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Thinking of going the biodiesel way? The increase in oil prices hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice. There’s only so much you are willing to pay before it becomes a bleed on your resources. What’s mroe, with the gradual reduction in government subsidies, I think it’s time Malaysians really consider the alternatives seriously.

A friend I was talking to about a few weeks back described the situation succintly: if you want to get rich in Malaysia in a few decades, invest in palm oil production. Apart from that piece of advice, what intrigued me more is the possibility of going the biodiesel route. Malaysia’s setting up three major biodiesel plants, news from here. As you can see, this is old news, and I should have picked up on it. Another newsbit over here.

Canada and India are moving toward biodiesel in a big way, and there are now biodiesel pumps scattered in almost all states in the US. For more information on biodiesel, check out HowStuffWorks’s entry over here.

As is usual, the Internet has turned out to be the first stop for biodiesel advocacy, I suppose. You might want to check out this blog, aptly named the ‘biodieselblog’ for more newsbits.

All in all, we might be exchanging a 10% reduction in power for a considerable drop in fuel spending and dependence. There are one or two downsides, but weening ourselves off the reliance on petrol is already a huge plus.

When I was in my late teens, I was begining to get into strategy games on the computer. My friend, through our examinations, had this addictive game running but I can’t remember its name. You played the part of a Russian president making decisions that had an impact on your relations with the rest of the world in the quest to become the most powerful nation.

Before that I was really into the then-revolutionary Dune 2, the first strategy game I’ve played to really layout tactical combat on a larger scale. Ever since then, I’ve loved watching out for consequences and trying to map them in my head for given situations.

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