In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Why don't we make home grown bio diesel? The UK is pretty good at
hosting the sort of plants that produce suitable oils. Or are we
really using all our arable land for food production/grazing?

it takes nearly as much diesel to make the fertilizer, harvest the oil
seed and plant it, and process it, and transport it to the garage..as
you get at the end of it..

I suppose re-using cooking oils is deserving of a better press as most
of the energy investment has already been made.


And you would need about 50 times the area currently under agriculture
to get near UK demand.

Also oil seed rape is normally only grown once in a 5 course crop
rotation: usually as a precursor to Wheat. Permanent cropping would
require major developments in disease and pest control.

I understand the Americans are diverting some of their Maize to ethanol
production, much to the consternation of the Mexican food industry:-)

regards

--
Tim Lamb