Thursday, February 02, 2006
Ending Oil Dependence...
Pipe Dream or Possibility?
Lot's of guffaws at the President's goal of cutting our dependency of Middle Eastern Oil by 75% in the next 14 years or so. Of course parsing the President's words.."Middle East" means of course we can import more oil from Venezuela, Nigeria and so forth and thus be 'less dependent' on Middle Eastern imports...How very Clintonian.
Anyway, prior to the speech, I did read a compelling article in last week's Fortune Magazine. Is it possible to drastically reduce imports of oil. Yes, in fact Brazil seems to have been able to kick the habit by making greater use of ethanol. Seems genetic engineers have new ways to make the stuff and it's better than that gasohol crap in the 1970s. Better yet, a regulatory quick has made a good portion of U.S. cars already capable of using either gas or ethanol blended fuels. Compelling and perhaps possible. Oh and as an added bonus, we could cut the green house gas emissions from our cars by up to 80%. Seems worthy of exploring to me.
Lot's of guffaws at the President's goal of cutting our dependency of Middle Eastern Oil by 75% in the next 14 years or so. Of course parsing the President's words.."Middle East" means of course we can import more oil from Venezuela, Nigeria and so forth and thus be 'less dependent' on Middle Eastern imports...How very Clintonian.
Anyway, prior to the speech, I did read a compelling article in last week's Fortune Magazine. Is it possible to drastically reduce imports of oil. Yes, in fact Brazil seems to have been able to kick the habit by making greater use of ethanol. Seems genetic engineers have new ways to make the stuff and it's better than that gasohol crap in the 1970s. Better yet, a regulatory quick has made a good portion of U.S. cars already capable of using either gas or ethanol blended fuels. Compelling and perhaps possible. Oh and as an added bonus, we could cut the green house gas emissions from our cars by up to 80%. Seems worthy of exploring to me.
