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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (4050)	2/7/2006 12:03:07 AM
From: Muthusamy SELVARAJU	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217752

Does anyone know where in the world it is cheapest to purchase gold bullion and take delivery of it. I used to think it was Hong Kong, but now, with Dubai emerging, I am not sure anymore. Help?

To: Ilaine who wrote (4050)	2/7/2006 1:40:45 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217752

<<... Dubya ... the concept of the office mattering more ... biodiesel from soybeans ... many innocent people get murdered ...>> ... I am counting on a nuclear powered future, but not for cars hopefully. On Dubya, I am fairly certain the next guy in the office, from whichever party, will not be able to navigate the convolution that is the ME and the schema that is energy, with the former to be taken care of with blood from all sides, and the latter to be taken care of by more expensive prices.

To: Ilaine who wrote (4050)	2/7/2006 2:21:15 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217752

CB, perhaps you were writing figuratively, but I don't think biodiesel will have ethanol as a component. <it's biodiesel from soybeans, thinned with ethanol from switch grass> Gasoline and ethanol mix fairly well, but diesel and ethanol are not ideal blend components, though 20 years ago I was suggesting to BP that such a blend would be worth considering, as an emulsion, with water, a surfactant and maybe an ignition improver. Made with olive oil or other oils, and lecithin as a surfactant, it could double as fuel for the driver as well. Ethanol would best be used as a gasoline replacement in cars. Soybean [and other plant oils] should probably be mixed with methanol from natural gas to make nice esters rather than gummy vegetable oils which lack oxidation stability [and I don't know what their cetane numbers are]. I'm out of date these days, so don't know where the economics and technology are driving diesel fuels, but that's my guess. Mqurice

To: Ilaine who wrote (4050)	2/7/2006 3:20:27 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217752

CobaltBlue, I'm not so sure about the soybeans. I have a friend who farmed several thousand acres of beans from the 1960's through the mid 1990's and he knows beans and the bean business like nobody else I know. Almost by accident he got into the bean futures business in the early 1970's and even though he is no longer farming he is still in that business in a big way. He travels to Brazil and elsewhere just to see how the crop there is doing so as to be better able to "game" his futures positions. Beans have lots of advantages, no need for nitrogen fertilizer, and some land doesn't even need phosphate, though most land does. Each average acre nets a barrel of oil that is roughly equal to a barrel of #2 diesel. Beans are easy on the land, especially no-till beans but even cultivated beans will generally improve soil quality over time. Soybean oil is simply pressed from the beans, no need for fermentation or distillation, and the whole operation is done completely by machinery with no need whatsoever for human labor, unlike palm oil. And in addittion to the oil you get a large amount of soybean meal that has numerous uses. But here is the rub: the USA has aproximately 63 million acres of beans in cultivation now and all this production is already "called for" in its present end use markets. My friend thinks that even doubling the present amount of production would be a real problem. OTOH, flying across the USA you see vast amounts of uncultivated land and I know from personal experience that a soybean will grow on practically any soil that receives sufficient rainfall and most anyplace that is flat enough to be traversed by a tractor could be farmed with beans, this being the majority of the land in the east and a considerable portion of the west so maybe by taking some extreme measures soybean oil could provide some meaningful percentage of the USA oil usage. When you consider that we now have some 98,000 sq. miles in beans now and that the land area of the lower 48 states is in excess of 3 million square miles, maybe bean cultivation on a vast scale would go a long way toward meeting the USA petroleum oil needs, I just don't know. And maybe with some genetic enhancement the oil yeild could be made to exceed a barrel per acre. One thing that I like about the soy bean concept is that it is simple to evaluate. It is being done now and there are few imponderables like all the problematic aspects you have with corn or even cane ethanol. In my mind, if soy oil for fuel is not a paying proposition the other concepts are probably for sure not. Maybe swithchgrass ethanol is the exception. CB, I think you mentioned one time that you garden some. Just for grins plant you a few soy bean seeds. Makes a pretty green bushy plant and the young beans are delicious in a salad. Slagle