Dumb Question?

Why must bio-fuel consist of something non-toxic for human consumption?

Before you start laughing or yelling, remember that ethanol is pure White Lightenin'. And instead of filtering and reusing cooking oil in food processes of some sort, they are using it to make ... bio diesel.

So what? Already farmers are planting corn for the subsidies and the rising market price. The consequences are that there is less corn for export, less corn for food use, and the prices of food corn are skyrocketing. Children are literally going hungry because their parents can't afford to buy cornmeal/corn flour.

In the meantime, all the corn stalks out there are being plowed back under the soil -- where they do not decay and do form a hard-pan type barrier preventing natural soil processes. That means more fertilizer is used and more washed into the river systems, which ends up creating more "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico and other ocean areas, where our fishermen used to bring in tons of fish and shrimp, and which no longer support sea life.

Why on earth (no pun intended) can't the persons, who claim to know what to do, decide that menthanol can be used as a basis for renewable fuel? The contents of those acre-sized plastic bags outside commercial dairies could be used in the methanol process. The sewage that leaves your home could be used in the methanol process. The corn stalks, the non-recyclable paper that currently goes into land fills, the straw left after harvesting oats/rice/wheat ... all could go into methanol production. (It could also create methane gas, which could be considered an alternative source of gas power, rather than using the non-renewable "natural gas" pumped from underground.)

If they really think that used cooking fats can produce enough bio diesel fuel to run the trucks and trains and ships that deliver necessities across the country and around the world, they really do need to rethink the concept. Could a methane-related process produce a diesel fuel equivalent as a byproduct or ingredient for additional chemical processes? I don't know, because I'm not an organic chemist. But surely someone out there could get started on figuring things out?

The hill people in Nepal and Tibet use methane generation to light their homes and cook their food. Who would think that the USA would be so far behind? Maybe it's the fact that a prime starter for methane gas generation just happens to be feces. Quite frankly, if people don't care about using the rotten carcases and stinky swamp goo that generates petroleum, why should they care if feces could generate much needed fuel? Some might say that it is a matter of timing -- the guts and rot was then, the feces is now. Well, I say to them that the inhabitants of earth then did not create the mess that man has created on this planet now. And the ice caps are melting now, England is being hit by tornados, the far east is suffering massive damage from mega-monsoons, and the existence of feces -- pet and pigeon -- is creating a health hazard in New York City.

We need to stop flushing money -- and potential fuel -- down the drain.