high oil prices have unleashed a lot of lunacy in our society the solution is very simple 1)tax rebates to people who buy/use high milage cars now no, we dont have to invent them - we just need to buy the ones that are already made 2) convert some of our military money to a domestic reserves 'ready tap' that can fully supply our needs on short notice (dont worry about the politics, halburton still gets the money). Then, *continue to use foreign oil*, because it makes more sense to use theirs FIRST. (where do you want the remaining oil to be - there, or here) but have the 'ready tap' much like a virtual strategic oil reserve, to cut in any time forign oil supplys are disrupted 3) continue to explore alternated energy for long term. but looking for extreme alternatives without ordinary conservation is lunacy
My thoughts on the subject -Bio-diesel is slightly economical overall, however most of the benefits involve getting around taxes and converting what would be waste material into fuel on site. -Ethanol is only produced because of the the Senate in the USA. Each state gets two Senators which means that a person from Iowa has way more say in Government that someone from Florida. The farm state senator have pushed through subsidies for ethanol. -Ethanol has the real potential to be economical when produced from waste from the pulp and paper industry. Switch grass has flicker of hope but is unlikely to be economical. -Manure digesters seem to be on a trajectory toward be economic. Steady progress has be made and it is nearly there. One of the keys is to use the energy on site, requiring farms of certain scale. Also further gain in reliability would be required for mass adaptation. However it is unlikely that it would become anything other than an on site energy source.
http://autos.msn.com/advice/CRArt.aspx?contentid=4024242 The fuel economy of the Tahoe dropped 27 percent when running on E85 compared with gasoline, from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10 mpg (rounded to the nearest mpg). This is the lowest fuel mileage we've gotten from any vehicle in recent years. When we calculated the Tahoe's driving range, we found that it decreased to about 300 miles on a full tank of E85 compared with about 440 on gasoline. So you have to fill up more often with E85.