Breaking our oil addiction
President Bush mentioned in a previous State of the Union address that America is “addicted to oil.” At the Republican Jewish Coalition Winter meeting in Las Vegas, an energy panel featuring Cliff May, Dr. Gal Luft, Dr. Robert Zubrin, and Steven Hantler, dealt with the serious threat of America’s addiction to oil.
Cliff May can be found at
http://www.defenddemocracies.org/
Dr. Gal Luft can be found at
Dr. Robert Zubrin can be found at
Steven Hantler can be found at
http://www.setamericafree.org/
These men went out of their way to emphasize that this was not a republican or democrat issue. It was a keeping America alive issue.
Below are comments from the panelists.
“U.S. energy policy is a threat to U.S. security.”
“As oil consumption drives up prices, revolts by the masses will lead to hostile governments.”
“Those words (the above comments) were written in 1952 to President Dwight Eisenhower.”
“The Saudis have spent more on terrorism…half a trillion dollars…than Russia and China spent on Communism.”
“Robert Zubrin has a $20 book for sale, but $15 if he signs it.”
“Energy security is the issue for Jewish conservatives.”
“Our main exposure is in the transportation sector.Wind power is not going to fix this.”
“Fuel cells are not going to be the answer.”
“We have airbags for national security, and we need flexible fuel cars for national security.”
“At this rate the Muslim world will dominate the world economy. This is a giant wealth transfer.”
“Only the United States and Holland backed Israel over oil in the 1970s.”
“Saudi Arabia has a 27 trillion dollar market capitalization. OPEC has a 92 trillion market cap. The world’s top stock markets have a combined 51 trillion market cap. OPEC can buy General Motors in three days. They can buy 20% of every S & P 500 company in three years.”
“They are infiltrating Universities, and buying up Las Vegas despite the ban on gambling. Their new goal is to specifically buy stock in global media conglomerates.”
“The new form of investing is Sharia-compliant investment.”
“25% of oil is not in Muslim hands. This non-Muslim oil is running out twice as fast as the 75% controlled by Muslims.”
“95% of the people are under the control of five Middle Eastern nations.”
“17 years is the average life of a U.S. car. Having a car that only runs on gasoline locks the owner of the car into oil for 17 years.”
“Oil is still the one way to power vehicles. Ships are now powered by petroleum, not coal.”
“In 1999, oil was $11 per barrel. In 2001 it was $22. In 2005 it was $50. Now it is $100. Armageddonijad (sic) wants $200 per barrel of oil. This is one trillion dollars in revenue, vs four billion in 1972.”
“Flexible fuel cars that run on ethanol, methanol, or any other alcohol, cost only an extra $100 per car to manufacture.”
“Flexible fuel cars are 100% of the market in Brazil, but only 3% of the market in the United States. One reason more people do not buy them is because there are few places to fill them up. Gas station owners will not switch from gasoline when there is much less money to be made.”
At this point I clearly saw the circular problem, but the solution was a bomshell, especially to a conservative republican audience.
“The only answer is a Congressional mandate. A mandate to produce flexible fuel cars must be enacted immediately. It is a national security issue.”
“An excellent source to replace gasoline is from crop residues. Crop residues could replace OPEC.”
“We should sell tractors to Africa instead of selling CNN to Saudi Princes.”
“With a Congressional mandate, farmers get more business, which would allow us to lower tariffs on Brazilian vehicles powered by Ethanol.”
“The current rise in oil prices is genocidal. The average person in Kenya makes $1000 per year, compared to $40,000 in the U.S.”
“Unlike ethanol, methanol can be made from every biomass.”
The discussion then turned to who is blocking mandates.
“The oil industry is not the problem. They are in dire straits. Yes, they are making money now, but they are scared. They are also at the mercy of OPEC and Muslim nations.”
“The auto industry is not the problem. They are fine spending an extra $100 to build flexible fuel cars. The Big 3 favor this.”
“The problem are the Muslim Governments.”
“Another problem are the environmentalists. Environmentalism is the second fastest growing religion after Islam. Both are green. They are the problem.”
The panel made it clear that it was not the ends of the environmentalists that they disagreed with, but the means. Breaking the oil addiction could unite environmental liberals and national security conservatives if done right.
“The solution to global warming is to promote growth in agriculture, not suppress growth. Al Gore is spending 200 million dollars to promote his view, and conservatives are spending zero. We need to promote ‘Freedom Fuel.’”
I then asked a question, and was pleasantly surprised at how effective this panel was at addressing my concern.
“I appreciate your excellent presentation in preaching to the converted, but I am concerned about how you can sell this to the American people. When I hear about Congressional mandates, I picture big government liberalism such as ‘Hillarycare.’ How can Congressional mandates be packaged as a conservative republican idea that does not violate free market principles?”
Again, this panel was much wiser than me.
“Milton Friedman wrote that strong government action was necessary to break up monopolies. Oil is a foreign government monopoly. Breaking monopolies enhances choice. Hillary wants to tax oil companies and their profits. That is liberal. The conservative answer cannot be to do nothing. Inaction is an inferior solution to what Hillary proposes. A conservative solution is better. Government should intervene to create, not stifle, competition. During the Cold War, the U.S. Government mandated FM Radio. It was seen as a national security issue. The public needed to be informed in case of a nuclear attack. The precedent is there.”
The panel offered some final thoughts.
“There is no bill yet, but it can be called a ’standard,” to get around the fear of the word ‘mandate.’”
“This is a national security issue that Hollywood can get behind.”
“Picture Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston driving flexible fuel cars under the commercial headline, ‘On this, we agree.’”
“It is documented that methanol, ethanol and alcohol are cheaper than gasoline by a 10:1 ratio. Ethanol is competitive with oil at $40 per barrel, but much less so with oil at $100.”
One thing the panel kept emphasizing is that national security requires that good ideas be accepted wherever they come from. The fact that the oil issue may have big business, environmentalists, national security hawks, farmers, and free traders on the same side does not automatically mean that proposed solutions are bad ideas.
I plan to learn as much as I can about flexible fuel cars. As much as I dislike mandates, I dislike America supplying blood money to our enemies more.
We must break our oil addiction. Our lives depend on it.
eric
March 17th, 2008 at 10:26 am
When cars came out, we had electric cars and steam engine cars…we are very much capable of having alternative fuel autos, but the powers of money WANT the perpetual use of oil to keep the rich richer.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
While environmentalists make a convenient scapegoat for the oil lobby, they have had very litle power in Washington and in most states in recent years (ever, really). We can not drill our way out of dependence. We can’t even drill our way out of a tiny portion of our energy needs. It is a canard. We are around 3% of the world’s population, we consume 1/4th of the energy, we can only produce about 1/4 of what we consume in terms of oil (at best). There’s no drilling our way out of that.
Nuclear power plants are extremely expensive and take years to become profitable. If we are to build them it will take massive federal investment and incentives.
Solar, geothermal and wind energy will also require federal investment, as these technologies have limited profitability and require large areas to operate.
Hydrogen fuel technology is still a ways off, but the infrastructure required will again require mass federal involvement.
New fish-friendly water turbines are currently past development and are ready to go, but the power companies do not want to invest in refitting the damns. Again, federal involvement will be required.
The private sector has no interest in building new refineries to open the bottleneck in our oil flow. They know that oil’s days are numbered and therefore have no interest investing in a soon-to-be-obsolete sector. Again, the feds would have to step in.
This goes on and on, but there are a few facts we must keep in mind regardless of ideology:
1) Environmentalists have very little power or effect on our energy sector. It is a waste of valuable time to put the onus on them.
2) The federal government will have to be an integral part of reinventing our energy sector. Laizzez-faire will not work here. Incentives, investments, mandates and sanctions are the only way forward.
4) Corn-based ethanol will be a distaster once in full effect. It will effect food prices, trade, and make farmers all the more dependent of the federal government. There are plenty of other technologies we should be investigating.
3) What you said: “The fact that the oil issue may have big business, environmentalists, national security hawks, farmers, and free traders on the same side does not automatically mean that proposed solutions are bad ideas.
I plan to learn as much as I can about flexible fuel cars. As much as I dislike mandates, I dislike America supplying blood money to our enemies more.
We must break our oil addiction. Our lives depend on it.”
Exactly.
JMJ
March 17th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Great post! More info about flex fuel vehicles (ffv), fuel choice and videos of advocates for the open fuel standard (khosla, Zubrin, wagoner, inslee, woolsey, et al) are here…
PETROZERO.com
PETROZERO.org
March 17th, 2008 at 10:55 am
As much as it pains me I agree with Jersey on the ethanol issue.
If we covered this country in corn or any crop supporting a bio fuel it would not meet a fraction of our needs.
Food cost are up 10 to 25 % everywhere.
We have to stop offering subsidies to corn farmers, period.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Micky and I are both in painful agreement.
JMJ
March 17th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I am a corn farmer, and I agree with Micky. I don’t like crop subsidies of any sort! It just isn’t right!
I can’t solve the dependency on foreign oil problem. All I can do is my best not to waste any sort of energy, especially oil. We have maniacs driving around this country every day, taking off like gangbusters, speeding far above the speed limits, and wasting gas left and right. Learning economical driving habits would be a good start to saving gasoline. I’ll bet I can get more mileage out of my Dodge Ram than most people get out of their little pillbox cars, simply because of the way most people drive. Rushing up to stop lights and slamming on one’s breaks, then taking off as fast as possible to be the first in line does nothing but waste gas. People complain about the high price of gasoline and waste it as if it were for free.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I think a few problems will solve themselves.
It will be a while but eventually we will have to start using clean renewable fuesl only because oil will just be too expensive or it will not meet supply due to lack of it and over demand.
The gerbil warming freaks can all take a pill and sit down and shut up.
Because its just a matter of time before we do make that huge investment in Nuke facilities and all the roofs on all houses will be solar panels and not tiles.
Wind mills are a joke. We would have to cover the country with those just like corn and it still wouldnt cover a fraction of our needs. And they’re just damn ugly !
But it will take time. I just bought a new car last week and I dont see getting rid of it till it blows up.
Its gonna be a slow and painful conversion. That will happen in incriments over time. And we will have little choice. It will happen inevitabley.
And it will not be out of any concern for the environment. It will be out of concern for function and economics.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am
One thing we must develope is a national power grid. The grids we have now are outdated, cumbersome, insecure, and inefficient. With a national grid we could move energy from low-use regions to high-use regions seemlessly. Solar power from the Southwest could be imported to the Northeast in the summertime. Geothermal power in the Rockies could be exported to the Southeast in the winter, and so on. This would build efficiency and security just as Eisenhower’s highway programs did for us in the 50’s.
JMJ
March 17th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Ack! I find myself agreeing with Jersey on this. Of course, we will need to do a massive infrastructure upgrade to achieve a true national grid (and not the rip-off company). Our current high tension lines and such are too inefficient to properly reach this goal. We lose too much in degredation over long distances. It would also help if we could get a unified policy of energy sales and sources. We in NY can’t buy nuclear power for example, even though we produce plenty (it gets sold cheaply to CT, ONT, OH, NJ, PA. QUE instead). It also means converting existing homes from fuel oil and electric heat, to natural gas or propane. We can also build wind farms, as lng as some nimrod doesn’t sue because it will disturb his view 8 days a year.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Wow! left, right, centrist, male and female agreeing to work toward a common good…just like real citizens of a great, free country.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Its a conspiracy.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Happy Patty’s Day!!!
It’s fitting on this day that we’re all apparently Irish! I guess if you drink enough green beer, anything is possible and anyone can get along!
(God, I miss NYC on St Pats Day…)
Deacon, it seems we’re all in agreement. I think most mainstream “lib, con, Dem, Rep, Liber, Green” voters and everyone else agree with these positions. Regardless of of the party in power, though, the status quo continues. We are in an evolutionary quagmire as a people and a nation. We’re living in the past. We’re spending too much time and energy fighting each other over silliness and not paying enough attention to what really matters. Today’s subject really, really, really matters.
Most people have about had it with the healthcare sector. It’s a failure. You can disagree with that, but most people will be against you to one extent or another. Most people think the war in Iraq is an acceptable collateral loss. They’d rather just end it. Again, you can disagree, but you’d be in the minority. It’s okay to be in the minority in and of itself. As long as you mean well and have a voice.
But when it comes to oil, to our energy dependence, to the oil trade, petro-dollars, the and economic impacts, to the now proven implicit wars, almost everyone agrees: We need infrastructural upgrades, period. We need to be more self-reliant. We always extol the virtues of accountability, why aren’t we upgrading our infrastructure? It’s like a father who never fixes a thing in the house. It’s irresponsible.
For example…
I was watching the news the other day showing the recent tornado damage in Atlanta. I saw a telephone pole broken in half, laying behind some reporter, wires snapped off all over the place… What century is this?
And now that sattellites have shown a huge vulnerability (re: recent space-race news), we need a secure wire infrastructure. Water, power, wires, roads, tracks, airports: That’s what we need now. We’re falling behind. It’s time to catch up and apply Keynes to more than just war. Keynes theory doesn’t always work, but when it does it does it well. When it comes to utility, there’s no denying that’s where Keynes works. We need to be more utilitous. I’m more than willing to pay for that. I think we all are - as long as it’s vetted and economic.
Hmmm…
Well, I guess we’re screwed.
JMJ
March 17th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
We’re not screwed jersey.
American ingenuity , resourcefulness and creativity have always gotten us through far worse scenarios.
But if you think like that, then you truly are screwed.
Now go out, paint a part of your body green with a caption that says ” kiss me I’m Irish” and gave a good night
March 18th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Hey, I’m fine (though I am hungover…). I worry about our future. We are waaaaaay behind in upgrading all of our institutional and physical infrastructures. We may well be looking at the final decline of the American empire if we don’t change the way we think about things.
JMJ
March 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Jersey
A year ago I could agree with you on healthcare…but today I pay hardly anything at all for very good healthcare…including prescriptions etc…I am not alone in the enjoyment of such benefits…we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater in this case…
Iraq: A majority of Americans don’t wish to just leave…they may not be happy about being there…but they do not want a wholesale slaughter to occur once we’ve left…
March 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Decline of the American Empire.
Gerbal warming will be the end of us all.
Talk about changing thinking ?
You make it sound like the whole country is gonna take a dump in unison
Go have another drink man.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Talk about fear mongering, jeeze.