Someone answer me this. If my friends in the UK can drive small Toyota’s with diesel engines and get 50 or more miles per gallon why can't we get them here? Two road blocks... the oil industry and the auto makers. Nothing will change until we take existing industry and apply it to our cars and trucks. Ford plans on putting the Land Rover diesel engine in the F-150 for '09 with estimated gas mileage of over 30 mpg. No significant R&D, existing industry and putting it in use here. Until we force the hand of these two players nothing is going to change in the US.

Our food supply isn't the only factor with bio-fuels. We might need to keep making new farmland to keep up the supply of corn to both humans and bio-fuel and that can result in serious consequences.

Corn 101.

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content...ntentID=218804

Damn Merc., you're starting to sound a little like tw. Are you going to bring up the 90 HP per liter engine now too?

Most of the studies show it can't happen. We will never be able to supply all our needs via bio fuel, corn or otherwise. We need a confluence of factors to make it happen. Bio fuel may even give us a lower return for the release of greenhouse gases and subsequent exchange of energy, i.e. more greenhouse gas per unit of bio fuel produced and used. Bio fuel is not a panacea. The US will not run out of food or corn because of the diversion of use to bio fuel. We may decrease exports but many other countries are increasing the production of grains like soy as well as corn to fend off shortages.

No man, I drive a big truck. Sorry, I hope never to sound like tw. That's a bit scary.

I do think we need to significantly raise cafe standards and take away "average" mpg as a bench mark. The technology is there, we just need to make them do it.

Yes, bio-fuel is not the answer.

I get a kick out of the Extension Economist calculations and predictions. I think they should take some time to watch the Weather Channel, as they don't take Mother Nature's changing patterns, or capricious whims, into account.

Oh, and it's not just livestock feed and corn on the cob. Read the labels in the grocery store and look for corn and corn sweeteners, in the ingredients lists.

The rising cost of food in this country is directly related to the price of fuel and nothing else. Period.

Then how come the rise of food, led the rise of oil, by a year?

I haven't seen evidence of that in the US. I am talking only abou the rise in prices here in the US. I would interested in anything you have that I could read about the rise of US food prices a year ahead of the rise of our cost of gas.

From a Boston Globe article;Plus, don't you remember tw telling us how produce was skyrocketing last summer? :D

:bonk:

:biggrinha

I usually have a problem with phrases like 'always' and 'nothing else'. While I'll agree that energy costs in the supply chain have a lot to do with it, you can't discount natural disasters and drought (possibly more frequent/damaging due to global warming) and rising demand in third world nations that are becoming wealthier.