Propelling flex fuel proponents
The problem with these alternative fuels is that they are less efficient. A vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon on gasoline will get about 15 miles per gallon on ethanol or or methanol. When you add the tax on to the cost, they are not cheaper than gasoline. But there is another answer to sending all that money to the middle east. There is enough oil in Alaska and the off shore regions of the US to supply our needs for decades. The problem is the Democrats and the environmental wackos want lets us drill for it."We are financing a war against ourselves," writes Robert Zubrin, nuclear engineer and author of a new book responding to the distressing fact that Americans and Europeans are sending trillions of dollars to militant Islamists whose goal is our destruction.
But in his new book, "Energy Victory," Mr. Zubrin does not just complain. He proposes a way to break free of dependence on a resource controlled by those who have declared themselves our mortal enemies. The technology already exists. It's not expensive. All that is lacking is for voters to make this a priority — and to communicate that to the political class.
Right now, 97 percent of the cars on America's roads run on gasoline. Only 3 percent are Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) — automobiles that can be powered by either gasoline or alcohol fuels, or any mixture of the two. The additional cost to make a new car an FFV is only about $100 per vehicle.
For the sake of individual security, the government mandates that all cars have seat belts. For the sake of national security, Mr. Zubrin proposes, the government should mandate that all new cars be FFVs.
In three years, that would put 50 million FFVs on the road. The free market would then mobilize to do what it does best: Entrepreneurs would compete to produce alternative, non-petroleum fuels for these potential customers.
Mr. Zubrin expects those fuels to be made from alcohol: ethanol and methanol. Ethanol is made from agricultural products, from plants of all kinds. Methanol can be made from biomass — even biodegradable garbage — as well as from natural gas or coal.
Ethanol can be produced right now for $1.50 a gallon; methanol for 93 cents a gallon. Mr. Zubrin expects the first generation of alternative fuels would be high alcohol-to-gasoline mixtures. These would provide better mileage while still dramatically reducing dependence on petroleum.
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You are incorrect. As Zubrin documents in his book, which is a great read, ANWR has 16 billion gallons, and we import 5 billion a year. We'd run out in less than one presidential term, and then we'd be really stuck.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, our total oil reserves, including arctic and offshore, are about 3% of the world total. The Mideast has over 70%, and since OPEC is going through its reserves at a slower rate than non-OPEC producers, the situation is only going to get worse. If our current situation continues, by 2020 we'll have less than 1% of the world's reserves and the Mideast will have over 80% of what's left. And that's withOUT tapping ANWR and offshore; if we do we'll have even LESS.
Finally, regardless of the source, ALL oil funds our enemies, because it removes that oil from the world market, making the rest more scarce and enabling our enemies to charge that much more for theirs. So Alaska and Texas oil indirectly but in no less real a way buys more Explosively Formed Penetrators, pays for more death-cult brainwashing centers (madrassas, satellite TV channels, websites, etc), terrorist training, etc.
The only solution is to switch fuels.
Yes, with ethanol you'd need to fill up three times a month rather than twice. Who cares?