Pot, Bio and the Geopolitical landscape.?

Question

The first Diesel engine ever made ran on Bio Fuel made from Peanut Oil. Rudolph Diesel's vision was for it to run on Hemp.
(I suppose if we did switch to HEMP Mexico would still be a major energy supplier.) (The exhaust might make us more docile?)

Existing Diesel engines can run on Bio with minimal problems. New Diesel engines can run on it with NO problems.
Some municipalities use it exclusively in their fleets.

There will always be a place for fossil fuels but if the use of Bio Diesel became pervasive and diminished or illiminated the need for imports, how do you think the Geopolitical Landscape would change?

PS: Please don't speculate that this wont happen because it already is.
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/contentbe/dispatch/2006/04/12/20060412-B1-03.html
http://www.bio-beetle.com/bio_beetle_faqs.htm
http://www.hempcar.org/diesel.shtml
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldiesel.htm

Answer 1

Geopolitics for energy would certainly change - the middle east becoming much less important.

However, this in turn would lead to economic changes to many countries (energy suppliers) which may lead to unforeseen turmoil as GDP decreases for some countries...

This would NOT change the fact that we need other critical resources to increase and maintain our infrastructure, and many of these are harvested from foreign borders.

Further, the need for additional synthetic fertilizers, from which are also extracted foreign nations will still require geopolitical posturing and US influence. Specifically, the use of Nitrate will increase and it is produced via Haber-Bosch process which uses CH4 as a feedstock. Thus, it may be that the countries with abundant gas reserves may convert from being the globe's energy suppliers to the globe's synthetic fertilizer suppliers...

Answer 2

I am working on a truck that is going to run on veggie oil, and a friend of mine has converted several diesel engines to run on veggie oil. I am going to do an old one first because my new truck is warranted for 5 years OR 100,000 miles. Not to much work to convert the old ones but the new Duramax is a pretty big job....

Answer 3

well, we'd no longer have a reason to play the role of puppet master in the middle east.