J wrote:- The trouble with your argument is that you're throwing out the baby> with the bathwater. Just because biofuel is bad (and although I agree > that the current "fashion" for biofuel is BS, that's another question) > that doesn't mean that we should stop EATING all the plants that> biofuel is or can be produced from. In the contrary, one way of > fighting biofuel is to create more market for the food value of> those plants... coconut oil in health food stores is costs many> times of what it costs in the diesel tank, so if only enough> people buy it the farmer will sell to this market rather than> biofuel.> > :j This is not really a good argument in favour of coconut-oil. After all, coconut-oil is merely  a contemporary food-fad for a tiny percentage of the population, usually those interested in the field of alternative health, so it's highly unlikely that it will ever become a mass-market food, thus ensuring that prices will remain high for coconut-oil as a food, at least by comparison to biofuel. And of course, if coconut-oil did indeed become far more popular, farmers would  cultivate yet more plantations in order to make enough for their customers, and prices would come down due to larger economies of scale(that's why one can get bananas and similiar tropical fruit so cheap, these days). Perhaps an environmentally-conscious  "coconut-tax" is needed, instead.
 
 
As regards biofuel, there are, of course, plenty of other technologies that are more useful alternatives such as hydrogen-fuel cells, electronic cars etc. 
 
Re oil-prices in other thread:- I've been recently reading the usual stories re oil supply declining, but, this time, it seems that they are more credible than previous reports - the implication is that oil-prices will rise inexorably over the next few decades. I fear, therefore, that cheaper biodiesel alternatives will be used more and more, as certain governments with huge national debts will tend to be extremely reluctant to invest in cleaner sources of energy.
 
Re pre-WWII:- I didn't realise that coconut-oil was used in pre-WWII times. Interesting info.
 
Geoff
 
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