a) according to the article, yes.
b) again, yes.
c) who cares, even if all the trucks go this route, it will be helpful.

 

BTW... I contacted the author of the article and he said that the most fustrating part about this whole thing is that this type of research has been cut from being funded by the U.S. gov. He went on to say that other countries such as China and Australia have been the ones funding the research. How pathetic is that. I suggest to all you readers in support of this kind of research should write to your Senators.

 

Don't forget about trains and ships. Freight trains are among the dirtiest poluters in LA, so I've heard, and Biodiesel can be much cleaner than petro-diesel. This means you'd be shifting a huge portion of freight not only to a renewable source but to a cleaner fuel as well. Most all freight ships are diesel as well, which again are typically excluded from our on-road fuel stats, but if biodiesel was plentiful enough, it could be used in freight ships as well. Diesel is an extremely heavily used fuel for commerce - even if hardly any personally owned and operated vehicles adopted it in the next 5 years, the commercial applications are huge.

 

well, the reason i thought biodiesel didn't stand a chance was that I wasn't aware of a source that was roughly 50% fuel. this algae is 50% oil, which makes it the most likely canidate for mass volumes of biodiesel. Soy is up there but not as good, and everything else is just not worth it for mass volume. meaning the amount of land and energy going in, doesn't come close to standard fuel costs.

 

Here's what I find interesting. Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the Diesel engine originally intended for the engine to be run on Bio-matter fuel.

 

Soy is not the optimum feedstock, but its the one American farmers are promoting and growing. The armtwisting in Washington is due to American Soybean farmers and their lobby and without them the biodiesel alternative would have a much more difficult road. All I know is that I prefer paying my local farmer than a few of those strangers in the middle east???

Tax credit for alternatives isn't the best way to promote domestic, renewable and clean fuels, but its the way our political wheels are operating at the moment. (easier to pass I suppose?) I personally would prefer a Petroleum Aquisition Adjustment (PAA) which would place a bit of the burden in securing overseas oil. (currently that cost per barrel is hidden in our income taxes) If the income taxes were reduced and the cost to 'aquire' the import oil was included in the per barrel price, we would be much farther ahead in developing alternatives and adoption of hybrid vehicles. Keeping petroleum cheap by using income taxes in securing oil 'because of national security' and our economy, gives all alternatives a more challenging playing field. I hope we can keep things going, but I fear that oil will once again slip back to levels causing Americans to become 'slothful' again waiting for the next oil crisis. (perhaps this one isn't over yet?) I only hope we are bright enough to continue our multi-pronged approach toward smarter use of energy.

 

I think it would be even cooler and better to make Bio-Diesel Hybrids. Half Bio-Diesel and half electrity that would be awesome.

 

quite concur

 

My preference would be a plug-in series hybrid biodiesel or straight vegetable oil car. That basically covers everything from shorter trips with clean grid power to long journeys with the biodiesel genset running at fixed peak efficiency RPM to charge the battery and run the car. It would be expensive, no doubt... but more "worth it" than paying so much more for so much more fuel consumption on something like an H2. The more HV batteries out there the cheaper and more reliable they will become due to the influx of R&D funds. The government could encourage such development by granting the same kind of huge tax break that the H2 got (some $15k) without the added costs of securing more foreign oil.

 

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlot...s/12683296.htm

Story about Ruth Miller of Durham's biodiesel/corn oil '85 Jetta, total cost for conversion $3,950. Her car was not that expensive either, I just wonder about the dependability of an 85 Jetta's engine.