[Vwdiesel] lowering gasoline prices

[Duncan L. Forbes]

James wrote:
> The USA currently uses 50 billion gallons per year of petroleum
distillate.
> this would take 29.4 billion bushels of soybeans, OR about 15 billion
bushels
> of Canola, which is ideally suited for biodiesel production at approx 40%
oil
> content versus the 18% found in soybeans.

> There were 96.8 million metric tons of supply of veg oil forecasted in the
> world crop year ending 2000/2001.  This would be approx 21.296 billion
gallons
> of veg oil.  So how will this meet the US demand which is more than double
> this?

Okay, call me an unrealistic idealist but if the US moved to using
bio-diesel for it's fuel supplies wouldn't that mean by default that the
gasoline engine in vehicles would be replaced by diesel engines. Therefore,
given the greater fuel efficiency of diesel engines wouldn't that mean then
that consumption of fuel would decrease. Or is my assumption of greater fuel
efficiency incorrect. Also doesn't a large amount of the petroleum
distillates end up being something other than gasoline. So comparing the
amount of bio-diesel that would be needed to the amount of petroleum
currently needed is like comparing apples to soybeans.

It may be unrealistic to think that we can produce enough canola or whatever
to meet the fuel needs of a large industrial country. I was just questioning
the thought process that assumes that the fuel need would remain the same if
everyone was driving diesel. I base this question on the fact the currently
of the four most fuel efficient vehicles sold in the US, two are hybrids and
two are VW diesels. So my assumption is that any car based on diesel
technology could achieve greater fuel efficiency than with a comparable
gasoline engine.

Duncan
a.k.a. Duncan the Idealistic Dreamer