[stephenjohnbanker]

Branson finally blew it. It is way too expensive! Biodiesel is cleaner and way cheaper to produce.

[calcowgirl]

Hot air on global warming
The Orange County Register August 3, 2006

Gov. Schwarzenegger and British Prime Minister Tony Blair got a lot of favorable publicity with an agreement to work together to curb greenhouse gas emissions and collaborate on research to fight global warming.

snip

... the meeting was held at a British Petroleum terminal in Long Beach and attracted such titans of the corporate world as Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, Charles Holliday of DuPont, Google founder Sergey Brin and Edison International head John Bryson. Many businessmen have figured out that when government manipulates the marketplace, there are large-scale profits to be made.

Richard Branson of Virgin, for example, after declaring concern for the planet, said he plans to invest in an ethanol plant in California. Ethanol has been touted as a magic bullet and the taxpayers subsidize it at 51 cents per gallon. But while it modestly decreases CO2 emissions, it reduces miles per gallon compared to straight gasoline.

[TKDietz]

"Biodiesel is cleaner and way cheaper to produce."

Biodiesel is way cheap to produce? That may be at least partially true when it's produced from waste oil from restaurants, but there isn't enough of that to fuel many vehicles. Making biodiesel from scratch ain't cheap. The biodiesel industry is also a heavily subsidized industry yet we produce very little of it compared to how much ethanol we produce. Why do you think that is? The reason you see so much money from big corporations and private individuals going into the ethanol industry and not nearly so much going into the biodiesel industry is because profit margins for ethanol are a lot higher. Even with subsidies and high oil prices biodiesel is nowhere near as profitable as ethanol. We'll probably see more of it in the future, but it will have to become a lot cheaper to produce before that industry really takes off.