Creating biodiesel in your backyard emits gasses that are collected in a facility that is dedicated to creating biodiesel. In your back yard, with your water heater modified sufficiently to cook the biodiesel, you will likely just be polluting the environment even worse than if you just drove your car on diesel.
WVO, on the other hand, you just filter and pour into the car. In MD winters, you'll probably want to have a block heater and/or mix varying amounts of diesel fuel into it, but a conversion to heat veggie oil with the coolant is not expensive nor difficult to install.
In Southern California I can run WVO year-round, although on mornings where it's freezing or below I've got to do a couple of rounds with the glow plugs. My '79 300TD gets 21-22mpg on diesel, and 17-19 on WVO, plus WVO has significantly less power (I'm told it's around 20% less energy, and on the non-turbo engine let's just say that I want to hit hills going at a good clip). The tradeoff is that I get well over 100 miles on a gallon of petroleum, when it's averaged out. ;)
And yeah, at $4.15 a gallon, youch. (I understand that folks living in the US commute more than people in Europe. My workplace is 10 miles (16km) from home but I live closer to the office than half of my coworkers. ...and public transport here sucks; it'd take me about three hours (and probably 20 miles each way) on busses to get to my office.
Go go national debt! Need more money, borrow it? From whom? From nobody, just print the damn money! Yay!
I love the fact that the Federal Reserve owns the currency, and the US people pay the Federal Reserve to rent the currency from them. Yay capitalism!
...I also find it strange that anyone not in the elite thinks the current distribution of wealth in this country is equitable. But I guess a lot of people look to enormous wealth and hope that one day they'll be there too. That's the only explanation I can think of...
The basic answer is because most of those alternative energy sources are still more expensive than oil, coal, and natural gas. Here in NJ, you can get a modest size solar system for your house for $50K. The state may chip in $30k of that from a fund generated through a tax they levy on everyone's electric bill. That means for $20K you have a system that should pay for the homeowner's cost in about 8 years. But consider just taking out a mortgage at 7% to pay for that $20K, and that cost would run $1400 a year, which already makes it look a lot different. And if you had to borrow the money and pay the full $50K, as a commercial venture would, you'd go broke.
Wind can be used successfully in SOME locations, but certainly not everywhere. And when you try to use it, guess who shows up to block it? Same environmental extremists that are against everything. That has happened here where there was a proposal to start using them off the coast of NJ. It's still moving ahead, but at a snails pace because of environmental opposition, bitching about the possible effect on fish, birds, the shore view... Same thing happened off Cape Cod. There was also a proposal to build some off Long Island, but faced with opposition and a mediocre prospect of profitability, the company called it quits. Personally, I'd rather have an oil rig
15 miles+ offshore, where you'll never see it rather than a bunch of windmills within sight of the shore.
Ethanol is starting to meet a small % of the demand, but only recently with subsidies and $100 barrel oil does it start to make sense. And I predict before long, you're gonna here bitching about that too, because as more land is devoted to that, along with it comes more run off, more water usage, etc. Plus, it's driven up grain prices substantially, so that you're now paying more for cereal, pasta, beef, eggs, etc.
Mass transit, in general, has always been a loser and heavily subsidized in most cases. Plus it doesn't fit current urban lifestyle. Here in NJ, it's OK for commuting to NYC. But that's only a small percent of the traffic. The rest is going to pick up kids at school, the supermarket, the mall, then a friends house, etc. The train/bus doesn't go there.
IMO, the one thing that is readily available and could be brought online relatively quickly is nuclear. But because of irrational fear, that gets blocked too. Which exposes another environmental extremist hypocrisy. We're supposed to believe that life on the planet is in jeopardy within a few decades from global warming, yet the environmentalists will have no part in using more nuclear. Nuclear isn't perfect, but if France can get 70% of their electric from it, and Japan 40%, it would seem a reasonable alternative to allegedly certain irreparable climate change and death.
We also could be opening up areas like CA and the east coast to offshore drilling, drilling in ANWR, etc. Every time there has been a price spike in energy in the last 20 years, that's been blocked by people saying, it's not worth it because it will take 5 years to get any oil. If we'd started even in 2003, we'd have that oil by now. And perhaps even find an elephant size field up there, because no one knows how much oil there really is. Environmentalists won't even allow test drilling to find out for sure.
So, you have rising demand for oil from places like India, where I believe it's gone up 9% a year, meeting worldwide output that is somewhere near peaking. And life goes on....
Been there, done that. In the 70's, the govt did exactly that. They spent billions on alternative energy. One big component was supposed to be shale oil. You know how much energy we got from all those programs? Not one drop. Haven't you seen enough of the incompetence of govt to do most things right? If they can't run a war, which after all should be one of their core competencies, what makes you think they know anything about energy?
But they are doing some of what you suggest anyway. They have subsidized ethanol. That was probably an obvious choice because it pleases the farmers.
The most important thing to drive a alternative solutions is already happening and that's rising prices. If you look around the world, I'm not sure anywhere else is doing much better with economically viable alternative sources on a large scale. Traveling in Europe the biggest difference I see is that gas costs twice or more what it does here and they drive much smaller cars. The trend to smaller cars will happen here over time with the rising energy prices.
I'm not sold on the fact that man-made CO2 is the cause of global warming or that it's going to doom us all. Here's a key issue I'd like to see answered. If you look at the neat graphs of CO2 cycles and global temperatures, there have been I think 4 cycles over the last 700,000 years. This is the graph Al Gore uses, among others, and it's widely available. In every one of those cycles, temperature begins to rise a few hundred to about 1500 years BEFORE CO2. Now, to any thinking person, this would seem to be a big issue, no? If CO2 causes the rise, then why doesn't it work the other way around, with CO2 rising first?
There is a professor of ocean science at MIT who has an explanation. And that is that the world's oceans are the vast reservoirs of CO2 on the planet. The earth starts to warm from some other reason, most likely change in the suns output. Over time, this causes CO2 to be released from the oceans, just like CO2 from a warming bottle of soda. The reason it takes hundreds of years for it to happen is because the oceans are so big that it takes time for the temp to change much.
Now, am I sure he's 100% right? No. But I've yet to see any of the global warming proponents offer their explanation to account for the reverse graphs. I heard one imbecile from a major university asked the question and his answer was "Well, it only shows that CO2 isn't responsible for the first few hundred years of temp rise." Also, supposedly, the temp on Mars is currently rising. Do they have humans emitting CO2? In other words, there are lots of legitimate questions, but anyone daring to ask them runs the risk of being run out of town. Or worse, having their funding cut off.
I think there is a very good chance that if you live long enough, you may get to see the temp rise reverse on it's own. There have been many cycles before, long, short, medium. Do a google on global cooling and you'll find articles from the 70's when alleged climate experts were making many of the same alarmist statements about the mini ice age that was upon us. At the time, they said many of the same things you here today, ie how now with computers they can model the climate, etc.
No one can accurately predict the weather more than a few days ahead. These models have equations where someone has to pick the coefficients to put in front of variable X, Y, and Z. It's a lot like economics. PHD's like to right partial differential equations that describe how part of the economy works. The only problem is, no one knows whether the coefficient in front of variable X should be .06 or .08, etc. In the current environment, I think the guys fooling around with climate models have every incentive to come up with models that show global warming. If they don't they get run out of town.
See, here's the problem. Cutting taxes did not produce the national debt. Govt revenue went through the roof in the 80's when taxes were cut. The only problem is govt spending rose even faster, that's what increased the national debt.
I guess we should go back to using rice for currency or maybe a pure barter system. Do I dedict a whiff of Ron Paul in the room?
No, the explanation is that the current capatilistic system combined with freedom, which goes hand in hand, have benefited mankind like no other. All the systems that have tried to re-distribute the wealth have failed miserably. They only succeed in making most of the people equal when they all wind up living in poverty. Look at the classic examples of systems that alleged to make everyone equal, ie the former USSR, North Korea, Cuba, etc. Totally failed systems and countries and even then, you had what you would call the elite ruling class that lived splendidly well everyone else suffered.
I don't covet the wealth of others and think how to take it. I generate my own.
The long asnd the short of it, gentlemen, is that there is simply no substitute for liquid petroleum products as the basic energy supply for far into the future. Other means of producing energy are economic in certain limited circumastances but are not and never will be universal. Coal is great when you can build the power plant at the mine. Solar is fine on an offshore buoy. Wind is helpful as a backup where the wind blows reliably. Water power can even be cost effective. And so on. But you can't go down to the local filling station and buy a can of sunshine to put in your tank, heat your house or cook your food. Take away the tax incentives and nothing else works, especially alcohol.
The whole point about the wealth transfer of the interest on the National Debt is that it is transferring wealth from the have nots to the haves. From the less well off to the wealthy. It's true that a Wal-Mart worker who is heavily invested in U.S. Treasuries is protected from the wealth transfer just as much as a Wall Street trader is if they are invested in Treasuries. But they are not coming from the same starting point. I have failed to mention an important point in my earlier posts. The income from Treasuries is tax free.
So when you talk about a government that is not involved in wealth transfer being your ideal, you should be working to eliminate structures, such as the National Debt and the Federal Reserve that transfer wealth from the poor to the well off.
What we have now is government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, and that is dangerous, wrong and not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Interest from US treasuries is fully taxable at the federal level. So this is another thing you're misinformed on, just like the assertion that Exxon splits oil revenue 50/50 with the Saudis. Treasuury interest is only exempt from state and local taxes. And I don't know what makes you think the rich folks have all their money parked in Tbonds. They have had a pathetic yield for many years.
This notion that treasuries is the vehicle for wealth transfer is bizarre. The rich didn't get rich by investing in treasuries. Most of them did it by starting companies that benefit the economy and provide jobs to millions of Americans. That is not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
As for the national debt, it's hardly a new thing. As a conservative, I'd like to see it reduced by reducing govt spending. But you can't just look at the national debt as some big boogey man. You have to compare it to reasonable measures, like GDP. If you don't do that, it's like looking at someone who has a $200K mortgage and proclaiming it shockingly high, without referencing what the underlying asset is worth, income, etc. When you compare the national debt as a percentage of GDP, it's now about where it was in the Eisenhower years. And measured against the economy, it's less than many other industrialized countries.
I'm sorry, but when you start railing against the Federal Reserve, you've joined the kook fringe elements. Every country has a central bank, don't they? Ours happens to be the FED and they've done a pretty damn good job of managing to keep the economy off the shoals for most of the last century. What exactly is your alternative to a central bank? barter?
And quite frankly, it's offensive to compare what we have in the USA today to Mussolini. But it does show how misinformed you are of not only economics, but history and where you're coming from.
There is the rather sad point that creating ethanol from corn requires more petroleum than is displaced by the ethanol.
That's why I'm a fan of WVO. It's already been used for its "intended purpose." Reduce, reuse, recycle. ;) Too bad the two Benzes in my driveway use the entire output of three local restaurants (i.e. it's not going to support the entire population).
Out of curiousity, how did it go when you approached these restaurants? Did all 3 just say yes or did you have to work through a bunch to find the 3? With the rising prices, I guess I should start considering WVO. I'm just curious how this works with restaurants vs what they are already doing with the oil, how they save it for you, how you pick it up, whether you have to take all their oil, etc.
You right in saying I was misinformed if indeed interest from Treasuries is fully taxable at the Federal level. I didn't know that . .. That's good. Now if we could get Capital Gains taxes raised we would be getting somewhere.
What car do you have? In my case, my friend is a very good friend of the restaurant owner... so they simply said okay.
It is important that the restaurant continue to have waste oil... because by law, they must have an authorized oil disposal service for proof that their oil are not being dumped into the sewer. However, don't worry about this because they will always have junk oil that is just not worth filtering... Their benefit is that they call for oil disposal alot less often and thus they save money.
In today's climate, restaurant are really hard to make profit as everything has soared: gas, cooking oil, food, meat, electricity and everything else needed to support the restaurant. So please be kind to them and dine at their place more often... they are saving you alot of money on fuel cost. Symbiosis relationship is important more than ever now.
and what would raising capital gains taxes do? it's been proven that lower taxes stimulate investment while higher taxes inhibit investment, in times like this raising taxes would just be another nail in the economies coffin __________________________________________ Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Yeah, it's sad to see how the misinformed think they have all the solutions. Heav claimed that Exxon splits oil revenues 50/50 with Saudi Arabia - False. That treasuries are tax exempt - false. That treasuries somehow are a big vehicle for transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy - False And most outrageous and inexplicable of all, that the USA today compares to fascist Italy under Mussolini.
And then we're supposed to believe him that raising capital gains taxes is gonna do exactly what? The top 5% of income tax payers currently pay 60% of the total tax burden. What more do people want? And as we know, back in the 70's and 80's, with the top rate at 70%, they only paid 40%. The difference was the economy was stagnant, unemployment was 9%, inflation was 7%, and treasuries yielded 18%. Hmmm, don't remember anybody bitching about treasuries transferring wealth when they were yielding 4X what they are today.
Instead of bitching about how much wealth someone else has, how about going out and creating some of your own?
Majority of places do not pay anything but charges them for disposal service. Even if they do pay, the rental of the waste oil container and their service to come out and pump out those oil... tend to cost more than what they pay for your oil.
With state law, there is almost no choice... either you live close to one of those biodiesel refinery or you don't... and their cost of new cookng oil is $4.25 cents per gallon or higher... so getting 15 cents back is a joke.
if he was burning waste motor oil like that, it is illegal to do __________________________________________ Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
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