slick willy: these "bulk" buyers are creating a supply and demand issue here. i'm seeing people sell stuff they couldn't give away 2 years ago for 1.80 to 2.00 a gallon.
This is simply an example of how the free market works. If I could get ecological on you...
Nature abhors a vacuum. One definition of vacuum means an over supply of a particular resource. Maybe a tree falls and sun is exposed to a seedling. Maybe its a seed in a cowpie, the cow pie smothers a particular area from light and with too much immediate salts, thereby killing the small area for the seed to take hold. Or a disturbance like fire. Or a recently dead animal, all this resource and no one to eat it, things will move in. And because humans are animals and thus "nature" and the free market works alot like ecology, I think the analogy is a good one. That resource has been id'ed and now the flies are swarming
Moral of the story? I think there is 2.
1) Waste streams always provide a cheap source of raw materials that should be a first target.
2) In a world starved for energy, what will be happening to the value of those sources of fixed energy, particularily biomass and fossil fuels?
flectere si nequeo superos, Achaeronta movebo! -Virgil