Adamf, I'm not an economist, nor a scientist. Using ethanol as an example for biofuels has many drawbacks, I agree soil degredation etc has a big bearing on results. However biodiesel and SVO (straight veggie oil), is another thing all together.

In the production of biodiesel, you use a triglyceride and methanol combination to remove glycerine etc. SVO just requires good filtering and preheating, SVO currently has some drawbacks in relation to longitivity of some engine parts. I use biodiesel from waste VO, all up, including picking it up and making it costs me 32 cents a litre.

Biodiesel can use any source of oil producing plant, the method is very simple. The waste is used in fodder, compost, or producing methane. Ethanol requires a more complicated process and only uses certain plants. A friend in Nth of Tas, grows his own oil crop using mustard and wild radish (48% oil content). He also uses wattle, eucalyptus as well and presently experimenting with bracken and dam algae. I'm not sure of the exact figure, but he told me he could produce biodiesel from wild radish for 62c litre. As a cropping farmer he now runs all his machinery, plant and vehicles on it from about 2 hectares which he rotates with his normal crops.

Theres no impact on food prices, nor soil as you can use a wide variety of plant material. When it come to electrical energy, currently the biggest problem is storage, which will be overcome in the next two years when the new perpetual battery become available and store huge amounts of energy without deterioration.

“Biofuels may be an important niche fuel, but they will never replace oil and gas in quantity.”

Thats a pretty rash statement considering oil is a finite resource, whilst vegetation isn't. Logically, when you run out of oil, you need a replacement.

Shaw's first major error is "To stoke a nuclear fire, we require a concentration of 35 (U235) atoms in every thousand." Seven -- the natural concentration -- are plenty for heavy water-moderated reactors.

It is a minor error to say that *only* these seven, or these 35-to-50 in the case of light water reactors, can burn. The 238s can burn in a two-step process that naturally occurs to a considerable extent. Thus some CANDU reactors that are fed 993 heavy uranium atoms and seven light ones burn ten per thousand in total. This is enough to make a dollar's worth of uranium thermally equivalent to $40 in natural gas or $40 in petroleum. These are highly taxed fuels, so every dollar's worth of U that governments allow to be burned in civilian reactors means tens of lost fossil fuel tax dollars.

GRL Cowan, more please....

How about an article up-front.

I have done my best to try to understand and describe what has happened up until now, and I imagine, what profits the money-spinners.

We need to be true leaders, or get dragged into something we will end up regretting - like Iraq. How about it?

Stay tuned, I'll try to put something up by the 8th.

Alchemist: "Logically, when you run out of oil, you need a replacement. "

We may 'need' a replacement for oil, that doesn't mean one will magically appear.

I welcome your friend's experiments. I'd like to know more if you'd be so kind as to email me - adam (at) energybulletin.net - however of course those kind of practices will eventually have an impact on food prices.

Humans already use most of the best land in the world, in fact 40 percent of the world's primary productivity (photosynthesis). http://www.energybulletin.net/30.html The other millions of species are left with the table scraps. We may be able to use what we do harvest more efficiently, but there are diminishing returns on efficiency gains. We use 85 million barrels a day of oil, biofuels will be a cottage industry next to that.

Adamf, I'm not sure what you mean about details. Processes, figures etc, he certainly won't release those. For his last effort in introducing alternative approaches to this problem, he received heavy threats, harassment and prejudice resulting in almost losing his farm and family. I was surprised at what lengths the elite go to in controlling energy here.

Biofuels will have no negative or inflationary effect on food prices, quite the opposite. Its fossil oil fuels that are the biggest contributor to food costs. Shipping oil across the world, transporting it to processing plants, then trucking it thousands of klms into the bush and then using it to transport food back to cities.

This is an irrational and insane approach. Having fuel grown, processed locally, would reduce transport and machinery fuel costs dramatically. Plus by-products are very useful for feed, or in soil rejuvenation. Other products are also being produced by these processes, once they have worked out the best method of extraction from bracken and other renewable prolific plants, it will be a successful alternative. You can use just about any plant for oil, crop rotation is simple and used properly will increase soil productivity and improve the environment.

All petroleum products degrade the land dramatically, as does their waste and by-products. If you use the highly successful no plow methods, cropping costs are very low. You don't have to worry about taking bracken from the ground, nor algae from dams and ponds, Wattle is also very useful and produces a good amounts of oil from its seeds.

Sadly the world is collapsing under the weight of those whose only aim is control and economic power. The reality those blinded by stupidity face, is you can have an environment without an economy, but you can't have an economy without an environment. When the fools of the world realise this, it will be too late for them, the latte crowd and their city slaves. Thats a natural progression of nature, survival of the smartest, not the richest or most educated.