Reply #6: Do you know what E85 is? [View All]

[kenny blankenship]

Know how many new vehicles can run on it while also being able to run on straight gasoline?
http://e85vehicles.com/

Many models rolling off the domestic auto makers' production lines already run on "alternative fuel" They are designed to be flexible, running on either an alcohol mix or on gasoline. The Chevrolet Corvette factory race team runs and wins on E85. The auto industry has undertaken these changes on its own, and you can soon expect to see E85 engines in combination with electric hybrid drivetrains--meaning the connection to gasoline is becoming attenuated to the point of vanishing. It's also possible to have biodiesel hybrid drive engines, and you may see these also coming down the road. These technologies can ameliorate the problem of unstable and expensive petroleum supply, but they won't do enough to ameliorate the problem of greenhouse gas pollution. They are transitional. Entirely different fuel technology must be developed in the long run.

But car companies DON'T control the oil companies. Car companies don't retail fuels--they would be forbidden to do that by longstanding antitrust laws even if they wished to. For consumers finding alternative fuels is very difficult and that's not something car companies can help them with. Car companies are NOT the government and cannot force refiners and fuel retailers to provide ANY kind of alternative fuel. Which is why you see the emphasis from the manufacturers on "flexfuel" engines, which can run on available gasoline. They can't design cars for fuels that don't exist in the marketplace, period.

The reason you see no progress is that government policy has done fuck-all to promote alternatives to gasoline--or simple fuel economy.

That has been true for as long as we've had a fuel crisis. I date the fuel crisis back to 1973. The Reagan Revolution met civilization's petroleum addiction with ridicule and vicious obstruction to any attempts to find any rational way out of the economic and ecological problems petroleum caused. Proposals to lead/drive the automotive and energy industries away from petroleum based fuels were attacked as "SOCIALIST!!!" We were reminded with cutting sarcasm that we didn't have a socialist, centrally planned economy. Mostly the petroleum problem was denied in all aspects (global warming, peak oil) and whenever its existence was admitted, we were told it would be solved by the wizardry of the marketplace. Instead the wizards of the free market put their energies into selling a "perpetual motion machine" --they spent the next 30 years conning people that stock prices and real estate would just go up forever. Longterm R&D in energy tech could not compete for investors' money against the lures of the Wall St. casino. Meanwhile, gasoline taxes were not structured to encourage fuel economy, as in Western Europe and Japan, and needless to say proposals to do so were barked down with cries of SOCIALISM!!! CAFE fuel economy standards, designed in the 1970s when 7+ liter engines in cars with 4500lb curb weights were common, were never revisited and improved.

That's not to say that our govt. did nothing at all about oil - far from it! Any frustrations we experienced with either price or availability of petroleum were dealt with by warfare --either by promoting it (Iran-Iraq War) to fracture the OPEC cartel, or conducting warfare directly ourselves (Gulf War - Iraq Invasion). But no progress to speak of by govt leadership was made in the development and --this is the important part--the adoption of alternative fuels during the Clinton years, and none has been made during Bush's years, unless you count Bush's promise that HYDROGEN IS THE FUTURE-DROP EVERYTHING ELSE! (How fitting that his diversionary proposed alternative to petroleum was the lightest and most insubstantial of all gasses) We still drive gasoline powered cars. There has been some govt. funded research at the margins, but what is needed is a Manhattan Project style effort--a full commitment-- and above all a willingness to guide/force institutional actors (automakers and the oil companies) to transition from petroleum based transportation fuels altogether.

Killing off the automakers would be a stupid and childish response to the challenge of shifting away a fuel that costs too much in blood and money, and which emits too much carbon dioxide. The writer from Columbus, Ohio wants not just to kill off the automakers but the car itself, which --put like that-- is saying he wants American civilization to jump off a high bridge. Smarter and more responsible people will see the missing ingredient is more political than technological, and that the only way to arrive at a future of cleaner air and more stable climate, without incurring a catastrophic economic collapse, and a literal bloodbath, is to force existing institutions to adapt. POLITICALLY. Destroying them out of spite will only ensure our own destruction.