Not only can it be stored safely and for long times, and not only can it be used as food, it is also local - that is, rapeseed oil does not have a lot of overhead in areas where it is grown, such as southern Germany. The containers used are the same used for vineyards, adding another aspect to the idea of 'renewable'.

As a matter of fact, I can buy a thousand liters of rapeseed oil a couple of miles down the road, and have it delivered - no permits, no safety concerns, and as for taxes - well, that is complicated.

To be honest, I expect such solutions to be very far down on the list tried, since such simple changes to lifestyle will require a select group of people to lose their accustomed lifestyle - those in the production and distribution of petroleum products, and those involved in manufacturing, maintaining, and driving IC driven vehicles for personal transport. Which describes a lot of people, doesn't it?

In terms of keeping farm machinery, fire fighting equipment, and necessary construction machinery going (repairing water mains, for example), towns in this region could probably manage without any major problems in terms of infrastructure - what would suffer, hugely, would be the local economy if such a shift was actually carried out.

I think any attempt to describe the proper place of renewable fuels requires describing a properly functioning social structure around them - and what we have today most certainly isn't the proper structure.