Hi phil

We've a LOT of coal here in Oz, but few plans to make diesel from it. Our 'renewable' fuels are looking like mostly ethanol and a bit of biodiesel, but our idiotic government put out a report questioning the long term future of biofuels because their think tank predicted a 'long term' price of oil of $37-$42 US per barrel... Hah! That was a couple of years ago and now that whole argument is looking like total bollocks.

Like I said - idiotic!

My state, Queensland, is big on sugar cane (we have a cane smut crisis in the state at the moment and, to my surprise, one of my neighbours is involved in the crisis action group tackling it - says the canegrowers will need to swap cane varieties or face total decimation.) A recent scientific study showed that because the processing of ethanol from cane was fuelled by bagasse (cellulose waste from cane) the net energy gain was a factor of 6-7 times what went into making it. Corn-starch derived ethanol scrapes by with a mere 10% gain at best.

So... 30 years ago when Brazil got the hint from the Oil Crisis and began ramping up production perhaps both our countries should've followed suite.

Adam