Oils ain't oils

Grand Final day is exciting for me now.

It marks the day that everyone can shut the hell up about football for some number of months.

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Once again, the federal government has a budget surplus. I don't see how this is anything to crow about - isn't it just a way of saying - "We taxed you more than we spent on you!"?

Beazley suggests the government should use the 'unexpected windfall' to help ease the bowser burden. And encourage people to use ethanol.

I'm not entirely sure why biodiesel is not harped on about as much as ethanol. I know there's sugar corporation political donations to consider, but ethanol really is not great for engines.

This is why it is frustrating to be a Green, petrol prices reach a high level, NRMA heads, etc tell us it won't go down in price. In a last minute desperate decision - they try and do the thing that The Greens wanted to do all along. And, if done earlier, as in Germany, things continue smoothly, there’s no economic risk. People in Germany are buying biodiesel (which is available at pumps) instead of petroleum diesel, just because it is cheaper, although it is subsidised. In Germany, 1 in 3 cars is a diesel, in Australia it’s a miniscule amount.

A few years ago, people brewing their own biodiesel in Ireland were getting arrested for (fuel) tax evasion. And, a few years ago, Howard decided to help the biodiesel groups by (at that time you could get a litre for around 30 cents) increasing the tax on it from 0 a litre, to 30 cents a litre. Doubling the cost of it. And now, he wants to make it all better. You twit John. Have a little foresight ffs.

People should be saying “I told you so” – but economic shock is not something anyone wants, and if the only countries that avoid oil shortage costs are the ones that had green changes in politics, what does that say?

Plus, there was a US college that studied if biodiesel could be used to replace all of America’s (insane) levels of fuel consumption – and it was possible, all that was required was a large number of large algae tanks in a sunny desert, and would require salty sea water, and sewerage waste as inputs, and could easily be processed to output the vast quantities of vegetable oils required. The only difficult step would be converting everyone’s engines to diesel. (A far lesser problem in a country such as Germany)

Pot-head extraordinaire Willie Nelson is selling it in the US (BioWillie) – and as he says ‘I didn’t know you could grow your own fuel – why didn’t they teach us this in school?’ A legitimate question, I’m not sure how widespread diesel knowledge is.

Rudolf Diesel invented a new engine, and it ran on peanut oil. It was called an ‘oil engine’, it used compression. That really should have been the end of the story.

'Between 1911 and 1912 he stated:

"The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it"

He also predicted that:

"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." '

Brilliant man, what an idea – everyone can grow their own fuel.

He was on a ship to England. Vanished. Was found floating dead.

Wikipedia: “After Diesel's death, the Diesel engine was re-engineered to only run on diesel fuel derived from petroleum”

Oh.

Conspiracy theories are something I really find only humour in, but the diesel one is odd, and if anything, just plain annoying. I’m not going to cast aspersions on oil companies, and there is little need, as the peanut oil engine was invented, and with some effort, we could be using it.

Although we really don’t.

Until now, when we are being forced to consider it moreso. 92 years after Mr Diesel died.