JUSIPER
Friday, December 30, 2005
Willie Nelson
National treasure:
Mr. Nelson's BioWillie is aimed mostly at truckers and is usually sold as B20 (pure biodiesel can congeal in colder climates). BioWillie is currently sold at 13 gas stations and truck stops in four states (with Texas having the most), and it fuels the buses and trucks for Mr. Nelson's tours.
If BioWillie demonstrates anything, it is that the combination of Middle East wars, global warming and rising prices at the pump has led many people to offer solutions to the world's energy's squeeze. Depending on whom you ask, cars will someday run on hydrogen, electricity, natural gas or ethanol.
Mr. Nelson is making his bet on biodiesel.
"I don't like the war," he said in the interview. "In fact, I don't know if you ever remember a couple years ago, it was Christmas day, and my son Lukas was born on Christmas Day, he's like 16 years old, and we were watching TV and there was just all kind of hell breaking loose and people getting killed and I was talking to my wife, Annie, and I said, You know, all the mothers crying and the babies dying and she said, 'Well, you ought to go write that.' "So I wrote a song called 'Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?' "
He began to recite the first verse:
So many things going on in the world,
Babies dying, mothers crying.
Just how much oil is human life worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
"That upset a lot of people, as you can imagine," he continued. "I've been upset about this war from the beginning and I've known it's all about oil." [...]
Mr. Nelson said he did not expect to make much money on his venture. As he put it when asked about his Mercedes, "I didn't get it selling BioWillie, I'll tell you."
"I hope somebody makes money out of it; I'm sure they will. And probably what'll happen is that the oil industry will wait until everybody else builds all the infrastructure and then they'll come in and take over," he said. "But that's O.K. I don't worry about that. As along as the idea progresses because all I'm caring about is getting it out there and maybe helping the country, the farmer, the environment."
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