claybodie’s Recent Comments

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  Double Check the Facts in This Post

  Whoa, hold on there! While your assertion that Tickell's film veers towards sensationalism is partially true, it's still a valuable film and contribution to the larger debate/public education surrounding biofuels.

  But there are a few things in here I can't let you get away with in this article:

  "Tickell uses everything he can get his hands on to promote biodiesel: The attack on the Twin Towers (actually the result of religionists with a righteous cause), the Iraq war (actually the result of a religionist with a righteous cause), our children, school buses, you name it."

  What is the basis for "religionists" righteous cause? They don't just grow up that way... Last time I checked, US military geopositioning, esp. bases in the middle east, were a prime reason Osama gave for the 9/11 attacks. I'm not going to make a case here, since it's been made elsewhere already, but I think you've got to give the film
  credit for pointing out the root cause of a lot of these problems: oil.

  "We were told that emissions inside our children's school buses are four times higher than outside the bus. As you might guess, along with being the answer to human conflict, biodiesel will also eliminate emissions inside school buses. In reality it would reduce soot 50 percent, while increasing NOx 10 percent."

  Double check your facts on this one and be specific. Different blends of biodiesel put out different emission levels, and B20 doesn't raise them, but does cut soot significantly. Also, NOx isn't what kills people in diesel exhaust, it's particulate matter (soot: http://gas2.org/2008/03/27/how-diesel-exhaust-affects-you ...).

  B20 reduces air toxics (the most damaging pollutants for human health) by 20-40%, while B100 reduces them by as much as 90%.

  "He tells the audience that a diesel Golf gets 55 miles-to-the-gallon whereas the gasoline version gets only 30 -- which is a bit of an exaggeration, to put it mildly -- and that biodiesel is 78 to 98 percent carbon neutral, and
  on, and on."

  That's no exageration from the people I know who have diesel Golfs. They all seem to get 55 mpg, as most older VWs do. Biodiesel made from cooking oil offsets diesel fuel usage by using a recycled source. Even biodiesel made form soybean oil can decrease greenhouse-gas emissions by 41% when compared to diesel.

  "He finally gets to the "well-funded media" conspiracy theory and tells us that the real motivation behind one of the conspirators, the Grocer's Association, is to lower the cost of food! An uncomfortable silence followed that
  comment, suggesting that not everyone in the audience was brain dead."

  Not a conspiracy: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mo-grocers-etha ...

  That's all I have time for right now. For more on biodiesel: http://gas2.org/2008/04/10/biodiesel-mythbuster-20-twenty ...

  Lead Writer for Gas 2.0 (http://gas2.org)

  On A review of Fields of Fuel posted 1 year, 5 months ago 11 Responses