On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Bill Marshall wrote:

> What is anyone's opinion of using vegetable-generated fuels?  Plants do a WAY
> better job of converting sunlight than any solar arrangement.  Cars running
> on alcohol, diesels running on veg. oil.  The existing fuel distribution
> infrastructure could remain in place.

Last I heard alcohol as a fuel still suffered from serious efficiency
problems in distilling -- to the point where cultivation and distilling of
alcohol from corn sometimes took more energy than you could get back by
burning the fuel.  Modern agricultural methods are *highly*
energy-intensive.

I've never run into similar figures done for biodiesel.  Maybe it has
better efficiency.

Of course, if you can find a way to make fuel out of something that's
currently a waste product, that helps the efficiency picture.  I suspect
for the forseeable future there won't be any one major source of alternate
energy, but a bunch of niche ones.

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'82 Diesel Westfalia
'94 Honda Civic Si