I can see the headlines...

"Do it yourself energy independence! 'Waste' your way to economic prosperity! Got Gas?"

Only question I have is whether this form of bio-desiel requires a special engine or if it ready to go in current diesel engines.

They are destroying the sewage ecosystem.

Michael Moore will be the new Saudi Arabia.

It will be things like this that make the true difference. Growing corn, that use petrochemical fertilizers, for fuel as a substitute for gas is somewhat dubious. A waste product however has already produced a good. Being able to use it as a raw material for something new will be a complete win.

Chris Durnell, Exactly. I'm old enough to remember the last time we tried to free ourselves from "foreign oil". A bunch of half assed solutions that had no chance. I'm more hopeful this time, but still agnostic.

Chris: The problem is that, to replace an appreciable amount of the 7.5 billion barrels of petroleum we use in a year, we would use up so much of the "waste" feedstock that it would have to be produced on purpose.

You dont have to replace all the oil we import, you just have to curtail significantly the marginal demand and the price will collapse.

Consider the difference with the price of oil at $25/bbl versus $75/bbl would have on our trade deficit and on the economy.

Earl:

The trouble is, once the price drops back to $25, there's no reason to conserve anymore and we start the whole cycle over again.

Earl: I agree in principle, but we just use a lot of petroleum. In 2005, the US used 7.5 billion barrels, or more than 300 billion gallons. World demand in 2005 was 30 billion barrels or 1.28 trillion gallons.

To effect the world price, we would need to substitute ethanol for an appreciable portion of world petroleum demand. Let's say we wanted to substitute ethanol for 1% of world demand. A gallon of petroleum contains 138,095 btu while a gallon of ethanol contains 76,000 btu, but let's be conservative and assume that, in practice, a gallon of ethanol can deliver 90% of the effective energy of a gallon of petroleum (which is based on the actual reported difference in mileage on E85 v. gasoline). One percent of world demand for oil is about 12.8 billion gallons annually. Adjusting for the energy shortfall, we would need about 14 billion gallons of ethanol annually.

Now switchgrass, which is being promoted because it can be turned into ethanol fairly efficiently, produces 1150 gallons of ethanol per acre planted. An acre of corn produces only about 328 gallons of ethanol. So, we would have to dedicate 12 million acres to switchgrass or 43 million acres to corn just to produce enough ethanol to replace 1% of world petroleum demand. Currently, 80 million acres of US farmland is in corn. No waste product exists in sufficient quantities to come anywhere close.

Now, how much will the price of petroleum fall because we've found an alternative for 1% of world petroleum use? How much will it fall given that petroleum use is growing by more than 1% per year and that there is a supplier cartel that exists for the purpose of reducing supply in response to reduced demand? How much will the US care if the price of petroleum falls back to $50 per barrel and the price of gasoline falls back under $2 per gallon, which is where OPEC wants it to be?

Who cares what it costs? The problem is where we get it.

Oh, I think politicians probably care. But the point is that it won't work, not just that it would be a waste of money.

That's just politics. Reducing the influence of oil in the petronations is more important.

Well, moving quickly past the problem that your entire program depends upon politicians being willing to commit mass political suicide, we're still left with the problem that it won't work.

And isn't the petronations problem a result of nationalization rather than simply the presence of petroleum.

David:

Raise gas taxes at the same time that you send folks rebate checks on their income taxes and there's no political price. People can always be bought.

Not per se. They can privatize the oil and still fund their entire governments from taxes on it. The not taxing the populace is the problem.

That's nifty, although if 1 million liters a year is (very roughly) 250,000 gallons, I'd guess the gas station on the corner near my house goes through more than that in a year.

Planting 60 million acres of switchgrass to replace 5% of world oil usage would be fairly simple, since switchgrass grows where most other crops will not.

Noam: That would make switchgrass the second or third largest crop in acres planted in the US, depending on how you categorize hay.