Troy, In response to your thoughts....
...With the new 5ppm sulfur diesel regulation coming, it appears that the only ...advantage of bio-diesel over dino-diesel is that it supports American ...farmers. True? Troy ..................................................... As to the benefits of biofuel over fossil, you might need to begin thinking outside parameters of "contemporary" construct. In other words, please try to remove the blinders we have all been programmed to wear. No one is saying that a little "mining" is a bad thing. The occasional gold ring, for adornment, copper pipes, opposed to lead, even a little steel for motors and pumps to help preserve the backs of all those who would have to haul water from the creek. But in the process of making our lives a little less toilsome, we as humans have become so gleeful with each new (often only perceived) benefit that we pursue our expansions to the point of hoping to never having to lift a finger or burn another calorie again. Not only that, but we have been caught up in the economic belief that no growth is a bad thing. Therefore, in pursuit of this lie, we build all our infrastructures with the expectancy and demand for growth - whether it is needed or not. Worse still, we as an "industrial" society (no longer just a "society"), in order to achieve this nirvanic state of perpetual growth, wish to forcefully cram all these "benefits" down the throats of every other people on the planet, in various forms of cheap plastic crap and just plain crap. Couple this mindlessness with the human insecurity of never having enough - our never ending quest for "better, bigger, faster, shinier, higher, wealthier," Faustian ad infinitum - and we end up on a hell bent path of excessive consumption and waste, which eventually, if not sooner, result in ever increasing encroachments on the very ecosystems which all life depends. Face it. We are taught and programmed to want what we don't need and to need what we never wanted. Our landfills overflow. Our rivers are a manufacturer's stew. Our air is maybe cleaner than 25 years ago, but getting dirtier every day. Our drinking water supplies are more and more contaminated. Our children contract and die of diseases and cancers as never before. IE: Women's breast cancer is soon to roll over to 1 in 8 from the not so long ago ratio of 1 in 10, and eventually to 1 in what? None of this is simply because we have better record keeping today than 40 years ago. All the while industries and government disavow responsibilities, pandering to lack of "irrefutable evidence" or the need for more studies and tests. They are practitioners of "acceptable risk" (it's not who will get ill or die, but how many and when) and bow to anything that puts another farthing in their coffers. So you see Troy, any time that something rolls around that helps people break out of the concrete walls that are poured around them daily, its a good thing. And when that something happens to help or has the enormous potential to reverse not only trends in pollution, foreign policy, fiscal policy and buttress an already fragile and failing farming industry, it's a good thing. Something is horribly wrong when we place ourselves in a position where war becomes an energy policy and where preserving glutonous consumption is of greater national interest than is conservation, sustainability and preserving the interests of our children's children and their generations who haven't even been born yet. These are the concepts and principals on which strong people and strong societies are grounded. Not a 99 cent quarter pounder with cheese in under 60 seconds. And since you asked earlier, biofuels across the board do result in a net energy gain. As for the right of expectancy that the ratios should be equivalent to a well tooled petro-chemical industry, guavas and cumquats aren't the same either. Todd Swearingen Appal Energy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
