There has to be something out there to fuel vehicles other than what we currently use.

Maybe the starting point is the engines themselves, take focus off fuelling what vehicles we have and design entirely new forms of transport. There must be someone out there capable of thinking outside of the box?

The worst thing about biofuels is that they're a total waste of time. They're only competitive on cost (and even then only with subsidies). They pollute more, are less efficient and as Bahu points out use up valuable arable land.

Their popularity is an absolute enigma to me.

What do we have plenty of? Salty sea water.

So why not look at designing some sort of vehicle that can run off salty water or salt or a some other bi-product of sea water. There really does have to be some sort of alternative out there.



I don't disagree with this, using up land to grow fuel as opposed to growing food would be foolish.

I am of the opinion that the oil industry and the vehicle manufacturing industry have for so many years controlled any and refused to allow any hint or suggestion of other means of fuels or transportation to be investigated through greed. (though of course it is impossible to prove or back up - it is just an opinion and could be miles off course)

I would much rather give my money to an American farmer than some oil sheik that will help fund terror groups that want to kill Americans. As for food shortages, you keep saying Americans need to mind their own business, so we will.. let them feed themselves

Take sewage waste do some magic and produce a new fuel to replace petrol. After all it is something we produce freely on a regular basis.

Imagine this, you connect the hose from the loo to the tank of your car, bingo! Off you go. Cheap fuel.

Wow, some people really do believe that Bush has so much power that he can single handedly put the OPEC countries and the Middle East in an economical disaster. And I thought Cubans were stupid for letting a single man ruin their lives.

There is no real substitute for Petrol

Hydrocarbons can be substituted with bio fuels and this is the Holy Grail of research today

.hey can start spending all the money they've made off of us in oil sales to buy something infinitely more important than oil.Food

But do you not think that parts of the world are heading toward disaster when food sources are depleted in order to make bio fuels.

Yea, what she said.

On one hand, Bahu, you bristle at the US for their involvement in various foreign affairs, then turn around and assert we should be terribly concerned about world food supply.

US foreign policy is differnt from a global threat posedf by the conversion of arabale food producing land to the production of bio fuels.The assumption that this conversion will not hurt the US may well turn out to be wrong because USA is not an island unto itself.

Fuel cells. Cars that run off hydrogen batteries, with only water as a byproduct. It's been done; it's just not quite practical yet. Let's get there, and fast.

Damn, is it just me or did someone forget to take Bahu out of the oven?

What's more worrisome is the current state of affairs, with so many despotic, half-crazed allah-fanatics who loathe our culture and everything we stand for being in control of such a large portion of the world's oil supply. We spend our money on their oil, and they spend their money developing weapons with which to annihilate us.

I think this absolute fear of annihilation is, well, misplaced.I think there is need to take a wider perspective and the debate should not always be us vs them, we vs they, and such like. Everyone is trying to get by in this crazy world aand my concern was over the impact of bio fuel production of food supply of the world.

I would much rather give my money to an American farmer than some oil sheik that will help fund terror groups that want to kill Americans. As for food shortages, you keep saying Americans need to mind their own business, so we will.. let them feed themselves

I would like to address this important point. In the latest issue of Foreign Policy there is an aticle by Ford Runge and Senauer in which they argue that USA would be the nhardest hit because the vast quantities of subsidies going into bio fuels are actually increasing the price of corn from which ethanol is derived and this could hurt the economy badly. In fact if all the corn grown is converted into thanol it will still be only 2% of the fuel consumption and hence this hype on bio fuel is misplaced.

I think co operation has been the norm in human history rather than conflict. Remember the Prisoners' Dilema.

The ethanol industry is being dsubsidised by the US tax payer and if you do not mind me saying so, the people are yet to get hip to the sacm. Direct corn subsidies to the tune of 8.5 billion dollars are being given. In fact Brazil which produces ethanol from sugar cane gives far less subsidy and sugar based ethanol seems to be more energy efficient than corn based.

As far as Iranian nukes are concerned forget them. The Iranians are not fools to nuke anyone.

lw posting on emps account in error.