Jihad Watch: Achieving energy independence

March 15, 2008

Achieving energy independence

There is no doubt that our resistance to the global jihad is severely hampered by our continued purchase of oil from the Saudis, who have done so much to finance the same jihad. And now six and a half years after 9/11, the President of the United States cannot cajole the Saudi King into agreeing to lower oil prices, as gasoline approaches the four-dollar-a-gallon mark, and yet he has done nothing to initiate any coherent plan to free us from this energy dependence.

It doesn't have to be this way. The Alaskan oil reserves could have been opened up years ago, over environmentalist objections, as a matter of national security. The U.S. could have pursued other oil options much more aggressively than it did, while undertaking a full-scale Manhattan Project to find viable new energy sources. And now in Energy Victory: Winning the War On Terror By Breaking Free of Oil, Robert Zubrin outlines what we can and should do now to keep from continuing to pay at the gas pump for our own destruction.

Zubrin, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering and was for many years a senior engineer at Lockheed Martin, here outlines a clear and practical program for achieving American energy independence within ten years. He explains in detail that even a non-specialist like me can understand (at least partially!) that a rapid transition to high-alcohol fuels -- methanol and ethanol -- is both practically feasible and desirable.

Zubrin also includes, however, a chapter entitled "Corrupting Washington," in which he details how the Saudis have done their best not only to sabotage efforts to wean the U.S. from oil, but also have bought influence in Washington so as to deflect scrutiny of the hollowness of their alliance with the U.S., and to keep American policy moving in a direction that the Saudis find useful. "The Saudis," he declares, "have been looting our economy on a massive scale and are using the proceeds to fund a global war against civilization" -- and he traces the sorry history of the supine American response to this challenge.

The continuing Saudi influence will be, of course, the chief obstacle to the implementation of any of Zubrin's proposals, unless we find somewhere a President and a Congress willing to grasp this nettle. But the informed citizen can begin to call these matters to the attention of his or her representatives -- and that is why this book is so urgently needed.

UPDATE: Zubrin presents a summary of his plan to break the oil cartel in an article he wrote recently for National Review Online.

Posted by Robert at March 15, 2008 1:24 PM
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Fill her up with Gas.

Do you want to blow up any towers with that sir?

Come on about time we had some terror free fuel

Posted by: LivingVictory

at March 15, 2008 2:28 PM

Liquid coal.

Posted by: counterjihadi

at March 15, 2008 2:31 PM

Unfortunately we are not wise to throw away oil when it has done wonders for us so far.

The trick is to drill for it in America everywhere, and to race to nuclear plants by enabling legislation and by the private sector right away.

Bio fuel is a joke and a fraud (like climate change and environmental purity) increasing inflation while making corn expensive and non alimentary - stupidity upon stupidity.

We should be paying our petrodollars to ourselves.

Enterprise and not govt. or corporate control should be the order of the day.

We can do it.

Posted by: dgene

at March 15, 2008 2:36 PM

Oil is a far better source of energy than it gets credit for. By all means pursue alternative energy sources that are not just pie-in-the-sky nonsense, but also drill for oil here in America and off our shores. This can be done with signifcant regard for the environment, although expecting perfection here is just more pie-in-the-sky idiocy. Also consider what nuclear energy offers us as well as coal, both of which have also been undervalued. In any case, let's get the hell off of Middle Eastern oil. The sooner the better.

Posted by: Wellington

at March 15, 2008 2:46 PM

I don't think ethanol makes sense, given how much energy is required to grow that corn, and the price rises that ensue for food. It may make transient political sense, in order to win support from farm states, but that is not enough of a justification.

However, a much bigger and unapologetic push for nuclear energy does make sense. The French now get 80% of their electricity from nuclear plants. How did they do it? By not allowing any hysteria to get in the way. Similarly, the German government now subsidizes installation of solar collectors on homes, with no prattle against such subsidies and relying only on "the market" allowed to prevent this policy.

The French model is instructive. The government builds those reactors, and there are only a handful of designs used again and again. Recognitizing that there need be only a few designs is imoprtant, for until now the private builders of nuclear reactors in the United States have designed anew each time. This makes for much greater expense, and time wasted getting approval. Further, no company, no matter how large, has the resources to insure itself. Only the government can do this. In other words, the government must play the main role in the promotion and building of nuclear power plants. Not something free-market fundamentalists will like, but that's too bad. During World War II the American govenment did not rely "on the market" to conduct the Manhattan Project or to build weapons at Los Angeles. Leslie Groves was in the army, an employee of the government, and not a corporate titan.

The attitude toward energy should be the same: no nonsense by those who are wedded only to nuclear energy and, for ideological reasons, scornful of solar and wind projects, and no nonsense by their mirror-images, those who are wedded only to "alternative" energy such as solar and wind power and who are scornful, or fearful, of nuclear power. Both are needed. Kindly check attitudinizing at the door of the energy saloon, before entering, spurs jingling, through the swinging doors.

Posted by: Hugh

at March 15, 2008 3:02 PM

America’s small move into ethanol is driving up food prices. It’s interesting a nuclear scientist is proposing a biotech solution. No one has developed the industrial enzymes needed to make ethanol close to practical yet.

The US has huge amounts of reduced carbon. Our coal and oil shale reserves are massive. At 100 bucks a barrel I think these are now very competitive. But will the tree hugers lets us at them.

Posted by: Ruebacca

at March 15, 2008 3:03 PM

"...and to race to nuclear plants by enabling legislation and by the private sector right away."

In the UK this has been a disaster. Hugh's on the money with his response. The French model is worth studying.

Posted by: Big Luke

at March 15, 2008 3:11 PM

Alcohols as fuel currently have strongly contested energy efficiency. However in the age of engineered genomes and nano-technology, a smaller-than-Manhattan project could definitely turn the energy equation in our favor. An engineered organism will not need to use grain, but rather the stalks, straw, slaughterhouse waste or used oil-based products. Lets not forget that oil once was plant and animal biomass. The question is do we want to do it and can we twist the arms of politicians and oil companies to do so. Personally I have no problem whatsoever with todays oil companies holding the keys to a future renewable energy. The critical thing is to get the muslim occupation out of the Judeo-Christian world and to close the gates before more invaders.

Posted by: Excommie

at March 15, 2008 3:11 PM

"...and to race to nuclear plants by enabling legislation and by the private sector right away."

In the UK this has been a disaster. Hugh's on the money with his response. The French model is worth studying.

Posted by: Big Luke

at March 15, 2008 3:11 PM

"...and to race to nuclear plants by enabling legislation and by the private sector right away."

In the UK this has been a disaster. Hugh's on the money with his response. The French model is worth studying.

Posted by: Big Luke

at March 15, 2008 3:13 PM

Our move to ethanol is so misguided, even if you believe that man-made CO2 is responsible for everything Al Gore claims. Ethanol just happens to be a carbon-based compound, which means that when you burn it, you get CO2.

Posted by: Bigfoot

at March 15, 2008 4:14 PM

The best thing that has ever happened to promote energy independence is sustained high crude prices. It has done more to spur alternative energy R&D than any government program could ever do. During the '90s when oil was around $10 a barrel, nobody in their right mind would have invested in alternative energy because it would have been darn near impossible to create an economically feasible alternative to petroleum based fuels. Now that it is feasible, a ton of VC money and other research dollars are being fed into research. I am sure we will have the equivalent of "pets.com" and all sorts of other crazy ideas but I know it is the next big investment frontier. Of course that probably means the next asset bubble but that is a discussion for an economics blog. We still have to take a bath on residential real estate then we can focus on the next bubble.

Posted by: mitch_b

at March 15, 2008 4:19 PM

Posted by: mitch_b

at March 15, 2008 4:20 PM

We need to start seriously thinking about this change over to new technology.

They are running hydrogen buses already.

Why don't they work on a Tri-brid car? Something that uses three types of power so that the range is vastly improved? And what about the EV electric car that could refuel it's electric engine in just a few seconds? Why not use that refueling technique for electric energy?

40 miles wouldn't get most commuters to DC. Or London if they got stuck in traffic if the miles also equals time running.

There needs to be a massive "Manhattan" project put together to get it rolling.

From Australia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq8aZVLpf-c&feature=related
A totally new type of engine.

Indian engineering. Lets watch what happens!

And this-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2281011.stm

Also google the Tesla car.

And take a look at the Hydrogen Hummer car.

New ideas are being worked on and some are ready to go.

From France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

From India
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Orqt85_ww&NR=1

And a water powered car. Uses electric and water. No gasoline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZOsOB3z3IE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf4gOS8aoFk&feature=related

We won't need oil for long.

A homemade hybrid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkIZQj-flc&NR=1

What happened to the EV?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AU3_2IT8k8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q0pjyJyGbI
A history - skip the first minute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lojW5S401hQ

I hope that some combination of these will get us off oil. I hope that some engineers will read this. And some politicians that can make things happen.

If you look at youtube there are lots and lots of people making their own conversions. In their garages and in their back yards.

Look them up. You will be surprised.

THIS MUST BE DONE.

SOON!

And the US doesn't have to be the one to get this started.

All countries need to be working on a way to become energy independant.

Free from oil and using a renewable source should be the goal. Nuclear may work but should not be a long term solution.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 4:37 PM

A informed consumer is key.

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell.................. 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco..........144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil............130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway.......117,740,000 barrels
Amoco....................62,231,000 barrels

Citgo Gas comes from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans.

Here are some large companies that DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco................0 barrels
Conoco................0 barrels
Sinclair..............0 barrels
BP/Phillips..... .....0 barrels
Hess................. 0 barrels
ARC0. ................0 barrels

Also: Pilot, Flying J, Love's, RaceTrac, Valero

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

As far as Nuclear, only the uninformed would go there. Using France as the model shows how the world needs to have open governments, and minds.

Thats like saying I want change, so I'll vote for B. Obama. The grass sounds greener, or somthing like that.

Oil is going to be with us for another 150 years, even without going for the hard to reach stuff. Coal, much longer. Other sources can be devoloped as these are in use.

Nuclear gets vamped up, and the fision fuel is gone in a century.

Then add this for my mind to ponder, How will you allow Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, S.A, etc, etc, to go for this clean and healthy source of energy? Or, no nuclear for them? Tell us your answers, or just leave it to the U.N.?

Tell me three issues with France's use of nuclear power, can you do this?

The grass of Nuclear only looks greener. It's as bad ,and as much a issue as buying oil from the M.E., somthing that the above shows is not needed at this time.

Posted by: Islofob IS-1

at March 15, 2008 4:39 PM

"while undertaking a full-scale Manhattan Project to find viable new energy sources."

From Christopher Ruddy;

Declare War on Oil

Imagine if President Bush, after 9/11, simply declared war on oil and put the whole nation behind ending our crippling dependence on it.

Imagine if we had spent the money we allocated to the war in Iraq toward eliminating the oil addiction. The tab for the Iraq war hovers around the $1 trillion mark and grows at a clip of at least $12 billion a month. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the cost through 2017, including hidden costs such as veterans’ benefits, could total $2.4 trillion.

There is little question that America is defending its interests in the Middle East largely because of oil. In his recent memoir “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Declaring war on oil should be — literally — a war, giving the president and Congress emergency powers to mobilize the nation as never before.

I am not talking about platitudes, which we are once again hearing from presidential candidates.

I remember watching Jimmy Carter’s 1977 televised speech in which he said dealing with America’s oil dependency as “the moral equivalent of war.”

In the years since, every president and presidential candidate has repeated the call to lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil. Yet little has been done.

Today the crisis is worse than ever as oil soars over $100 a barrel.

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Pickens painted a dire picture: The U.S. is paying foreigners one-half trillion dollars a year — and some of those nations are our enemies.

At current rates, America is set to spend $5 trillion over the next 10 years to buy foreign oil, Pickens said, adding “That's more than $1 billion a day.”

And he’s right; the beneficiaries of this wealth transfer are often the “bad guys” — Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.

The numbers show our dependency. Currently, about 70 percent of U.S. electricity generation comes from the burning of fossil fuels, with nuclear power accounting for about 20 percent, hydroelectric 5.6 percent, and all other sources only about 2.5 percent.

We need to declare war on oil.

Here’s how such a “war” might work. The president and his administration would have emergency powers to develop, design, create, and implement alternative energy sources — just like the president can do during a full blown war. And since this would be a war, the trial lawyers and environmental extremists wouldn’t be allowed to bring millions of dollars of time-consuming law suits to stop the implementation of these energy sources.

Here’s just some of the areas the U.S. could focus on:

— Nuclear energy. Its increased use could dramatically lower America’s dependence on oil. France gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, according to the latest statistics. As of June 2007, the production cost of nuclear power stood at 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour — compared to 9.63 cents for petroleum.

It’s environmentally friendly and we first led the world in this technology. Yet no new nuclear power plants have come on line in the U.S. since February 1996.

— Geothermal energy. You may not know this, but Iceland gets 99 percent of its electricity from geothermal means.

Drill deep into the earth and you get heat. Pour water down the hole and it vaporizes to steam. Steam can turn turbines to create electricity. Advocates say that a fully developed geothermal energy program in the U.S. could provide all American energy needs 2,000 times over.

Geothermal plants already provide thousands of megawatts of electricity to Northern California and Nevada.

— Wind power. This natural form of energy also is feasible. American wind energy installations currently produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of more than 2.5 million homes, but the potential exists for far more wind power production. Pickens says whole sections of the Midwest could harvest enormous energy from such wind farms.

— Coal liquification. This process converts coal into petroleum. Coal liquification has been used for some time, but it’s costly. Already, the U.S. Air Force is increasingly using synthetic fuels made of coal derivatives, which are far cheaper than jet fuel.

Our government could back developing new technologies to make this work on a mass scale. The U.S. has an abundance of coal. U.S. recoverable reserves are estimated at 275 billion tons, the most in the world.

We need to work at every level to end our oil dependency. Congress needs to pass tax and other incentives for companies to research and develop new energy sources. At the same time, Congress has to incentivize consumers to help create the market for alternative energy.

Posted by: havekoranwilltravel

at March 15, 2008 4:51 PM

That 150 year timeline is in despute. Some say it has less than fifty. Some say less than that and that it is already in decline. That is why the Saudi's won't increase production.

Why really knows?

Get away from dependance on it and it won't matter.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 4:52 PM

pimf Who really knows?

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 4:52 PM

Ethanol form a farm crop is not efficient - again is not efficient, unless you are a senator from a corn state and get big donations, or a grower who is lobbying for a subsidy. It takes a lot of energy to grow, harvest, and ferment the stuff. Furthermore, a gallon of ethanol has about 34% less potential energy than a gallon of gasoline.

We have Saudis pulling on one end and the environmentalists pulling on the other. We will not acheive energy independence in the next 100 years unless the environmentalists are silenced, either figuratively or literally. I suggest we just invade and take the damn oil; perhaps when the US economy completely collapses thirty years from now, it will happen. Has anyone considered that foreigners just might have enough US currency to ruin us now.

Tomorrow in church, ask your pastor why God allowed the most aggressive Muslims to have all the oil.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 5:16 PM

Agreed about the numbers, they are repeated in many reports and sources, I used the data that is found out there. But, who you buy gas from is clear, not all companys buy oil from the M.E.

And hopefully some who point to France as a model, do some studying. The idea is sound, looks good on paper, but it was rushed into, the price and real costs are hidden to protect the goverment, to keep the dangers hidden from view.

Posted by: Islofob IS-1

at March 15, 2008 5:17 PM

Biomass schemes are bullshit and burn up food which is a sin.

But if we take coal and convert this to methanol then we're talking. Robert Zubrin mentions coal conversion but emphasizes biomass to make methanol

Coal is millions of years of biomass in an easily accessible form. Why grow biomass when you can dig up coal. We have colossally coal reserves and can easily tell the Muslim oil barons to get lost

Posted by: dennisw

at March 15, 2008 5:21 PM

Havekoranwilltravel, tapping geothermal sources were once considered for Yellowstone, the environmentalists shot it down without too much effort.

Study Islofob IS-1's attitude toward nuclear energy and you will realize one reason why we will never acheive energy independence.

As for coal, it is one of the most dangerous occupations in the US. Strip mining is taboo.

Forget this energy independence, pie in the sky crap. The American form of government with lobbyists and assorted special interest, bed wetting environmental groups will not let it happen. We cannot explore in Alaska, drill offshore, strip mine coal, put wind mills on Cape Cod, build new refineries, defeat the ethanol lobby, build nuclear power plants, coal fired plants, hydroelectric dams, and so it goes.

Also, quit using the Manhattan Project as an example for acheiving energy independence, it was operated by the United States Army and the War Department until the AEC was created, and that is the only reason it was successful. When the Army acquired the land, some heavy handed tactics were used. The people caved in because it was "for the War." Imagine the Department of Energy managing a massive project such as Manhattan.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 5:52 PM

Borg

Given how solar powered cars haven't so far taken off, it would be intriguing to see how the air powered car you linked from India does. Also, as the article suggests, even if it doesn't catch on in the US, if India completely adapts it and eliminates its oil imports, that would be a body blow to OPEC, given how China and India are the leading consumers of oil today.

Posted by: Infidel Pride

at March 15, 2008 6:01 PM

My car runs on biodiesel. Why doesn't yours?

Posted by: Hyman Roth

at March 15, 2008 6:04 PM

Here's a small SUV with a battery that recharges in 10 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkXwwEC2p8&feature=related

An EV1 with 70 to 90 mile range.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEROQCvSMfo&feature=related

If the US is really under Saudi control, maybe China or India WILL be the ones to change away from oil. They don't have a history of innovation, but maybe they will work on it.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 6:09 PM

Don't put too much faith in wind power as a primary source either. This happened in Texas recently:

http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/02/29/0229blackouts.html

Wind might be a good supplement to older energy sources, but that's all.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 6:10 PM

If we are going to declare war on oil dependency, the first thing that should be done is to shut down all the pickup truck and SUV plants in the country. Those things are the terrorists' meal tickets, and driving a guzzler should be considered as unpatriotic as demanding the abolishment of Constitutional rights.

Oh, wait, a whole lot of self-styled "patriots" do both of those things. NEVER MIND!

Manhattan-style projects won't do. There is no one way to fix this problem, and the quick-fix mentality is how we got boondoggles like corn ethanol and Bush's hydrogen "Freedom Car". The problem is waste of oil, and the common element of the manifold solutions are that they are away from where we are now:

away from waste
away from oil
away from chemical fuels and combustion engines in general.

Bob Zubrin (whom I have met, and who accepted my loan of a laser pointer at one of the World Science Fiction Conventions) has some experience with chemistry but he is not a chemical engineer. He needs to meet another Robert: Robert Rapier, who is a chemical engineer, and whose degree work was heavily involved with biofuels. RR is almost as negative on ethanol as I am.

Alcohols make excellent motor fuels, but bio-alcohol production is limited by the ability of plants to capture carbon and fix it as sugars. Fermentation of a molecule of glucose yields 2 molecules of ethanol and 2 molecules of CO2; even the Billion-ton vision only projects the displacement of 30% of US petroleum use, or just half our current imports.

Alcohol from corn is particularly bad; at 2.66 gallons/bushel, the entire 2004 US corn crop of 11.8 billion bushels would have made only about 31 billion gallons of ethanol, even without considering the inputs of diesel to cultivate and natural gas to make nitrogen fertilizer and distill the product. Corn ethanol can be considered a tax-subsidized gas-to-liquids program.

The big problem is that liquid fuels are part of a very inefficient system. Producing finished liquids from biomass loses about half the energy you start with, and combustion drivetrains are as little as 15% efficient overall. Hydrogen is almost as bad, as Ulf Bossel has said at length. Coal-to-liquids has about the same 50% losses, and the depletion of high-grade coal in the US has sent energy production down even as tonnage goes up.

There is a solution. We would be in far better shape if we electrified our vehicles, even partially; the advantages of electric drivetrains are so overwhelming that we can take a huge bite out of fuel consumption by running only our first 20 miles a day on electricity. For this we need to push vehicles like the Chevy Volt, Aptera and VentureOne.

Electricity can come from just about any source, from the greenie's PV panel to the nuclear plant down the road. The network to distribute it is already there, and has plenty of spare capacity at night. Wind power, hydro, biomass, cogenerating home furnaces... electricity can come from varied and sometimes surprising places. We were on track to have electric-capable vehicles with the PNGV (easier to convert than the Prius), but Bush cancelled it in 2001. We need them now more than ever, and we have no time to waste.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 6:12 PM

Pelayo -

That is why hybrid sources for homes, and tri-brid sources for cars would be a good idea.

Just like many homes have a fire place incase the electric goes out.

If cars were made with that new, smaller engine from Australia, plus had a solar panel on the roof, (which would be defeated by snow or parking in a garage), with an electric engine for short runs with a small fan in the grill that turns when the car runs to recharge along with the recharge system from the brakes, plus a third system like a fuel cell for hydrogen conversion or an air powered tank, these cars would have range and be fail safe. Yes they would cost more but reliability is a big issue. With a tri-brid technology that would no longer be a worry. And the lack of fuel cost, or minor cost, would make up for the initial cost of the cars.

And we would be independant, the biggest plus of all.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 6:24 PM

Another rather remarkable, and highly under funded alternative.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil

Posted by: Lorgan

at March 15, 2008 6:30 PM

And on a few other points:

Nuclear energy does not directly address oil dependency, at least in the US. The USA only gets about 1.5% of its electricity from petroleum. If you want to get nuclear energy (or wind, or geothermal) to car wheels, you need electric propulsion. Without electric propulsion, none of these things can displace more than token amounts of oil.

Coal isn't going to save us; we are set up to run out of coal as fast as we ran out of domestic oil. Worse, our coal-producing regions tend to be dry (making water-intensive coal liquefaction difficult) and our rail transport capacity is stretched to the limit.

Drilling for oil won't help. If we drilled ANWR, we would barely get the Alaska pipeline back up to 3/4 capacity. The US is the most intensively prospected and drilled territory on earth, and we have to face one troublesome fact: we have burned through most of our own oil already, and nothing is going to change that.

Biodiesel is not a panacea. It's a great way to dispose of used fryer oil, but the productivity of oilseeds is far too low to do much (I say this as a diesel owner). The same is true of "anything into oil", which isn't economic unless the use of animal byproduct for animal feed is banned.

Ignore crank proposals like water-cars and zero-point energy.

If you asked me for a program to cut oil dependency in the USA, I'd give you something like this:

Make it easy for people to use less. If a lot of people commute into a city every day, put in rail so they can park and ride or even walk/bike to the rail station.

Electrify our rail system. It doesn't use much, but the noise and emissions of diesels are a problem.

Move as much freight as possible off roads to rail. There's no reason for someone to drive a truck to get 20 tons of kitty litter halfway across the country, but someone in my circle did just that. We should widen rights-of-way and exempt new rail infrastructure from property taxes to put rail on the same footing as freeways.

Install fast passenger rail to replace short-haul airline flights.

Tax petroleum. Increase taxes by a nickle a gallon every month for 5 years, with an option for another 5 years. Guzzling fuel hurts the country, and the country ought to make guzzling hurt.

Use the tax money to encourage people to buy electric vehicles, pay for charging stations, and all the things we'll need to replace oil with electricity.

More on this and other energy subjects at my blog and at The Oil Drum; my big proposal is Sustainability, Energy Independende and Agricultural Policy.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 6:40 PM

I don't know about the whole alcohol for gas thing. It appears that it ends up costing more in the long run cash wise, as well as causing the cost of corn to rise beyond some poor folks in the third worlds ability to pay. For food purposes that is. I have some links that detail this. It aint all good...trust me. Just search bio-fuel and starvation.

That aside...I understand that during the last attempt by reasonable people to open parts of Alaska to drilling, that there were adverts shown in the lower 48, showing Elk and waterfalls and Mountains accompanied with appropriate music. The voice over , beggin' folks not to rape the land.

Problem is...there are no Elk in Alaska. No waterfalls where we wanna drill. No mountains either. Just the same kinda land that we're already drillin' without killin' anything.

Stupid damn tree huggers are gonna kill us all one day. We don't even know for sure how much oil there is up here cause they won't let us look!

They're even trying to stop mining here. Right. No more Alaska Gold for you! Mines that have been running for decades will be shut down to make some environmentalist extremists feel good. All in an attempt to stop a huge and extremely profitable gold mine from opening.

I wish these twits could remember that oil makes their cars go. That gold can pay for stuff. And that freedom from dependence on people that want to kill us is a good thing.

Posted by: Alaskan

at March 15, 2008 6:41 PM

Engineer-Poet

Three wheels?
The Aptera looks more like a small plane and the Venture One looks like a covered motorbike
Both of those assume a tiny passenger load, cramed in.

What if you transport three or four passengers to a football or soccer game? Unpractical.

I like the info on the thin solar. That USDA report looks extensive, but disheartening. Only 1% is solar is currently used?

What do you think of some of those youtube links? Since you are an engineer.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 6:56 PM

Alaskan writes:

I wish these twits could remember that oil makes their cars go. That gold can pay for stuff. And that freedom from dependence on people that want to kill us is a good thing.

Believe me, those of us on the independence bandwagon (like R. James Woolsey) know this only too well. But we can't get freedom while oil makes our cars go.

Drilling won't get us there. Suppose ANWR has 10 billion barrels in it. That's just 913,000 bbl/day over 30 years. We could save that much with just a 10% cut in gasoline consumption (the US uses over 9 million bbl/day of gasoline). Heck, we could probably save that much overnight if people stopped driving like maniacs.

The major thing is going to be electric vehicles; when we don't need oil for our cars, we automatically stop feeding terrorism when we drive.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 6:56 PM

What is PNGV?

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 6:58 PM

Borg writes:

The Aptera looks more like a small plane and the Venture One looks like a covered motorbike

Blame the US government; the cost of crash-testing and other certifications for 4-wheel vehicles keeps startups out of that market.

The Aptera's aircraft styling is a plus in my book. Airplanes have to be efficient to fly (unless you put ridiculous amounts of power behind them) and the same elements work to cut drag at altitudes of 2 feet and 20,000 feet.

What if you transport three or four passengers to a football or soccer game?

Call a cab. Take a bus. Ride the commuter train that gets half the folks into town for work in the morning. If some things like hauling kids to lessons and practices all over town becomes impossible, just thing about what you'd have lost if we get a depression or, heaven forbid, an Islamic government.

What do you think of some of those youtube links?

I've stopped looking at such claims on YouTube, because they have turned out to be a waste of time. They invariably are pitched at an audience which has no grasp of the technical details, so they leave them out. Give me a transcript and I can scan it in 1/10 the time, and analyze the tables and appendices (which is where the meat is).

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 7:07 PM

Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles.

The Chrysler ESX-3 was achieving 72 MPG in 2000, and the Ford and GM test vehicles were getting 80 MPG. We lost all of that in 2001 due to Bush.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 7:09 PM

— Geothermal energy. You may not know this, but Iceland gets 99 percent of its electricity from geothermal means.

Iceland is an island covered with volcanoes. Geothermal has prospects on the big island of Hawaii, but not on the mainland. Maybe Yellowstone Lodge could power itself on geothermal but the rest of the country would have to find something else.

Biofuels require energy to produce. Most people point to Brazil, which is using sugar cane. There aren't a whole lot of places to grow sugar cane in the US and so we turned to corn. It's great for corn farmers. The farm lobby would be happy.

Look at Beijing if you want to see the effects of large-scale coal use, with or without scrubbers. Let's all get our masks ready.

The American people could make the biggest impact by giving up one thing: driving the SUV around town or to work. Buy a Honda or a Toyota. If GM wants your business tell them they need to produce fuel-efficient cars.

Maybe we should also stop looking for the one big solution. Even if you don't live in the desert, your home must catch a few rays every day. You don't have to live on the coast to catch the wind.
We've seen the effects of miniaturization. Surely in the not too distant future we will be able to see most, if not all, homes equipped to generate at least some electricity from wind and solar. Every little bit helps.

Posted by: PMK

at March 15, 2008 7:15 PM

When I was looking for a new car in 2004, fuel economy was on top of my list of requirements. Nothing from Detroit got close; they had no hybrids and the only diesels they offered were in big trucks, and got worse mileage than the SHO I was retiring.

I couldn't find a Prius even to sit in, let alone test drive. I wound up buying a Volkswagen TDI, and while it's not as thrifty as a Prius it WILL haul 5 people and it HAS hauled over a ton of cargo interstate at freeway speeds (and up and down mountains). My city mileage is better than the freeway figures touted by GM for their "economical" SUVs, and I got 28.6 MPG hauling 2700 lbs of cargo and trailer up and down I-77 through W. Virginia.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet

at March 15, 2008 7:24 PM

I'm reading this book right now and it is great. Zubrin knows whereof he writes.

This is a must-read.

Posted by: undaunted

at March 15, 2008 7:41 PM

November 2005 Middle East Forum had a Middle East Briefing in New York with Jim Woolsey. Woolsey explained it this way:

Every time in the past that America has started making noises about environmentalism and getting off oil, the Saudis have flooded the short-term light sweet crude market to lull Americans into a false sense of security about prices, and all the investment capital for alternative energies has dried up.

Now that the 4AR IPCC reports have come out — and climate science is no longer based on (really sage) models, but data, the Keeling Curve is absolutely incontrovertible in its implications. There is no longer any serious debate (except among those on the payroll of Big Oil and Coal) about what is going on. There is only debate about whether or not the bullet has left the gun or whether we have a little bit of time to top the Type Climate changes from hitting us hard.

Hansen says the bullet has left the chamber; Holdren, McCarthy et al. claim that we have 5-10 years to reverse course.

Now the Saudis know that the worldwide community is onto the global climate change problem ("global warming" is a very unfortunate misnomer, because it's about climate extremes of both hot and cold triggered by an overly warm general atmospheric condition). So now they're not bothering with playing around with short-term resources.

THEY ARE TRYING TO BANKRUPT THE WEST WHILE SHARI'A COMPLIANT BANKS ARE FUNNELING THE MONEY OUT OF THE USUAL INTERNATIONAL MARKETS INTO ONES THEY CONTROL SO THEY CAN BECOME THE WORLD'S LENDERS.

GET OFF OIL. It's much more serious on both fronts than most people image. Coal is not the answer. Corn is a disaster. But back-end switch grass ethanol is a good solutio. Switch grass grew on the American prairie before the US was settled (except by Indians) and it is what we grow on agricultural fallow years to replenish the soil. So we MUST grow it, and with switch grass ethanol the farmers can make money off something that is usually not productive, and it doesn't interfere with the production of food.

No, no, no on coal. And liquid coal carbon sequestration is an outright LIE. It's bullshit.

If you feel you need more education on global climate change, please see:

http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/media/INNOV0102_energy-innovation-imperative.pdf

This article is a couple of years old, and it looks even worse now than it did then. But this is the #1 best article to get a REAL overview of the problem. D. Holdren (immediate past pres of AAAS) explains it extremely well for the non-scientist.

To get a picture of why Woolsey says that Republicans who realize the war on terror is real and Democrats who realize the environmental problems are real ARE, OR SHOULD BE, NATURAL ALLIES.

We have to get off oil for a bunch of reasons:

(1) We are paying our enemies $1 billion a day for oil, and they are making bombs with it.

(2) That kind of balance of payments problem bleeds the jugular of the American economy.

(3) We don't dare tell 'em to shove it.

(4) The Chinese, who bear us no good will, are holding our paper on that debt, as well as selling us cheap goods, which also bleeds the economy of $1 billion a day.

(5) This situation makes it impossible for us to really stop anything. We can't tell the Saudis and Chavez to shove it with any authority. We can't tell the Bangladeshis to take care of their population problems. We can't help the starving of Africa. We can't demand that bad governments and religions stop abusing women.

We invented the light bulb, the airplane, the radio, the television, and nuclear fission. We went to the moon.

It's not a matter that we can't. It's a matter that we're too damned soft and lazy and arrogant to fix it.

"No civilization was ever conquered from without that did not first destroy itself from within." -- Will Durant

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 7:51 PM

This is one of my favorite sites for learning about all the latest alternative energy technologies and what advances they currently making. You can note the directory to the different alternative technologies on the lower left column of the home page.

http://pureenergysystems.com/

Posted by: Mackie

at March 15, 2008 7:51 PM

Kicking The Oil Addiction
Woolsey Drives off in a

100 MPG Plug-in Hybrid

Sam Orez March 12th 2008

Jim Woolsey and President Bush

In a special ceremony at the massive Washington International Renewable Energy Conference Former CIA Director and Set America Free co-founder Jim Woolsey picked up the keys to his newly converted Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle.

Woolsey's Prius was upgraded by Watertown, MA-based A123 Systems using an advanced Lithium-Ion battery developed at MIT. The conversion allows the Prius to achieve 100+ MPG and travel up to 40 miles on predominantly electric drive from one overnight charge. Each charge takes about 4 hours and costs about 65 cents in suburban Maryland.

"And if my Prius had an ethanol, other alcohol, or bio-based diesel engine using 85 percent biofuels," said Woolsey, "I would get close to 500 mpg on the petroleum fuel in the engine."

Woolsey's auto upgrade came on the same day that the 13-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rejected requests from America to increase oil production. As a result, petroleum that day close at $104.52 per barrel, and continues to soar upward. The former CIA chief and now alt energy champion told a panel of carmakers and other vehicle design experts that average consumers paying at the gas statsion were responsible for sending young Pakistani boys to madrassas to become suicide bombers. He asserted that Saudi Arabia finances more than 90 percent of radical Islamic education and that country's prime income source was oil. Woolsey also addressed a seminar on energy security sponsored by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, moderated by Gal Luft.

President George Bush dropped by to take a look at Jim's newly converted plug in hybrid vehicle and admired its bumper sticker: “Bin Laden Hates This Car." Bush also stated, "America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence." He did not explain what he meant.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 7:54 PM

Ethanol just happens to be a carbon-based compound, which means that when you burn it, you get CO2.

Posted by: Bigfoot

Using plant based fuel is carbon neutral. The plant used CO2 in the atmosphere to make the sugars or fats that can then be made into fuel.

Posted by: Ruebacca

at March 15, 2008 7:55 PM

Your Partnership link says that the program was cancelled at the request of automakers.

You don't even look at the youtube links? But you post links that you want others to read. Very, very long links. With lots of info that anyone who is not an engineer can not prove or disprove? Give you transcripts? You can use your eyes and then post your questions in the comments sections on most of the videos. Lots of people who claim to be mechanics do and ask questions about the technical nature of the inventions.

Several of those youtube links are news broadcasts. If you would take the time to look you could at least see what is being done by others who are working on these same issues. You are an engineer, I would think you would be curious to know what is being done away from the government labs. At car makers and universities. And inventors shops.

You say to charge a 5cent a year increasing tax to force people to buy electric cars. They aren't even mass available yet, how would people buy them?

Take a cab or a bus. There aren't any in many some towns. Yes, there really are lots of suburbs with no cabs. No commuter trains either unless you live in a major city. That goes for a lot of people. Have you been on a metro lately? The last time I was on one, the whole cabin was very nervous as a gang jumped on and threatened everyone. How would you like to deal with that on a daily basis?

Maybe we could do like France? Throw the poor out into the suburbs so that the cities could be safe again and people would move back? That would save a lot. But then those pesky moving vans run on gas don't they?

And those tree huggers are foolish, but at least they will buy those electric cars if they ever become available at mass market cost.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 7:57 PM

Ruebacca. I would like to test that carbon neutral assertion. The crop has to be planted, cared for, harvested, and fermented. That removes the carbon neutral assertion. The only way to preserve the neutrality is to ensure that "carbon neutral" fuels are used throughout the process. If ethanol from corn was the only fuel used to process the corn, would any ethanol be left over for any other purpose. In other words, the corn is planted with ethanol fueled machinery, fertilized with ethanol fueled machinery, harvested with ethanol, and the stills are heated with ethanol. Would any ethanol be left over?

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 8:44 PM

I need to post this for the new arrivals at JW.

My 2004 Ford Taurus gets about 30-34 mpg on a trip. My 1965 Mercury Comet (two door sedan, 200 cid six, manual transmission and no AC) got about 18-20 mpg under similar trip conditions and a recent tune-up. The Taurus is heavier, faster, better, bigger, and safer. Unlike the Comet, the Taurus fuel mileage has not fallen off since it was new. Engine designers have evolved the gasoline piston engine to the limit of its fuel efficiency. The last generation of fuel efficient cars will be lighter, slower, smaller, and not so safe.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 9:13 PM

Pelayo ...

Your point is exactly why every savvy environmentalist (I'm talking scientists) WARNED people not to get into corn ethanol. It is a front-end ethanol product. What you want is a back-end product like switch grass or sugar cane ethanol, where you using a non-food product that enriches the soil and grows naturally as a ground-cover weed (switch grass) or as a waste product, like the dregs of sugar cane, which is what got Brazil completely off foreign oil. They're off oil.

Corn ethanol is the most wasteful thing you can imagine. It takes more energy to produce it than you get when you burn it. It was a combination of Monsanto providing the seeds and the corn growers making out like bandits. So, big FARMA.

On the other hand, switch-grass, the native grass of the Great Plains, springs up as a weed when you stop planting. Not only that, it returns nutrients to the soil faster than any other plant that grows on the North American continent. So farmers MUST grow switch-grass for the crop-rotation fallow cycle. They make money then on something that they usually post as a $0 or as a loss in fallow-field years.

Switch grass is taken to CELLUSOIC not corn ethanol, which burns extremely cleanly. But the place to burn it isn't your car. Burn it in your HVAC unit, capture the smoke, use the heat to generate electricity for your house, and then plug in your car.

Plug-ins get about 10 times the amount of efficiency for use of all fuel than internal combustion engines get burning gasoline.

Transportation is the biggie in terms of foreign oil. Sequestration is a myth.

And American needs to find a solution, because CHINA IS BUILDING ONE COAL-BURNING, POLLUTION ENERGY COMPANY A DAY.

And the way the jet stream runs, that huge brown cloud lands on Portland and Seattle. This gets worse for them every day.

So I vote for Yankee Ingenuity that solves this problem and then we sell it to the rest of the world.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 9:25 PM

Love the comments, so far. I need to get this book.

Here's another ingredient for the stew:

Oil has never been proven to be the remains of fossilized plants and animals. Read BLACK GOLD STRANGLEHOLD, by Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith.

Corsi and Smith report on the research that indicates oil is produced by a combination of geological forces in the earth's crust, and that productive "oil fields" are just places where the immense pressures at depth have forced the oil toward the surface through weak spots in the crust.

This process is continuous. Oil IS a renewable resource, renewed by the earth every day.

Another book, one I haven't read yet, but which is extensively cited in STRANGLEHOLD, is THE DEEP HOT BIOSPHERE: The Myth of Fossil Fuels, by Thomas Gold. Several countries are already producing oil from ultra-deep wells -- oil that could not have originated from anything that ever lived on the surface of the earth.

Oil is down there, and can be, and is being pumped for sale on the world's markets. The sooner we get to it, the sooner the mohammedans will go back to their stone-age lifestyle, murdering only each other, because oil is too cheap to buy them tickets to the civilized world.

Posted by: RedStateInfidel

at March 15, 2008 9:31 PM

Folks ...

To correct something above ...

The earth is an extremely poor conductor of heat. Even in New England, the ground never freezes below about 6', even if the temperature is below freezing all the time for more than 45 days.

Generally, at 4' deep all over the United States, the ground temperature is 50-55F. In the lower half of the country, it can be as much as 75F for at least half the year.

Geothermal energy uses 1-3% as much energy to pull into service as coal- or oil-based energy.

Those of you who are thinking of building homes, look into this. It'll save you a FORTUNE.

Also, remember if you live in a hot Southern climate, that JUST ONE huge bush or tree that casts a shadow on your outer house walls is worth $300/year on your electric bill.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 9:32 PM

RedStateInfidel ...

The problem with oil is that there is actually TONS of it, but most all of the easily-accessible of it is in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Saudi.

The other big deposit is in Kazakhstan, but the Chinese have wrapped that up.

The Athabasca fields in Canada are rich, but they are like the Colorado deposits: shale oil is extremely expensive to get out of the ground and refine.

I think it's well to listen to the people who are talking about peak oil and the way that the Saudi and BIG OIL companies are lying about it.

The Saudis are running up the prices as fast as they can — and so are the big oil companies — in part because that they know that the Saudis have nearly pumped out the easily-refined oil and that the crash on the oil market is coming.

That crash is potentially hugely horrible for this country. When oil goes to $10 a gallon then it's going to hit this economy like a ton of bricks.

Already the people at the bottom of the US economy are in big trouble, and the reason we in a recession now has more to do with oil prices than anything else.

The oil-rich Islamists nations are laughing all the way to the bank while the infidel its on its hands and buys one more lie after the other from the oil companies and OPEC. Meanwhile, we have that genetic throw-back down in Venezuela rattling his sabor at Colombia and the USA.

We need an alternative, utterly clean — even if we could bear oil financially and in terms of you safety, we can't do it environmentally — that is a brainchild of American brillianc that we can sell to the rest of the world.

We can do this. If we don't, somebody else will, and then we'll have to buy it from them.

Enough.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 9:41 PM

By the way RedStateInfidel ...

The Saudis have already told the Bush administration that if an alternative to oil is found, the will need massive, long-term foreign aid from ... the United States.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 9:44 PM

The price of oil, as an international commodity is set in the global marketplace. We can opt out of the global oil market by switching to alternative vehicle fuels, but it will not stop the international trade in oil or prevent the Saudi, Iraqi, Irani, and Russki, et.al., profits from rolling in, to their benefit. The best we can do is insulate ourselves from the buffeting of price jolts in that market, and to avoid the energy jizya, as we become a kind of energy "fortress americana". But maybe that's enough.

Posted by: Emerson Twain

at March 15, 2008 9:44 PM

Emerson ...

But look at this: If we come up with something really great, the WHOLE WORLD will get off oil. We need them to. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 100 years. Every year we're putting more in than the environment can break down. And since it stays in so long, every year that's cumultative to an exponential degree.

And that's not just warming. That threatens some things that are even more serious and deadly. See Fred Pearce: "With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change" ... published last year.

And there are really fantastic possibilities.

Here's one. John Kanzius, a radio engineer, had leukemia and tried to figure out how to save his own life. He did. Nanotechnology using gold. Cancer cells absorb gold more than regular cells, so if you ingest them, bombard yourself with radio waves, radio waves heat up the gold and the cell explodes without harming normal cells alongside.

But, he discovered something else ... Regular radio waves (like in your car radio) bombaring salt water, cause the water to burn at about 1500F, same as your internal combustion engine.

A couple of things come up:

(1) Heat
(2) Corrosive properties of salt water

But the temperature is no higher than that of an internal combustion engine, but then there's the salinity.

Both problems are solved with Aremcolex low-density ceramics in a folded configuration: one low-density is impervious to molten salts and another low-density is the kind used in rocket nozzles and space shuttle heat tiles. It just doesn't conduct heat *through* on one plane at all.

Both problems solved.

By-products: hot water vapor (condensed for your shower) and recyclable condensed mineral products (used for industry)

Do you put it in your car? You could. There is a ceramic rotary engine that is fantastic, so you could do that.

But mostly, you run your home HVAC and use a plug-in car that has a light-weight one-gallon model of your home HVAC in case you run out of juice.

Or, you condense the salts, mix them with regular water (in your gas tank instead of gas) and run it just like a regular engine, except that the salt just in a packet you replace and the water is in a closed, recyclable system since it's not the water that's burning but the salt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

BTW, John Kunzius' cancer treatment apparently worked. He's been in remission for 24 years.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 10:11 PM

Also, somebody has now built a compressed air automobile. Cost to fill up: $1.50 per TANK at the place you get the air for your tires.

But you can bet the oil companies do NOT want you to have this. So you'll have to fight to get this stuff.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 10:13 PM

Hydrogen is a good avenue off the Oil cul de sac.

It can now be produced by bacteria (which work like yeasts) that can digest any organic matter and expel hydrogen as "waste".

Penn State biochemists have the prototype organisms and, in interviews, say they need some serious backers ($40 million) to get a test refinery running and to add hydrogen pumps to the first series of nearby gas stations.

It's cleaner than most fuels when "burned" and the solid residue can be composted back to fresh soil.

A recycling that finally pays off.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at March 15, 2008 10:13 PM

IF WE DON'T FIGURE OUT A WAY TO TAKE COLLECTIVE ACTION OF SOME SORT, THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM THAT SO MANY HAVE FOUGHT AND DIED FOR WILL BE SWALLOWED UP BY SHARIA.

The attack of 9/11 represents only the smallest part of the international jihad that is taking place, and we are currently experiencing the effect of the "economic jihad" perpetrated against the West. (Yes, that's right - the subprime crisis was planned for, and supported by, the forces of Islam. As much as we may not want to admit it, our enemies are very smart and well-funded, and too many in the West have been lulled into a false sense of security.)

In addition, much of the oil money that is flowing into Islamic countries is being used to buy off high level politicians, business people, teachers, and newspaper executives in the United States.

Sorry to say this, Mr. Spencer, but it's not enough to host a website that provides a scholarly review of the madness that is the Qu'ran and the Hadith. We have to do more, and we need you (and your friends) to help us do it!

Accordingly, Mr. Spencer, why don't you use your internet pulpit (and your connections with other like minded people) to:

1) invite people to give money to a campaign to put up billboards around the country that contain quotes from the Qu'ran and the Hadith? Do you really think that your website reaches enough people to create the critical mass needed to do anything about global jihad? Let me answer that for you - it doesn't! Your site does, however, reach enough people to start generating the dollars that will be needed to start doing something substantive to counter jihad.

2) invite people to rally around the idea (and to write to their representatives in Congress) that we need to start utilizing shale oil (see more on this below), and yes, Alaskan oil and natural gas, to achieve energy independence.

3) invite people to give money to support investigations into how it is that Saudi oil money is being used to buy off politicians, and to fund political groups, and to buy off newspapers and reporters in the United States.

Let's freaking DO SOMETHING PEOPLE, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

And as for shale oil . . . WE HAVE 2 TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL IN THIS COUNTRY, BUT WE LACK THE WILL TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! I personally lobbied high-level people in the Giuliani campaign to make it a part of their "energy independence" plan - to no avail. I blog constantly about this, but if you were to ask 100 U.S. citizens what "shale oil" is, most would shrug their shoulders.

We could achieve complete oil independence in 5 years, if we just had enough Americans out there demanding it. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

P.S. Don't believe me regarding shale oil? Just go here, or hundreds of other sites: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660227927,00.html

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 10:14 PM

Turner ...

Shale oil will bankrupt the country to extract and distill, and this is a racket provided by the oil industry.

Sure, that and another hundred sites bankrolled by the oil industry.

They will string us along until they squeeze the last drop of blood out of us at $15.00 a gallon.

Shale oil is a DISASTER for America, another oil industry racket that will make it worse than it is now. I don't mind drilling Anwar, but the solution is NON-OIL ENERGY PERIOD.

No more of this ongoing, eternal racket.

And BTW, Robert Spencer does enough now and doesn't have to let himself or this site be used by you or anybody else. How dare you scold him with "it's not enough." Yes, it is. It's more than enough for one person to have done.

Take responsibility for creating your own bully pulpit, but do try to sell us something that is a REAL solution, not just something that buries America deeper and bleeds her from the jugular in the process.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 10:20 PM

From the link above - That Aptera is a joke. Room for one person and one bag of groceries.
And the VentureOne is the same joke. Room for two people and no groceries.

If that is what real engineers are putting out there as viable alternatives, nothing will change.

I don't believe either of them could be really viable. They are aerodynamic all right, but, after all, who brings home groceries in an airplane?

I may not have a technical grasp of the engineering aspects, but I can tell duds when I see them.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 10:39 PM

Borg ...

See mine on John Kunzius above
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

Also, can I make a suggestion. You deserve a better name. I think of radical Islamists as the Borg, and when you use it, it throws me.

You make really good comments a lot of the time. How about:

Sage

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 10:44 PM

Morgaan - I have posted that same link about the salt water guy Kunzius several times.

It is in this thread. Did you look at the videos linked above?

It is just above the phrase, "We won't need oil for long."

The report says that government engineers are looking into using it.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 10:50 PM

Morgan: I'm willing to learn more about shale oil, but how is shale oil a disaster for America? It seems pretty straightforward to me - we pay billions upon billions of dollars to Islamic countries, and if we used that money to extract shale oil, we could pay all that money to ourselves. Where's the disaster?

If it really is a disaster, then I'll be out there telling everybody that we need to look at other sources - but I need proof. Simply saying "non-oil" is the answer is, well, it's NO answer. The common theme that I keep running across in all discussions of alternative fuels is that oil is really the best type of fuel out there for automobiles, and that's why we keep using it. Unless and until we have something that works better (or as good) that costs less, we should be sticking to what is tried and true.

Honestly though - why is shale oil a disaster? And note - it's not enough to say "Big oil is bad is run by evil people" - I just don't believe it. It's just demagoguery. Just give me some specifics and I swear I'll listen. And for anyone touting another type of fuel - I'll listen there too. But remember - for each one of these fuels, you have to compare it with the power (y'know, horse power) and cost of oil.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 10:54 PM

Morgaan - The air car story link is above also. It's the one that says From France.

Of course there are other air cars also. The one from India.

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 10:56 PM

Ok, and one other thing. The oil companies are largely the ones who say that shale oil WON'T work - they got burned in the 1970's trying to make it work and they've soured on the idea. (And yes, I know this for a fact because I had a discussion about it with none other than T. Boone Pickens.) All of the hundreds of websites discussing shale oil have nothing to do with oil companies.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 10:58 PM

Borg ...

OK, great. Yeah, I know Kunzius wouldn't sell it to the oil companies, because he thought they would bury it, like they buried the windmobile and a bunch of other stuff.

It's definitely do-able. It just is. I am thinking of experimenting with it myself, but I have to get the exhaust system in the kitched geared for it.

The basic problem is the salt corrosiveness, but the Aremcolex looks very good to me. I've had a chunk of it lying in salt water for about four months now, and there's no breakdown in the ceramic at all. But I have to test it under flame, and some of the trace minerals will change chemical configuration in escaping gases when I do that, so I have to get the exhaust system worked up to trap it first.

Actually, there are some good solutions for everybody now, and we could get off foreign oil simply if everybody pitched in. But laziness is a huge factor here.

Do see if you can get a copy of "With Speed and Violence" ...

I interviewed Fred Pearce when he was in Cambridge last year. Interview is here:

http://www.climate-talks.net/2006-ENVRE130/Conversations/20070502-Fred-Pearce-CCTV-Interview-Index.htm

It'll stream off the Harvard website. Take the video (30 minutes) not the audio, which is just a 2-minute thing for CCTV

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 11:06 PM

Morgan: I'm sorry, but the more I look at your post, the more I get riled up. "But do try to sell us something that is a REAL solution, not just something that buries America deeper and bleeds her from the jugular in the process."

"Buries America deeper"? "Bleeds her from the jugular"? What the h*ll does that mean, anyway?

Let's go through this logically:

Currently, we use gasoline to power our cars.

To date, nothing has been introduced that is as powerful, efficient, and cheap as gasoline.

Gasoline requires crude oil and the processing of same.

We get large amounts of this oil from Islamic countries - countries that are our sworn enemies and who will use a significant portion of the money we send them for oil to destroy our way of life.

We have 2 trillion barrels of crude oil in our country, and we appear to have the technology to extract it for around $30 a barrel. This crude oil can be processed and turned into gasoline, and we could use this gasoline to run our cars for about the next 200 years. No need to replace hundreds of millions of cars on the road with other engines (at a cost of billions of dollars), and no need to make use of alternative fuels that simply do not provide the same horsepower as gasoline.

I think I've just provided a REAL solution, as opposed to others who provide SURREAL solutions. Where am I wrong? Just go point by point (and remember, there's lots of people watching, so don't waste our collective time with more blanket statements unsupported by any factual or logical analysis.)

And Robert Spencer can take care of himself - the comments I directed to him can be addressed by the great man himself.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 11:08 PM

Morgaan-

Yes, I looked at your link, that's why I knew it was the same story.

As for my moniker, it reminds me of what we are up against every time I sign in.

I'm glad my comments are even getting read. Sometimes I feel like I am beating a dead horse with these videos on alternative cars and fuels. I really think it is important.

My other dead horse is family size. If we get off oil but have to have immigration to keep the country from shrinking, will we still be taken over by islam?

Posted by: Borg

at March 15, 2008 11:08 PM

Turner ...

Not so. From May of LAST year:

QUOTING FROM http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/29/business/bxshale.php

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible.

"The breakthrough is that now the oil companies have a way of getting this oil out of the ground without the massive energy and manpower costs that killed these projects in the 1970s," said Pete Stark, an analyst at IHS, a research firm in Englewood, Colorado. "All the shale rocks in the world are going to be revisited now to see how much oil they contain."

END QUOTE.

No, they are REALLY, REALLY GOING AFTER THIS. This is after Simmons proved to everybody that the Saudis had crossed the peak and were lying about it.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 11:10 PM

Borg ...

Take the AUDIO of the Pearce interview ... not the (ultrashort) video.

Got that reversed!

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 11:11 PM

Morgaan Sinclair, that teeny-tiny air car cannot be aired up where you put air in your tires. That car requires 4350 psi, that is about 400 times the pressure capacity of any service station tire/air compressor. (Read the linked article.) That compressor will cost several thousand dollars as opposed to the few hundred for a tire air compressor. I'll believe the $2 price to "fill up" when I see it.

I certainly do not want to be near anything that has a pressure of 4350 psi. If you think a tire at 30 psi makes a loud bang when there is a blow out, when a 4350 psi tank fails, people die.

With oil at $100 + per barrel, shale oil is worth the cost.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 11:11 PM

Pelayo ...

Shale oil isn't worth it because the amount of pollution is untenable. Everybody who wants to beat that dead horse keeps not wanting to deal with the fact that right now Americans are using 6x what the Chinese (with five times our population) are using.

BUT, the Chinese just passed the USA in total pollution, and they are getting rich fast. If a solution to oil pollution is not found, the amount of people in the full atmosphere will be 25x what it is now in about 10 years, and they don't give a damn.

Also, air compressor air car is not small and it does fill up at the tire station. I don't know what you're looking at.

We have to solve this atmospheric methane and CO2 buildup problem, because the ocean warming is now down to 1,500' and if those methane gas cathrates in the ocean go ... well, the last time they did it, it wiped out 2/3 of the species on the whole planet.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair

at March 15, 2008 11:15 PM

Morgan: Yes, agreed. Of course, I'm very much aware of the fact that Exxon and Chevron are spending $100 million to try out the new method of extracting the shale oil. This is why I think it represents a "real solution" to the problem that we have right now, because these two companies are spending at least a little R&D money to go after it.

Just a logical note: your argument is that shale oil is being played up by the U.S. oil companies as a means to keep us dependent on using fossil fuels. (A fair summary of your argument, right?) I don't see anything in any of your posts so far to support this claim. And your claim that the many websites and stories out there talking about shale oil have somehow been put out there by oil companies - well, I'm not even going to spend the time to refute it. Anyone can do a search on "shale oil" for themselves and check out who's right on this.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 11:17 PM

"...and to keep American policy moving in a direction that the Saudis find useful."

What? That's just wrong! 'Cuz everyone knows that the evil Zionist Jooos control the U.S. government... (/sarcasm)

Cheers

Posted by: Doctor Bulldog

at March 15, 2008 11:23 PM

And one other thing - I'm am ALL FOR A CAR THAT IS POWERED BY WATER, OR EVEN SUBSTANTIALLY POWERED BY WATER. Based upon my 42 years here on planet earth, along with an ongoing interest in science, new technologies, and the internal combustion engine, I'm afraid I have to view breaking stories about cars powered by water with a healthy dose of skepticism.

But let me go on the record here - when someone comes out with a car powered by water that can deliver the power of gasoline, with an engine that can go 100k miles overall, I will be the FIRST ONE TO BUY IT! Not only that, but I will immediately invest $1 million in the company. (And I have the wherewithal to do so.)

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 11:23 PM

Also, somebody has now built a compressed air automobile. Cost to fill up: $1.50 per TANK at the place you get the air for your tires. Posted by : Morgaan Sinclair

Morgaan don’t get to excited, the PSI required to fill that air tank in that teensy-weensy car is way beyond the PSI used to fill your SUV tires, beside the extremely limited range and extremely long wait for the tank to fill and the danger of exploding during a wreck, it’s a stupid idea.

Ethanol is not the answer for many reasons a few being, higher food prices plus the government buying this global warming BS and the byproduct of ethanol being CO2.

Posted by: BurgerBoy

at March 15, 2008 11:25 PM

What's this about a windmobile? Is it a variation of the Windwagon Smith scam of 1853?

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 11:31 PM

Morgan, I am looking at this article:

Service stations do not have 4350 psi air compressors!!!!! Dammit.

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 11:36 PM

The real story about greenhouse gasses - it's water vapor.

http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html#wv

Posted by: Pelayo

at March 15, 2008 11:45 PM

Most of the proposed solutions don't take an end-to-end engineering approach to the problem, but rather deal with one or a few of the links in the chain. We have to look at the total picture, from source to final end products. The in between steps are receiving a lot of attention just now, but the end points need to be considered, too. And we need to find a long term solution that will serve us into the indefinite future.

Consider the following fuels:

Oil and coal - These are nonrenewable, so they fail the "long term solution" test.

Ethanol - if it's from corn or soybeans or similar kinds of crops you can forget it. It takes more energy to produce the fertilizer needed for these crops than you get back out from the ethanol. This is not a solution, merely a sop to agribusiness. It would further serve to enhance the rate of depletion of already seriously depleted topsoil in our country that we depend on for food.

Nuclear - maybe, but nuclear power plants add thermal heat to the environment. At the moment the total heat output from the totality of the world's nuclear power plants is much less than is received from the sun. However, a full-blown switch to nuclear would, over time, create problems. And this doesn't even begin to address the problem of disposal of radioactive debris.

Thermonuclear, i.e., controlled thermonuclear fusion. The Plasma community has yet to create a sustained, confined fusion reaction although it has been trying to do so for at least the past 30 years. It is sometimes claimed this is a "clean" process, and so it might be if you don't take into account the nasty byproducts produced by irradiation of, and the consequent nuclear transformations that occur within, the containment structures. Again, there is a potentially very severe radioactive waste disposal problem associated with the process.

As with nuclear, the thermonuclear approach adds heat to the environment that would not otherwise be there. Over time it would begin to compete with other sources of global warming, such as CO2 emissions.

One possible source that could be explored is the methane deposits in the sea.

Geothermal would be good, except it, too, would release into the environment heat that would otherwise remain trapped underground. The same would be true for any source that taps into thermal energy from beneath the earth's mantle.

From the standpoint of achieving neutral balance of energy in vs energy out, solar power is about as close to the ideal as you can get. Some of the energy that falls on the earth would just be diverted to do some useful work before it otherwise gets radiated away into space. The total global energy balance remains the same, and there would be no additional global warming from this source.

Of course, if one insists on energy balance, then using solar energy puts a cap on the total amount of energy available from solar power, equal to the energy incident on the disk of the earth. Although I'm pretty sure industry would not be happy not having the freedom to consume infinite amounts of energy if it were available, there is a limit to how much energy we can let loose in the environment without risking upsetting one of the feedback mechanisms that regulate the operation of the terrestrial machine.

We also need to pose questions about the complexity and costs of any long term infrastructure that would be built. And its maintenance and safety.

Posted by: Eastview

at March 15, 2008 11:46 PM

Oh well, probably nothing will be accomplished here. Mr. Spencer - if you happen to read this, please don't take my comments to be critical of what you have accomplished so far. I consider you to be a hero for what you have done, and if this is as far as you wish to take things, that's ok.

However, I think everyone (except for jihadists) who signs on to this website would agree that going down the path of passively making information regarding the Qu'ran and hadith available via a website (along with a few personal appearances per year), although a good thing, is NOT going to counteract Islamic thugs who have billions of dollars, and a 1400 year tradition of treachery, behind them. More needs to be done - we need to be proactive, we need to create networks of hundreds of thousands of people who are willing to put up cash to accomplish specific and targeted projects.

An advertising campaign that does nothing but quote from the Qu'ran and Hadith, via billboards, email, and TV? Why not? It would cost money, yes, but it would be proactive.

A concerted campaign to get our government to wean us off Islamic oil by forcing the exploitation of existing oil reserves here in the U.S.? Once again, proactive, and NOT based upon pie in the sky automobile engines that run on water or air!

Tracking down where Saudi money goes and who is getting bought with it? Ok, difficult, but still very important. Very expensive? Yes. But even if a few people could be exposed, that would lead to the end of Saudi influence on our government, our news, our educational institutions, and our lives.

The real question is - who is in a position to start making the above a reality? I think the answer is you - along with your contacts in the media (Michele Malkin, Mark Levin, etc.) who could help spread the message. What we need are specific projects that will capture the imaginations of lots of people - people who already accept that we must act now to counter international jihad.

Getting information out there regarding the truth of the Qu'ran and Hadith, and the nature of the idealogy that is Islam, is of course still very important. We need more and more people to understand this. But now the question is, Mr. Spencer - what do you plan to do with the (hopefully) thousands of people like myself that you have taught? The ones already on board who understand that we are at war? Just keep teaching us over and over again? Not enough! There's no one else out there who wants to stand up to jihad. Too many people in positions of authority are on the take. I hate to say it, but it's up to you to get this ball rolling somehow.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 15, 2008 11:59 PM

To jturner2tellthetruth:

I second your motion. Spencer and Fitzgerald, along with other pundits listed in the side bar of this site, have done much to educate all of us about the nature of our enemy in The Long War.

You've created an army, Robert. Think about ways to mobilize it into constructive action.

Posted by: Eastview

at March 16, 2008 12:09 AM

Alternative energy is not 'pie in the sky'. It is being used now.

Buses running on hydrogen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znGmFONDP9Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3zCq4cR5IQ

They are trying to improve the technology even further, but it is working well even now.

We will never be entirely 'off' oil since even hydrogen vehicles need oil to lube the engines. Also plastics are made with oil, as are lots of other things. So talk of oil sands and oil shales will still be happening.

Morgaan- I listened to the audio. That is why the environmentalists can be enlisted to try the alternative energy cars. The type 2 theory is unproven but certainly plausable. If it happens it will be too late to stop it.

jturner and Eastview-

Robert Spencer has been doing a lot. Lots more than just this website. And there have been billboards, which have been taken down quickly.

Lots of people have been sued for speaking up. And thrown in jail after being sued.

Geert Wilders is speaking up.

And being ostracized.

If you want to help, try buying some books and giving them out. Use news stories to get a conversation going about the dangers.

The main people that need convincing are the leaders. Work on them with your support. Most leaders that speak out get ousted pretty quickly. And condemned. That needs to change. Write and vote your support.

Posted by: Borg

at March 16, 2008 12:31 AM

We cannot instantly change over to some new energy source or form of propulsion for our vehicles. The horse and buggy did not disappear overnight. But it did vanish. Now THERE was a HUGE industry that was rendered obsolete. It can happen.
Something will replace oil in the same fashion.

In the meantime we need some oil...now.
In 89 I had a choice between a Daihatsu that got 53 on the highway at 65 and 43 around town and a Geo Metro that had an EPA rating of 68 on the highway. 68!
Even the Prius, for all the hype, averages a measly 45 over all.

My 2000 Toyota Echo gets 50 Hwy, and 38 in town. (I have a lead foot.) It's the best mileage I could find in a car that was available here in the States.

What the hell happened? Logically, one would expect a trend such as increased mileage to continue, not reverse!

What I see around me on the road between Anchorage and Wasilla whilst I commute are, by comparison, a bunch of gas guzzling monsters. The majority of the drivers around me are piloting trucks and various SUVs that get 12 to maybe 18 Hwy. Very few drivers are getting even 30.
Car manufacturers regularly BRAG about a car that gets 30 or 35 on the Hwy.

Why?

Because we consumers gets exactly what we ask for. This is the nature of Capitalism, and the US is what it is because of it. (And I see that as a good thing.) It has its upsides and downsides.

If we make bad decisions regarding what it is we want in the future, then we have to live with it. This is what is happening now. We are driving what we asked for. If we all stopped buying the rigs that got crappy mileage, the industry would respond with better mileage vehicles. This is the nature of Capitalism.

I understand that the air powered car dude is working on an air tank that will hold enough compressed air to get you across the breadth of the lower 48 in one shot.

Posted by: Alaskan

at March 16, 2008 12:34 AM

A hydrogen/soybean oil fuel bus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYMyIL05tA4

GM director discusses hydrogen fuel cell technology cars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7E8NCz01YY

And a GM concept hydrogen car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKExuHlQMQ

Japanese water car. Though it is in Japanese you can plainly see they are pouring WATER into the tank as fuel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1OWDcWoXHs&NR=1

Posted by: Borg

at March 16, 2008 12:56 AM

Alaskan- across the lower 48 in one shot by compressed air. It's really a hybrid of air and fuel, but yes.

See the youtube link above 'From France' at 4:37pm.

MDI - They have air compression buses and taxi cars in service now in France.

Posted by: Borg

at March 16, 2008 1:18 AM

Borg: Where are the billboards that are being taken down? I would've heard about it through jihadwatch or littlegreenfootballs - haven't heard a thing. I know a thing or two about first amendment law - there's nothing wrong with putting up direct quotes from the Qu'ran. In fact, I think it would be better to not even provide information as to where the quote came from - just put the quote up on the billboard.

I'll be blunt - ain't nothing going to change unless and until somebody figures out a way to collect a lot of money and put it into programs aimed at counteracting jihad, or at least coming up with better ways of spreading the message that islamic idealogy is the problem. The jihadists have about, oh, a 1400 year head start on us, and billions of dollars to spend. They've bought people all around the world - they've bought Jimmy Carter and the Bush family. (And I don't like admitting that the Bush's have been bought, cuz I voted for 'em. But the recent pictures of George W. hanging out with Saudi princes drove the point home for me.)

Our president should be demanding that Saudi Arabia provide equal rights for women, and equal rights for all religions, NOT playing swords with these evil "leaders." Until we have the ability to say "ok, well, we're not buying any more oil from you" this is what we're left with.

I think enough people have been mobilized with the truth. Time to move on to Phase B!

And note - our recent economic problems with the subprime mess have made me very worried. I had a conversation about a year and a half ago with a Muslim who calmly, and in retrospect knowingly, predicted exactly what has now occurred - that the subprime market would crash, and that it would be up to Islamic countries to provide the cash to prop up our system.

Any time we have Islamic sovereign wealth funds bailing out our country is the time to start seriously worrying. In other words - the time for calm, logical dissemination of the truth of Islam is, I'm afraid, past. Islamic funds are buying critical parts of our financial infrastructure, and our leaders have been paid off to make it happen. We, the people, are getting sold down the river - it's as if the idea of "America" is ending.

We're not "Americans" anymore - we're a bunch of people who happen to live within the lower half of North America, and we're useful because we can work for whoever happens to own our major institutions. I don't like thinking about it, because it makes me sick to my stomach - but I can't read a paper or watch TV without coming to this conclusion. If you like the idea of your children spending their lives working to pay off the debt that our country has with the Islamic world, and watching Sharia creep take over the country, then just sit there and do nothing. I prefer to go on the offensive, and at least go down swinging.

Posted by: jturner2tellthetruth

at March 16, 2008 1:20 AM

Going on the offensive, yes. That will be how we Americans will get the job done. And no one will be able to stop it from happening. Lepanto, redux. I like it. Gentlemen, start y