More environmental benefits of wvo

I was thinking yesterday. I realized that in all of the information I have seen on the environmental benefits of running a car on vegetable oil, no one includes the added benefit of reducing the number of petro-diesel powered vehicles on the road by one.

I have posted previously on the benefits of wvo, trying to consider the whole picture - from the oil well (for petroleum) and the soybean or rapeseed plant (for veg oil) to the exhaust pipe.

Here is a synopsis of the carbon cycle, in an intentionally simple example:

The process of growing plants removes carbon from the air. Some of that carbon goes back into the air when it is burned in a vegcar. This cycle reduces the amount of airborne carbon. Petroleum takes 100% of the carbon out of the ground where it is sequestered. Then, when it is burned in a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle, a great deal of that carbon is released into the air. This increases the amount of airborne carbon.

The net effect is that vegetable oil has a much smaller impact (even a net reduction) on airborne carbon than diesel or gasoline. The benefit is even greater when you consider that the vegetable oil has already been used once to make onion rings or french fries.

There is however one more benefit that I have never heard mentioned. The diesel vehicle that was converted removes one petro-diesel powered vehicle from the road. So, in addition to the fact that the "new" vehicle burns cleaner (total cycle) than a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, one less vehicle is out there burning petro-diesel.

Have you seen this mentioned? Am I double counting? I would appreciate your comments.