The Oil Crack And Our Addiction To It

I watched the State of the Union address last night (Tivo’ed it) after the council meeting. Lots of same olds’ same olds being pulled out and mentioned – Bush wants 20% reduction in oil consumption by 2011, wants fuel efficiencies, no details how to get there.

Here is my suggestion:

Look to Brazil, a country that is totally off the oil nipple and onto Ethanol. Ethanol made from sugar, not corn.

The difference between the two sources is startling. The return gotten from the ethanol made from corn is 1 ½ times what you put into making it. Compare that to a return rate of 8 to 1 by using sugar to produce the ethanol.

Brazil has done the research into this sugar source and has fine tuned it to some 41 different species of plants – plants that can grow in almost any type of soil, are disease resistant and can be manipulated to produce a very high sugar content, with minimal waste by products.

The problem with corn is that the starch has to be extracted, then converted to the sugar- base used to create the Ethanol.

Where does Brazil currently get most of its’ automobiles that use this sugar based Ethanol?

Detroit. The technology is in place on the production line already.

Now imagine what could happen if we took just one of the 100 billion dollar supplemental appropriations that have or are being used in Iraq and applied it to a 5 year plan of credits to consumers (car buyers), sugar farmers, ethanol production infrastructure development, etc.

We could stop using our current 25% of the world’s oil on an annual basis, while stopping the emissions that are helping create the green house effects.

A question – if this was all in place right now – would we really give a rat’s ass about what is happening in the Middle East? Where would these archaic countries be without the petrodollars we send over? We, by default, go on supporting these repressive regimes because of our need for their oil.

What if Bush had said this, or something like it, on Sept. 12, 2001. We would have all fell into line, readily said “yes sir” and we would have been on our way to being off the oil crack by now.

Instead we are in the middle of civil war, slipping on quicksand, with over 3,000 dead and more the same ahead.