Dr. Forbush Thinks

George W Bush went out on a limb last night and told us that the US had it in its technological know how to develop alternative fuels. America needs these alternative fuels because we are addicted to oil. This is funny, really funny. Wasn’t it 30 years ago when the environmentalists tried to get the government to create incentives for these types of programs? In 30 years we would certainly have already moved over to using hydrogen instead of oil to power not only cars but power plants and homes. Solar and nuclear energy would be used to store the energy in the form of hydrogen. We wouldn’t have created some percentage of the green house gasses that we already have, and we wouldn’t create some amount of the future ones either. Global Warming would have been put into check.

But, the environmentalists were laughed off the world stage and the world got a bit dirtier and hotter. But, now that George W Bush has declared that America is addicted to Oil things will change. After all, America is a technological leader and we will develop some new technology very soon. And, perhaps in twenty years or so we will be able to get the new fuel into the American infrastructure with private companies that will see a profit in this.

Well, too bad for America, because Brazil has already done this. Over 70% of Brazils cars can run on ethanol. Brazil worked with Ford to develop cars that can work on both ethanol and gasoline by virtue of a simple switch. And Brazil has a production and distribution system for creating and producing ethanol fuel. Brazil has worked the bugs out of the system. So, when gasoline costs more than ethanol then ethanol sales go up; and when ethanol is more expensive than ethanol then gasoline sales go up. The fuels are being tied together and the alternative fuels will become an alternative for the world.

So, perhaps it isn’t about America’s addition to oil that Bush cares about. Maybe Bush sees the dominance of the US oil cartel loosing more leverage. If Bush gives money to his oil buddies for them to do alternative fuels research they will simply copy the Brazilian example and put ethanol pumps at every American service station before new entrepreneurs are able to do the same thing more quickly using someone else’s capital. Oil companies aren’t stupid and they know that they could loose 50% of the market share if they don’t jump on the bandwagon quickly. And if gasoline continues to rise, as it is forecast, then alternative fuel could become even more attractive. Oil companies could loose even more market share.

So, this has nothing to do with the environment or care for our planet. In fact, burning ethanol still puts carbon dioxide into the air, but it’s carbon dioxide that has already been there and absorbed by the corn that is grown to make the ethanol. Looking at the system we still get smog in our cities, but it isn’t old smog from that was locked away, but new smog that was in the air last year.

But I still wonder, since America is addicted to oil and the SUV drivers waste more oil than any other drivers. And, addition to anything is considered a sin. And, SUV owners seem to be largely Republicans judging by all the W sticks and yellow ribbons I see on the backs of these vehicles. Given all that, can we finally call these idiots un-American?

Just wondering! But, there is hope that these American who revere George W Bush as if he were God will finally conserve some fuel. Perhaps only drive their SUVs off road like God intended them to be driven. Perhaps they will begin to think of the rest of us as we choke on their inordinate amount of exhaust, and they take up the neighboring parking spaces by virtue of the width of their car. Perhaps they’ll say, “Hey George won’t like if I drive my SUV, better sell it.” There is just so much to be optimistic about our new environment leader.




Environment,Gasoline,Alternative Fuels,Ethanol,Politics