Diesel prices?

[riptides]

Another point, Bio-Diesel needs to die a quick death. Its stupid and is does nothing for the environment. It just sucks in tax subsidies, more fuel is used to grow the stuff (bio part) than it creates.

Nah, Americans need to get educated on bio-fuels. Which one is giving you the issue? Is it corn?

Then perhaps after we get educated on bio-fuels we can get innovative on ways to produce them efficiently and effectively.

They may also be coupled to local markets only.

 

[patrick_g]

Just heard that GM is closing four SUV and truck plants do to slow sales. Thousands of jobs will be lost.

mark

It is not good for so many folks to lose their jobs but...

When high button shoes went out of style the people making the button hooks to button those shoes were out of a job. This did not happen overnight.

Owning and operating a SUV is a conscious decision often prejudiced by several emotional factors which do not work to the advantage of the potential customer. To a degree automobiles are sold by the pound with heavier models making more profit for the maker. They market the stink out of the high profit models, helping to shape the whole social climate of SUV ownership.

It is sad there will be so much grief brought on the families of the displaced workers. How much sympathy would we feel if over a few years tobacco consumption plummeted and the tobacco industry had plant closings and layoffs?

As regards bio-fuels... Much of bio-fuels is hype and wanna be green feel good. The actual impact on foreign oil imports is essentially non existent. Corn to ethanol is a bad joke, a serious case of political malfeasance of tremendous proportion AND it does little or nothing for reducing foreign oil imports while getting in the way of and diverting attention from bio-fuel process with real promise of low impact sustainability and a capability of materially reducing foreign oil dependence.

Meanwhile food costs are driven higher because of corn to ethanol. Thousands and thousands of acres set aside from agricultural production for years and years are now being returned to row crops as grain prices soar due mostly to the corn to ethanol stupidity. Just what we need, more cultivation producing more erosion and less biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

I can't blame the individual farmer for trying to make a buck off row crops, mostly grain and mostly corn but I surely place the blame for the out of whack situation on the corn to ethanol lobby and there bought and paid for politicians.

Pat

 

[bigshovel]

It is not good for so many folks to lose their jobs but...

When high button shoes went out of style the people making the button hooks to button those shoes were out of a job. This did not happen overnight.

Owning and operating a SUV is a conscious decision often prejudiced by several emotional factors which do not work to the advantage of the potential customer. To a degree automobiles are sold by the pound with heavier models making more profit for the maker. They market the stink out of the high profit models, helping to shape the whole social climate of SUV ownership.

It is sad there will be so much grief brought on the families of the displaced workers. How much sympathy would we feel if over a few years tobacco consumption plummeted and the tobacco industry had plant closings and layoffs?

As regards bio-fuels... Much of bio-fuels is hype and wanna be green feel good. The actual impact on foreign oil imports is essentially non existent. Corn to ethanol is a bad joke, a serious case of political malfeasance of tremendous proportion AND it does little or nothing for reducing foreign oil imports while getting in the way of and diverting attention from bio-fuel process with real promise of low impact sustainability and a capability of materially reducing foreign oil dependence.

Meanwhile food costs are driven higher because of corn to ethanol. Thousands and thousands of acres set aside from agricultural production for years and years are now being returned to row crops as grain prices soar due mostly to the corn to ethanol stupidity. Just what we need, more cultivation producing more erosion and less biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

I can't blame the individual farmer for trying to make a buck off row crops, mostly grain and mostly corn but I surely place the blame for the out of whack situation on the corn to ethanol lobby and there bought and paid for politicians.

Pat

Yep, well said unlike this post.

Brad

 

[jinjimbob]

Nah, Americans need to get educated on bio-fuels. Which one is giving you the issue? Is it corn?

Then perhaps after we get educated on bio-fuels we can get innovative on ways to produce them efficiently and effectively.

They may also be coupled to local markets only.

Biofuel production is making food prices go up also.

Did you know that if 100% of all land used to grow any kind of crop in the US is converted to ONLY grow fuel, it would only supply less than 10% of the needed fuel for the country.

Oh, and there is that little problem of no food being grown.

They would need to get a little more innovative, I think crop waste should be used for fuel, but nothing else.

 

[dgl24087]

I filled the company truck yesterday evening, road diesel was $4.699 at Shell, $4.429 at BP. Both stations were on an interstate exit, about the same distance from the exit. The BP doesn't accept our fuel card though.

 

[patrick_g]

I think crop waste should be used for fuel, but nothing else.

There are processes for cellulose to butanol. Butanol is superior to ethanol for motor fuel. The cellulose can come from grass, weeds, brush, and other non-human food sources. Crop waste is one such source.

These cellulosic processes are not the favorite of manipulative politicians because there is no simple way to corrupt the process in their favor. With corn to ethanol the politicians vote in subsidies all along the corn to ethanol gravy train/hog trough from corn farmers (not just big corporate agriculture) to the refiners who are paid to add it in. This is all paid for by OUR tax money. In return for the subsidies (graft) the politicians get campaign contributions and votes. It works good for the politicians and everyone in the corn to ethanol contaminated gasoline chain. It does not work for the rest of the country. It does not reduce dependence on foreign oil. It does not save the environment. It is NOT GREEN. It is a travesty, a scam, perpetrated by the cabal formed from all those on the gravy train and perpetrated upon the American public who are told how the environment is helped and other fairy tales. What it does for the average citizen is make pork, beef, chicken, and corn products much more expensive. I'm sure PETA is pleased with the rise in meat and egg prices as they would like us to all be forced into vegetarianism.

While attention and $ are focused narrowly on corn to ethanol, not enough $ are directed toward bringing the cellulose to butanol process into the mainstream. Cellulose to butanol could offset foreign oil dependence.

Growing corn is a petrochemical intensive process from fertilizer to diesel fuel to work the ground, harvest the corn, ship it and on and on.

Cellulose to butanol is not MAINSTREAM yet but could be on line much faster if it got reasonable funding, on the order of the $ wasted on corn to ethanol.

Pat

 

[tinner]

Well said.

 

[patrick_g]

Well said.

Thank you.

Excuse me, I forgot to malign bio diesel.

Bio diesel is not much (if any) better than corn to ethanol as far as reducing overall dependency on foreign oil. If all energy inputs are accounted for you find you are not doing much for the planet except cultivating a false sense of being GREEN on the part of the ill informed.

...but you have to do something...

OK, fine, just do something more productive than lowering the flag to half mast and scourging yourself with the slack in the lanyard.

Pat

 

[IXLR8]

Thank you.

Excuse me, I forgot to malign bio diesel.

Bio diesel is not much (if any) better than corn to ethanol as far as reducing overall dependency on foreign oil.
Pat

This depends on what you are using as a starting material. In the US, we are mostly using Soybeans, which is stupid. It has the poorest yields so highest cost. The europeans mostly use Rapeseed which has much higher yields. If they can ever get the algae to BioD worked out, we will be better off. I know some folks that are working on a system that takes the exhaust from power plants and uses it to feed the algae, win-win. The algae removes the CO from the exhaust and cleans it up, and the CO feeds the algae to be grown to be converted to BioD. On small scale it is fairly high yielding... I am looking forward to the large scale testing.

 

[patrick_g]

This depends on what you are using as a starting material. In the US, we are mostly using Soybeans, which is stupid. It has the poorest yields so highest cost. The europeans mostly use Rapeseed which has much higher yields. If they can ever get the algae to BioD worked out, we will be better off. I know some folks that are working on a system that takes the exhaust from power plants and uses it to feed the algae, win-win. The algae removes the CO from the exhaust and cleans it up, and the CO feeds the algae to be grown to be converted to BioD. On small scale it is fairly high yielding... I am looking forward to the large scale testing.

Thanks for agreeing and for supplying the info.

Oh, by the way, to be PC you must say Canola, not rape seed. I wonder if our supply of Canola goes for Canola oil for human consumption and so doesn't get to be burned in a diesel.

Pat