We currently can make fuel out of anything that is carbon based and organic. The cost for the technology is the only issue. Or how much does it cost to make fuel out of pig guts vs. prairie grass is the issue. And once the technology has been developed those costs will be both reduced and expanded as there is a great need for the fuel.
But, the by product of burning fuel will always be CO2 or methane gasses, which are exacerbating the global warming that is currently going on. Therefore, it is recommend by me and others that the burning of fuel be stopped and not used for transportation at all. Therefore, I also agree with the complete change of the transportation engines into the electric or other non-fuel burning methods be developed and extended in the future.
In other words it’s time to forget Bio-fuels and move into the Air car (pump in the compressed air and use only compressed air in the engine) or the fuel cell car which makes electricity which is stored in batteries and then uses that stored electricity in an electric motor to move the vehicle.
Stored air or stored electricity are in reality the only viable methods that I see that I would recommend to contend with not exacerbating the Global Warming that is going on currently.
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We *could* start by converting to solar in our homes and businesses - that would put a BIG dent in the oil companies' profits, along with the power companies...PLUS it would cut the pollution down considerably!
For now, my husband and I figured we could save $12 a day if we commuted together, even though it would mean some inconvenience for both of us. But, in the end we get some nice quality time together without interruption. We also like that fact that we are reducing our carbon footprint and we commute in our New Beetle that gets 30 miles to the gallon. Not great, but better than most.
You can blame the EPA and American bureaucracy for the incredible thirstiness of the American automobile. It takes a lot of calculating to make the numbers compare, but European, Japanese, and American automobile emissions standards are roughly equal. For each exhaust component monitored, different regions have stricter standards, but the allowable limits often vary by only a few PPM between them. When you compare the fuel economy performance of the average auto in each region, you can easily conclude that much of the fuel burned by an American car is used to clean the air that the engine uses to burn the fuel and contributes virtually nothing to the vehicle's performance. Because of the way cars are built and marketed, most cars built since the 1990's could meet or exceed the proposed higher fuel economy standard simply by replacing its engine control computer and program chip with the EU version.
The Petro (gas/oil)-Chemical industry is far from giving up until they can wring every dollar out of it. They will only do that when they have raised the prices to the consumer to the point that the buyer (us) then 'demands' an alternative ... then of course that will be very expensive also due to passed on 'developmental' costs ...
Down in Brazil, the multi-national corporations have went big time into Biofuels ... huge huge swaths of land from forest to fields with vast amounts of fertilizers (from petrol naturally) and huge expensive tractor equipment (farm machinery, all new) also ran on that and of course their manufacturing companies as well as the land and officials in that nation, basically 'owned' by the same controlling interests ...
The same that are behind our 'efforts' to get control on middle east oil, north African, or where-ever it can be gotten in any way they can ... with the American tax payer footing the bill as much as they can get away with ... and that is a lot.
Fear will be their major tool, that and lying to us. It has always been so and will continue to be so until enough of us actually begin to wake up to the truth of it all.
Big Business as usual ... headed for a one world government with 'them' in charge ... it is not a very pretty picture ... and it is about as close to becoming a HELL (for those not near the wealthy apex of the controllers ... most of us) as we are likely to otherwise find on earth.
I'm reading through your very intersting articles after a time away from Gather. "Fear and lies" will be enough to convince most of us that 'switch grass' is better than corn--which is better than, etc.--but the subsidies will be the same. Your notion of stored air or electricity is too rational to overcome the greed and stupidity factors.
Jerry's view is dark but, unfortunately for most of us, closest to reality.