Is vegetable oil going to be tha main fuel of the future?

nealw

nealw

nealw

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I was having a natter with the old man about what happens when the oil does start to run out, he seemed to believe that it wouldnt really make a great deal of difference at least in terms of car fuel because diesels could just be converted to run on vegetable oil, a completely renewable energy resource.

Now i've seen some figure that show the amount of vegetable oil that is produced in the UK would amount to only 5% of what the annual amount of diesel that is sold amounts to (http://www.veggiepower.org.uk/environmental.html)

Would it really be possible to increase the growth of oil in the UK by 20 times?

What would the likely knock on effect be on the stock markets once the oil does run out and presumably BP Shell etc are presumably worthless?
 
Biodiesel / biofuels are the way forward. One of the guys I fly with has invested a lot of money into producing biofuel from rapeseed and other such renewable sources. I skim read a few of the reports he had lying around and was quite impressed.
 
teaboy5 said:
head on over to www.peakoil.com and www.powerswitch.org.uk and read up on some of the information. Then you will get an idea on what the world is facing. All i can say theres going to be some hard years ahead.
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To be honest I dont see that happening. A couple of hard years of transfer and coping, but after that back to normal with other problems.
We are dependant on oil for lots of stuff, but it can AND WILL BE phased out. Cars will be run on other forms of fuels. Products will be made from other types of oil. The human race, suprisingly is not as stupid as we seem. Do you think the American goverment are REALLY stupid enough to think that we wont need alternative fuel sources?
The way forward is out there, we just havent instigated it.
Goverments are reeping the benefits of high oil prices and will for many years until its no longer economically viable to keep using oil.
 
Do you honestly think we can phase oil out? I really hope your joking, we will always need oil. What do you think is going to make all this products your thinking of?
 
teaboy5 said:
Do you honestly think we can phase oil out? I really hope your joking, we will always need oil. What do you think is going to make all this products your thinking of?
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Oil will never be phased out completely.But our dependancy will. But there are loads of man made substances that can take the place of oil. Vegtables oils for example are ALREADY being used.
 
Take a look around your flat and identify how many things have plastic parts to them. Or are plastic all together. Plastic is made directly from petroleum products, and from my understanding there is NO substitute for the oil in plastics.

Going to be one hell of a lot of raping of forests to make the housings for computers, TV's, MP3 players, etc.....

The whole food packaging industry is going to be turned on its head as well when it can no longer package your 2L Coke, or your peanut butter now has to go back to being in a glass jar.

Also the medical industry is going to be hard hit when it can no longer supply hypodermic needles, hypo-alergenic barriers for surgery, contaminate-proof packaging for pills and medications, etc.

Speaking of medications, most of them have petroleum byproducts in them.

Same with fertilizers.....

There's going to have to be a LOT of changes made rather soon.....
 
nealw said:
Would it really be possible to increase the growth of oil in the UK by 20 times?
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Yes of course, we're able to produce too much which is why we have the EU to falsely maintain high prices for food goods. Things like plastics are probably more delicate but I dont think oil will run out in any of our lifetimes.

Iam all for alternatives and not wasting resources unnessecarily but people go too far
 
Mickey_D said:
Take a look around your flat and identify how many things have plastic parts to them. Or are plastic all together. Plastic is made directly from petroleum products, and from my understanding there is NO substitute for the oil in plastics.
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Wrong, I read a year or 2 ago about bacteria that produced a form of oil as a waste product that could very easily be used to make plastics. Genetic modification at its best.
 
Jokester said:
If the UK transferred all agriculture over to growing biofuel it still wouldn't be sufficient to meet our current fuel use.

Jokester
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True, but why do we only have to use biofuels. Currenty we use two fuel sources just to run our cars. Why not have 3, or 4?
Biofuels, electrical power, hydrogen. All capable forms of future means of propultion.

Large amounts of electrical power are availble now, nuclear power is most likely the power of the future, supported by wind farms and hydro electric power etc.

Mickey_D, yes plastic can be man made. As Kree said, bactaria can be used to create oil. It will be hard to do on a mass scale but it is possible. Packaging industries will be cut back etc and that can only be a good thing. Less waste. ring back the glass bottle. It was cool :cool:
 
Veg oil motoring for everybody would be great, but we just don't have the farming capacity to grow enough to match the demand for road fuel. The stuff i use is 100% recycled, which would reduce demand for fresh oil, but not by a big enough margin to make an impact.

Also, not all diesels can run on pure veg oil, some brands of fuel pump (& and "clever" electronic systems) need the veg oil to go through a process involving methanol & sodium hydroxide. Biodiesel might sound nice, but it's a nasty process.

And my fuel bills are pretty much half what you pay ;) :p




(apart from when i ran out on saturday and the wife had to get a gallon of dino diesel from the pumps to get me going again, oops!)
 
The UK has a small bioethanol industry, along with a HUGE tax on biofuels. Until the goverment reduce the taxation on biofuels, they will never take off properly over here.

If you were of 'green' mind and bought 100l of fresh veg oil off the shelf from Adsa or Tesco, once you have added the 50p/l duty, it costs MORE than pump diesel, even with our currently high pump prices.

Veg oil used be have a duty rate of just under 30p/l, however it started to become popular. Overnight they changed the duty rate to match that of pump diesel, the law didn't change (HMCR don't make the law, just enforce it), the fuel didn't change, BUT the goverment now get an extra 20p/l from every user of vegoil (as road fuel)

The goverment don't have a long term plan, they just want your money. Now. :mad:
 
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