Regarding concrete roads, the production of cement is highly energy
intensive as the raw ingredients need to be roasted at about 1300C for
the conversion. A number of plants do burn waste products such as tyres
though to ease the fuel cost.

Brent Philion wrote:

OOPS pressed send too soon

Farm diesel and farm implements need anything but high quality fuels.

Its not unfeasible to drastically cut fossil fuel usage.

DO i see ships converting to biodiesel anytime soon, No i dont think
enough places produce enough biodiesel to deal with hundreds of bulk
carriers or container ships whose fuel consumption is measured in the
tens of tonnes per day. Why not charge user fees to road users to
encourage rail transport and disocurage road use.

Rail is far more efficient at getting large weight long distances than
transports. the onlt reason its not cheaper is because the railways
own the rails and pay for upkeep whereas the truckers down own or pay
for the road.

If youre looking at whether it can be done without any new oil

Diesel can be removed from the equation

Motor Oil and Grease can be synthesized

Roads can be made form concrete.

it can be done without new oil but its difficult and not necessarily
feasible at this point. But it IS possible to remove a LOT of fossil
oil form the equation without huge costs

if most of the diesel fuel is removed then youre down to the oilchange
and grease in the machinery and the tar in the road

if you use rail the "tar in the road" becomes far less per use too to
grow that many tonnes of crops

No need to remove it just use less and discourage hauling the 300hp V8
SUV out to take 2 60 pound kids to a restaurant and that type of
needless fuel consumption

RAM³ wrote:

"Treedweller" wrote in message
...

I guess some of this depends on what you call a "noticeable scratch."
I've heard that all the waste fryer oil we currently produce could
account for 3% of diesel usage (maybe I've got that wrong, but there's
definitely a lot of it out there). That isn't much in terms of GDP or
import levels, but I'd call it a noticeable amount. And it doesn't
even require new oil to be produced.



Are you *SURE* that it wouldn't require any "new oil"?

Even when you consider that all of the machinery and fertilizer
required to plant the soy beans, cultivate the soy plants, harvest
the soy beans, process the soy beans into meal and oil, process the
raw soy oil into something usable, and deliver the processed soy oil
to a bulk distribution location are ALL based upon/fuelled and
lubricated by petroleum?

Perpetual Motion has been a long-sought dream that, even with today's
superconductors, is a long way from practicality but is closer than
the veggie-fuel solution.

Now, if someone could design a lightweight, collision-proof,
well-shielded nuclear power plant that could be placed (along with an
electric motor) in a car's engine compartment...