| |
 |
|
|
Science Forum Index » Energy Forum » Defeating OPEC one ear at a time
Page 1 of 1
|
| Author |
Message |
| Bob Eld |
 Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:17 am |
|
|
|
Guest
|
Defeating OPEC, one ear of sustainable corn at a time
Building cars that use alternative fuel would break monopoly that the oil
cartel currently holds
Apr 19, 2008 04:30 AM
Robert Zubrin
The most oppressive force in the world today is the OPEC oil cartel.
Distributed elsewhere, the $1.3-trillion per year taxed out of the world
economy by OPEC countries could lift the entire Third World out of poverty.
Based on current oil prices and export levels, Saudi Arabia will make more
on oil this week than the 60 poorest countries on Earth will make all year.
Breaking the cartel would thus be a great act of social justice and of
critical value to the world's poor. But there's only one way to do it - by
creating fuel choice.
OPEC cannot be defeated by conservation alone. A global boycott of oil is,
frankly, impossible. And even in a fantastical scenario in which all the
consuming nations got together and agreed on quotas for cutting their oil
consumption, and then actually complied, OPEC could counter simply by
cutting supply. So long as it is the only game in town, it wins.
What is needed is for the United States Congress to pass a law requiring
that all new cars sold (not just made, but sold) in the United States be
flex-fuelled - that is, be able to run on any combination of gasoline or
alcohol fuels, including E85, which is a mix of 85 per cent ethanol and 15
per cent gasoline.
Such cars already exist.
Two dozen models of flex-fuelled vehicles (FFVs) are being produced by
Detroit's Big Three this year - including plants in Ontario - and they only
cost about $100 more than identical models that can run on gasoline only.
Right now there is little incentive for consumers to own a flex-fuel vehicle
(alcohol fuel pumps are nearly as rare as unicorns) and there is little
incentive for gas-station owners to dedicate a pump to alcohol fuels (FFVs
comprise only about 3 per cent of the new-car market).
But within three years of the enactment of an FFV mandate, there would be 50
million cars on North American roads capable of running on high-alcohol
fuels. E85 pumps would be everywhere. And for the first time, OPEC nations
would come face-to-face with something utterly foreign to them: Competition.
By mandating that all new cars sold in the U. S. have flex-fuel capacity,
Congress would also induce all foreign auto makers who want access to the
American market to produce FFVs as well, effectively making flex fuel the
international standard.
In addition to the 50 million FFVs we'd see in the U.S. in three years,
there would be hundreds of millions more worldwide that could be powered by
any number of alternative fuels, forcing gasoline to compete against
methanol and ethanol, fuels that can be made in any number of ways.
Methanol, for example, can be made from any kind of biomass without
exception, as well as from coal, natural gas and recycled urban trash.
Ethanol can currently be made from a wide variety of starchy or sugar-rich
crops, but new means of making it are on the way, which will radically
expand its resource base to include many kinds of crop residues and weeds
that have no food value.
By making our cars compatible with such fuels, we will enormously expand and
diversify the options for growth in the Third World. This would effectively
break the monopoly that the oil cartel currently holds on the world's fuel
supply.
It would also foster sustainable Third World development. We could take a
trillion dollars a year - which is currently flowing to the oil cartel - and
direct it towards the world's agricultural sector instead.
With about 30 per cent of American farmland currently being used, and only
15 per cent of the arable land in the developing world, the amount of
untapped biomass potential on existing agricultural land is exceedingly
high, and with no negative effect on food supply or rain forests.
Certain opponents allege that ethanol's production from corn takes away from
the food supply, and that large irrigation requirements draw power that
exceeds that provided by the ethanol.
Such analyses, however, have been discredited. When ethanol is made from
corn, all of the protein in the corn is preserved for use as animal feeds,
and virtually no ethanol corn crop grown in the United States requires
irrigation. In fact, for the expenditure of a given amount of petroleum,
nearly 10 times as much ethanol can be produced as gasoline.
A variety of people have been quick to blame biofuels for the recent rise in
world food prices. Despite its corn ethanol program, U.S. corn exports have
continued to increase in recent years, and overall agricultural exports this
year are up over 23 per cent.
So it is not corn ethanol that is driving up global food prices, including
those for fish, rice, fruit, and other agricultural crops. Rather it is high
fuel costs, which have been rising at an average rate of 30 per cent per
year for the past nine years due to vicious OPEC price rigging.
The time has come to take the world off the petroleum standard and onto the
alcohol standard. Only in this way can we release the planet from OPEC's
stranglehold. Only in this way can we redirect funds to deal seriously with
the crushing problem of global poverty. Only in this way can we transfer
control of the future from those who take their wealth, pre-made, from the
ground, to those who make their wealth through hard work, skill and
creativity - and a concern for the future good of humanity.
Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics and author of Energy
Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.
energyvictory.net |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Anthony Matonak |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:58 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
Bob Eld wrote:
....
Quote: What is needed is for the United States Congress to pass a law requiring
that all new cars sold (not just made, but sold) in the United States be
flex-fuelled - that is, be able to run on any combination of gasoline or
alcohol fuels, including E85, which is a mix of 85 per cent ethanol and 15
per cent gasoline.
....
Why not go all the way and mandate that electric cars, or at least
plug in hybrids, be available for sale? How about forcing Chevron
to allow companies to manufacture NiMh batteries for electric cars?
Eminent domain is used all the time to steal peoples property for
a lot worse reasons than national security and reducing demand from
antagonistic oil supplying nations.
Anthony |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
|
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
The time now is Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:19 am
|
|
