Originally Posted by SLedford

One thing that may help with the adoption of diesel engines in this country is that they have been selling like hot cakes in Europe for some time. So it is not a new idea, just a new idea for us in the USA. The technology "kinks" have been ironed out over there.

Right now our oil imports are spread fairly evenly between:
- Saudia Arabia
- Iran / Iraq
- Nigeria
- Russia & Europe (North Atlantic oil fields)
- Venezuela
- Mexico
We do not import directly from Iran, but since their oil is in the worldwide mix, for all practical purposes we do import from them.

Saudia Arabia / Iran / Iraq have or are in danger of having radical governments that are highly hostile to the USA. Nigeria is politically unstable, as is Mexico (one election away from being like Venezuela). Venezuela's leader is openly hostile to us. The North Sea oil mostly goes to Europe and is running out, and Russia is an unstable source at best. Any problem with any of these countries will impact fuel prices.

What this means is that we may look back at $3 per gallon gas and think these were the good old days. Anything above $3 per gallon starts to look good economically for both biodiesel and ethenol (for the regular gas cars).

They are not EPA approved, but there are kits that will allow normal gas cars can be converted to run any mix of Ethenol. Ditto for diesel engines to run on biodiesel. Any move to renewable fuels would mean that money would now go to US farmers (and possibly Brazil - ethenol) instead of overseas. This would impact the balance of trade, debt level and would probably lower interest rates in this country. Taxes would go up as the wealth moved from foreign banks to US tax paying farmers. The environment would benefit.

Right now the oil companies are not very excited about this prospect and are putting up obstacles. But one day they will realize that this is the future and jump in with both feet. I have already heard one oil company CEO say that he wanted his company to be the fuel source, regardless of the type.

Getting back to the thread, I was the referee assignor for the Westside YMCA soccer league here in Little Rock for several years. The referees come from the immediate area and we got a lot of them from Conway, a bedroom community 25 minutes away. When the gas prices went up, that came to a screeching halt unless we could give each referee 3 or more games. Wasn't worth making a round trip costing $10 (assuming $2.50 per gallon and getting 13 MPG with a truck) for a $14 U10 game. Ditto for the other referees in the surrounding communities.

Thankfully I am not doing that volunteer job now, but we also have lost people in our office who took a lower paying job in their bedroom community and still came out ahead financially because of eliminating the commute.