Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

The biodiesel, methane, natural gas perspective of motor fuel leaves out one 
important factor.  I suppose if a homesteader devoted a few acres to 
dedicated 
oil production with rapeseed or sunflowers, processed the oil himself, and 
used it for his own motorfuel, my comment would be moot.  Maybe, anyway.

But any alternative fuel that begins to get wider acceptance changes the 
dynamics like a giant Rubic's Cube and the very thing that made if feasible 
often 
is moved out of the picture forever.

A very small percent of our motorfuel comes from ethanol at present.  I can't 
find the current figures so I will use old ones for way of illustration and 
stand corrected if someone has more accurate ones.   Something on the order 
of 
3% of the motor fuel in the US was ethanol, most often blended in gasoline.  
A 
push has been underway for the past few years to increase that percentage and 
what with corn, biomass, and ethanol fuel being subsidized and popularized, 
we bid fair to make that rate 5% of all our motor fuel.

And increasing the fuel supply by only 2%, what has been the effect?  Two 
years ago feed corn here abouts was $2.85 per 50#.  Now it's $6.15.   The 
price 
of corn has caused economic hardships in Mexico where it is the most 
important 
staple.  Wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice are increasing in price as acreage 
is being taken out of production to grow corn.    All that by just shooting 
for an 2% increase in the share of ethanol in our motor fuel.

How many times have you heard that the solution for transportation fuel is to 
just stop by the fast food restaurants and get their used fryer oil.  Sure, 
people have cut their diesel fuel bill to almost nothing doing that.  The 
first 
person in an area to do it, that is.  And maybe the first half dozen or score 
of people depending on how populous the area.  But what if 5% of the people 
wanted to power their vehicles on used fryer oil?  All available oil would be 
gone in the first five minutes and the price would be higher than gasoline.

Likewise with (purchased) methane, propane, and natural gas.  As long as it 
is the occasional oddball running his car on natural gas, there is some 
savings 
to be realized.  But what if half, or only10% of the people switched to 
natrual gas vehicles? The price would suddenly exceed gasoline and the price 
of 
cooking, heating, industrial gas would shoot up just as the price of corn 
has.  
Also, since natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, the price of 
fertilizer would go up, the cost of raising corn would go up, the price of 
ethanol 
would go up, and where has it all gotten you?

Then there's this:  Do the math honestly.  Let's take the figure from the 
list that you could get 100 gallons of oil from an acre of soybeans.  Let's 
suppose you manage to get 20 miles per gallon and town is 20 miles away.  So, 
says 
you, I could grow an acre of soybeans, limit my travels to one trip to town a 
week, and not worry about the price of gasoline!   Right.  But if you limited 
yourself to one tip to town a week, why would you worry about the price of 
gasoline anyway?  If gas goes from its present $3 a gallon to a likely $5 a 
gallon, that's four more bucks for a trip to town.  $200 a year.  Is that 
going to 
be a deal breaker?    So the trick is to limit the driving rather than obtain 
an alternate fuel.  Anyone can do that already.

Fuel and its price is dynamic.  It's not possible to identify an alternate 
fuel at its present cost and imagine that if everyone used it, the price 
would 
stay the same.   </HTML>