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| Developing the New Infrastructure |
CBS News recently featured a group of high school kids who built a hybrid bio-diesel car
that goes from zero to sixty in about four seconds and gets over 50 miles per gallon. It can
be found at the address below.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml
Since so many people are agreeing that there is a need to switch to some type of liquid
fuel alternative, here’s an idea for helping to build the new infrastructure that will be
necessary to start using those alternative liquid fuels (some form of ethno or bio-diesel -
more on the exact type of blend later).
Instead of a gross profits tax being levied against the oil industry, as has been suggested,
get the oil companies (NOT the gas stations, which are not doing that well - but the big oil
producing companies, which are, and which have posted record profits) to install an
alternative fuel pump and tank at every gas station in America. This would be easy
enough for the oil companies; no new technology would be required for this phase of the
project, and there would be a target number of stations to be reached in a target number
of years. It would be a concrete goal, and could be implemented with a minimum of fuss.
Just thinking off the top of my head, lets say the target numbers are set at 85% of pumps
installed within eight years. The big oil companies, like big companies anywhere, would
end up raising their rates slightly to pay for their output. That is no big deal; the work
would get done, and it would get done under the specifications set forth in the ‘Rebuild
America’s Energy Infrastructure Bill for the Future’, in which codes could be set dealing
with the types of pumps, the size of tanks and other structural matters of the program.
On the other end of this equation, an immediate overview of the science of alternative
liquid fuels from plant matter should be studied and a national product settled upon,
whether it be bio-diesel or some alternative.
One of the common complaints about such fuel is the cost involved (the product costs
more to manufacture than it yields in energy). This may be true at the moment, but when
there is any new technology emerging the first generation of that product will always be
the most expensive to produce. The government should help find funding to pay for the
startup of refineries that will produce the new fuels. The larger these refineries, and the
more modern, the cheaper this fuel will become, simply through the economics of mass
production. It is also a fallacy that all the money needed for such a project would have to
be new money.
We already pay huge subsidies to farmers. Below, look at the chart and consider this,
published in a report by the Cato Institute:
“ . . . subsidies were expected to cost (U.S. Taxpayers, ed.) $47 billion in total from 1996 to
2002.
Instead, farm subsidies since 1996 have cost $123 billion.”
The above report can be found at:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0203.html
Instead of growing food stuffs that compete with small farmers across the world, the
farmers could switch some percentage of lands to growing the most production efficient
plants for producing bio-diesel (or whatever blend of alternative fuel they decide upon).
The subsidies we are already paying towards the farming industry, instead of squashing
foreign farms that simply cannot compete, would go towards paying for the rebuilding of
the alternative mix fuels infrastructure.
In the chart you can clearly see how much money is spent on these subsidies through
2001, and the yearly numbers have not gone done, but have risen steadily. The chart was
also supplied by the Cato Institute.
Not only would this help us prepare this necessary, new part of the infrastructure, it
would improve our foreign relations by a large degree, and help out poor farmers all over
the world who simply cannot compete with European and American subsidized super
growers.
In a page and a half, I have outlined a plan that is by no means exorbitant. All one has to
do is look at the amount of gallons American gas companies pump per year, and then at
the profit statements of the oil companies from which we get that oil. I don’t know the
exact cost of this, but I know that it would be easily absorbed.
I also know, that the longer we wait to take even the first step, the longer it will take to get
this done. And unfortunately, events will not always wait on us. Just as Katrina struck
New Orleans, there are storms approaching for which our leaders have had ample
warning. They have ignored those warning - and it is my fear that they will continue to
ignore those warnings until disaster strikes again.
that goes from zero to sixty in about four seconds and gets over 50 miles per gallon. It can
be found at the address below.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml
Since so many people are agreeing that there is a need to switch to some type of liquid
fuel alternative, here’s an idea for helping to build the new infrastructure that will be
necessary to start using those alternative liquid fuels (some form of ethno or bio-diesel -
more on the exact type of blend later).
Instead of a gross profits tax being levied against the oil industry, as has been suggested,
get the oil companies (NOT the gas stations, which are not doing that well - but the big oil
producing companies, which are, and which have posted record profits) to install an
alternative fuel pump and tank at every gas station in America. This would be easy
enough for the oil companies; no new technology would be required for this phase of the
project, and there would be a target number of stations to be reached in a target number
of years. It would be a concrete goal, and could be implemented with a minimum of fuss.
Just thinking off the top of my head, lets say the target numbers are set at 85% of pumps
installed within eight years. The big oil companies, like big companies anywhere, would
end up raising their rates slightly to pay for their output. That is no big deal; the work
would get done, and it would get done under the specifications set forth in the ‘Rebuild
America’s Energy Infrastructure Bill for the Future’, in which codes could be set dealing
with the types of pumps, the size of tanks and other structural matters of the program.
On the other end of this equation, an immediate overview of the science of alternative
liquid fuels from plant matter should be studied and a national product settled upon,
whether it be bio-diesel or some alternative.
One of the common complaints about such fuel is the cost involved (the product costs
more to manufacture than it yields in energy). This may be true at the moment, but when
there is any new technology emerging the first generation of that product will always be
the most expensive to produce. The government should help find funding to pay for the
startup of refineries that will produce the new fuels. The larger these refineries, and the
more modern, the cheaper this fuel will become, simply through the economics of mass
production. It is also a fallacy that all the money needed for such a project would have to
be new money.
We already pay huge subsidies to farmers. Below, look at the chart and consider this,
published in a report by the Cato Institute:
“ . . . subsidies were expected to cost (U.S. Taxpayers, ed.) $47 billion in total from 1996 to
2002.
Instead, farm subsidies since 1996 have cost $123 billion.”
The above report can be found at:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0203.html
Instead of growing food stuffs that compete with small farmers across the world, the
farmers could switch some percentage of lands to growing the most production efficient
plants for producing bio-diesel (or whatever blend of alternative fuel they decide upon).
The subsidies we are already paying towards the farming industry, instead of squashing
foreign farms that simply cannot compete, would go towards paying for the rebuilding of
the alternative mix fuels infrastructure.
In the chart you can clearly see how much money is spent on these subsidies through
2001, and the yearly numbers have not gone done, but have risen steadily. The chart was
also supplied by the Cato Institute.
Not only would this help us prepare this necessary, new part of the infrastructure, it
would improve our foreign relations by a large degree, and help out poor farmers all over
the world who simply cannot compete with European and American subsidized super
growers.
In a page and a half, I have outlined a plan that is by no means exorbitant. All one has to
do is look at the amount of gallons American gas companies pump per year, and then at
the profit statements of the oil companies from which we get that oil. I don’t know the
exact cost of this, but I know that it would be easily absorbed.
I also know, that the longer we wait to take even the first step, the longer it will take to get
this done. And unfortunately, events will not always wait on us. Just as Katrina struck
New Orleans, there are storms approaching for which our leaders have had ample
warning. They have ignored those warning - and it is my fear that they will continue to
ignore those warnings until disaster strikes again.
