Da Kine Diesel, Braaah

I was listening to a program on the local community radio--it also is NPR, and it is aggressively expanding, and I am of quite mixed mind about it, because had a show on the station 40 years ago. They ran a feature on the (inevitable) forthcoming commercial conversions to alternative energy sources as oil becomes more expensive and less plentiful. Bio-diesel has many advantages (over ethanol), the main one of which is that it does not require any retro-fitting of the oil-transportation infrastructure.

They were discussing the most productive plants for theose purposes. Did you know Herr Rudolph Diesel originally designed his wonderful engine to run on.......

Fuukin WAIT FER IT!!!!!

The cannabis sativa plant produces more protein, oil and fiber than any other plant on earth. Hempseed, for example, was an essential part of our ancestors' diet and is the source of "gruel," the porridge that is referred to in countless stories and books written before this century. However, when new technology in the 1900's made mass processing of hemp possible, certain petrochemical, wood-based paper, and cotton-fiber industries protected themselves from competition by recasting hemp as "marijuana."

Carl Sagan, famed Cornell University astronomer and producer of the television series Cosmos, speculated in his book "The Dragons of Eden" that marijuana might be the very first crop grown . . . the root of the agricultural revolution and civilization as we know it today.

Hempseed oil

Dr. Udo Erasmus' recently-revised doctoral thesis, Fats and Oils, (which has been used as a college text book at many univesities) states that "hempseed oil is the most perfectly balanced source of plant nutrition available".

Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine to run on hempseed oil because any diesel engine can run without modification on unrefined hempseed oil, and hempseed could be among the most productive seed-oil crops by a ratio of perhaps three-to-one in comparison to the most productive alternatives, according to reports from Notre Dame University.

The cities of Spokane, Washington; Kansas City, Missouri; and St. Louis, Missouri, all run their mass transit buses on a blend of one-part vegetable oil (biodiesel - sunflower, soybean, and safflower oils) with four parts petroleum diesel. They claim this lowers particulate emissions by 75 percent. Kansas City, Missouri airport also runs all its vehicles on pure biodiesel (vegetable oil). Vegetable oils are a major fuel of the next century, just like they were until this century.

I know this may (with some justification) be regarded as a species of special pleading, but nonetheless....