Thanks to some well publicized speeches and pronouncements coming out of the White House, as well as General Motor's "Live Green, Go Yellow" campaign, discussion of alternative fuels has started to transition out of the realm of bohemian college-town coffeehouses and into the middle-American Main Street cafe. With this backdrop, the timing could not be better for the release of Josh Tickell's "Biodiesel America."
Whether you're a dyed-in-the-wool liberal activist, home-grown conservative, or somewhere in between, the book makes a compelling case for reducing our dependency on foreign oil and looking to our own domestic resources for energy independence. Using up-to-date data, Tickell shows that beyond the nuisance of higher fuel prices, dramatically increasing petroleum demand worldwide, as well as flattening oil well production, is having a serious ripple effect on the entire American economy and way of life. Paralleling our increase in petroleum imports is our trade deficit, which has become more lopsided today than at any other point in history.
Tickell paints a somewhat optimistic, though plausible, picture of a neo-Jeffersonian America with a revitalized agricultural sector playing a major part in a new alternative-fueled economy. But at the same time he acknowledges that the current production and distribution infrastructure could not support an overnight transition to alternative fuels. Yet, the rapid growth of biodiesel and ethanol over the past several years makes a major fuel transition over the next decade or two seem possible. The sheer diversity of potential feedstocks (sources) for biodiesel is astounding. Everything from algae farms to forest waste to animal fat can be used to produce biodiesel.
Although parts of the book are a basic review of engine technologies for car and truck enthusiasts, there is enough historical and technical trivia to keep things interesting, as well as a detailed biography of Dr. Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, and events surrounding his mysterious disappearance toward the end of World War I. For the uninitiated reader, the book is a good primer on the history and evolution of the internal-combustion engine, as well as some historical background on the petroleum industry and how it grew into the corporate juggernaut it is today.
Even though the title of the book refers to a specific fuel type, throughout the book Tickell advocates increased research and development of many alternative energy sources, including solar, wind, ethanol, and even nuclear. Also included in the book is a detailed glossary of terms related to biodiesel and alternative fuels.
For being nearly 260 pages, the book is a surprisingly quick read and an excellent resource for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the energy industry and emerging trends and technologies.