but a solution to our energy problems it is not.
• The trike has batteries! Isn't that cheating?
• DOWN! Pete! Yea, it's pretty stupid to think we're going to be using petrolum to produce bio-oils that won't hardly give us the amount of power that we put into manufacture. What's the hell is wrong with A. Solar B. Wind C. Methane TANSTAAFL--maybe, but sun, wind, and shit are always with us. Oh, and politicians--maybe we could harness all the windpower they use telling us lies.
• Is the biofuel any cleaner burning?
• Way.