The American Spectator

p> FUEL ME ONCE br> Re: Martin Hutchinson’s The Politics of Oil Addiction : /p> p>Good article. Comprehensive. Has anyone noticed the recent study that shows it takes slightly more than a gallon of oil to produce one gallon of domestic ethanol? Also, twenty years ago there was much talk of how too high a concentration of ethanol pitted the cylinder walls of a motor; that seems to have disappeared without a whimper. br> — Lawrence Chisholm /p>

Great article.

The whole situation is full of complex axis of thought. Suburbia is here to stay, it’s just a matter of keeping transportation cheap. Powering the vehicle fleet with a blend of alcohol is a good start. The biggest impediment to the fleet’s efficiency is its weight. SUVs are obvious for their heft, but in a quest to make other cars more solid and safer a lot of steel has been added. Also tailpipe regulations prohibit the most efficient engines that exist in Europe, the turbo diesel and direct injection gasoline, to be sold here.

p>Also nobody is talking about getting oil out of businesses it’s not needed. Phasing out the use of oil for heating would be a good start. Problem is the price of natural gas has gone through the roof. Solution would be to reinstate the ban on generating electricity with natural gas. Calpine and its ilk have tied up the market for long term contracts. br> Electricity my boy its the answer for the rest. But we need to keep it cheap. Time to deploy the nuclear solution. As far as I’m concerned every major metro area gets a mega reactor site with the government having the power to silence the NIMBYS and courts. /p>