[Vwdiesel] Biodiesel support

[Jonbonbart at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/5/02 2:11:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jhsg at sk.sympatico.ca writes:

<< To think the farmer sees the benefits as you describe would be wrong- he
remains a primary producer, buying his inputs at retail, and selling his
goods at wholesale. >>

I'm thinking even smaller than that. I used your word "agribusiness"
facetiously to show that traditional big business doesn't want much to do
with biodiesel because of the ease and pitifully low cost of small scale
startup. Too many potential producers, too much potential supply, too high a
risk of investment loss for the profit driven corporations to get involved.
The corporation's concern is in the crop, not whether it winds up on a salad
or in the fuel tank.
Using waste vegetable oil hurts the corporations more.  They have just the
one market rather than two bidding up the price of the vegetable oil. The
already processed raw material "input" for the small scale B-D producer is
often another income source and not an expenditure. Why spend money on a farm
to grow a crop for the oil when others will pay you to take their oil?