I realize that my suggestion for moving to Ethanol 85 is self-evident to many, but many more seem to be incredulous. My letter was written with this hypothesis in mind: Oil cannot get cheaper as the demand is growing far faster than supply can possibly keep up with. China, India and the Third World will be bidding against us on the world oil market, and that is where the price is set. There are millions of American cars on the road and it is unthinkable that we should be able to replace them within a generation with more fuel efficient vehicles.
Thomas Friedman wrote a column recently that stated that the country that dominates the century will be the one that innovates and creates Green technology first. Our society is the perfect incubator for adaptation and innovation, as an open society allows for each of us to be a catalyst and inspiration to each other. Population pressures necessitate that the wars of the future will be wars for scarce fresh water, arable land, and other finite resources.
Oil independence will make America immune to the necessity of militarism. An imperialistic America is definitely not the America of my youth. It is valuable not to be na?ve, but we possessed the moral high road for most of my lifetime, and I miss feeling that America is the champion of human rights and freedom for all.
We must convince Detroit to tell Big Oil to convert one tank to E85 in their stations, as it will take far too long to develop hydrogen safely. Revitalizing the electric vehicle (EV) fleet makes a lot of sense. The only reason for recalling it was oil industry pressure. Those cars proved very satisfactory for short runs at little cost.
America must stop knuckling under to big energy.
Dave Gebhard
Lakeport
