Although for now the price of oil has gone down and the fuel companies are doing their rollback charade (increase price rapidly, decrease price slowly), there is no illusion that the price of oil is on an upward trajectory. Because of this, people are finally waking up to the benefit, albeit only the cost benefit, of alternative fuels. This is evident in the the queues to E10 fuel pumps. That is when it is available.
But not all alternative fuels are equal. Take two off the more popular alternative fuels: biodiesel and ethanol. Biodiesel is a direct pour-in replacement to diesel whereas ethanol blends higher than 10% requires modifications to the vehicle’s fuel system. Biodiesel can be extracted from plants like Jatropha that grow in land that can’t usually be used for food crops whereas ethanol is derived from sugarcane grown in land allocated for food crops. Biodiesel is definitely better for these reasons.
This is why my next car will hopefully be diesel. So should yours. Now if only the manufacturers and the government can do something about the high prices of diesel cars…