What happened to alternative energy

Yesterday's (10-19-08)"Washington Post" carried an article regarding the downward spiral in crude oil prices and its effect on the development of alternative fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, and better batteries for electric cars. General Motors is no considering what to do about the much touted VOLT scheduled to be introduced in a couple of years. Tesla, manufacturer of some very high electric cars is laying of workers and locking doors. Manufacturers of ethanol and biodiesel are wondering what happens as oil prices continue to drop to 50% of what a barrel cost just a few months ago.

And what are we consumers doing? We are beginning to look again with covetous eyes at bigger, faster, gasoline guzzling road hogs. Over the years, the automobile industry has convinced soccer moms (and hockey moms I suppose) to haul the kids around in what used to be consider a truck. They lulled us into thinking it's OK to run to the store for a loaf of bread and a quart of milk in a vehicle designed for combat--designed to operate in all climes from desert to swamp while it gets all of eight to ten miles to the gallon. We buy cars that can go from 0 to 60 in just a few seconds and then drive them down highways with speed limits anywhere from 25 to 70 miles per hour. More than a 100 years since Henry Ford cranked up the first Model T, we are still stuck in gasoline powered cars while, at the same time, we have developed vehicles that can travel much of our universe and take men and equipment to the moon and back.

And while we drive around in these gasoline powered vehicles, we are in the midst of the largest transfer of wealth that has ever existed in the history of mankind. Countries that had basically become sand farms over the centuries before it was discovered they were sitting on lakes of sweet crude oil, now run our economy up and down like a yoyo on a string. They collectively decide how much oil they are willing to share and we reward them by paying whatever they demand for it. In the meantime, they are building the world's tallest and most elaborate buildings, they are creating islands shaped like palm trees, driving around on gasoline that costs just a few cents. They have built indoor skiing slopes and they bathe in marble tubs with gold fixtures. And just when we started using less oil and the price began to drop, they are reconsidering just how much oil they should sell us.

Wake up America! Let them pour their oil on their Wheaties or whatever it is they have for breakfast. We have the capability to be really independent of foreign oil, but it means we must get to work on such things as ethanol (produced from many things) and biodiesel--a very clean fuel. Every large cattle operation, every large municipal sewage system has the feed stock needed to feed algae to produce an oil that can be made into biodiesel and a fertilizer that is far superior to the feedstock that wnet into the process. While it sounds like a lot, 15,000 square miles of oil producing algae farms would produce enough fuel to allow us to stop importing oil for gasoline and diesel. Think about it--poop to fuel. Not a new idea--the French used hog manure to produce methane to power cars in World War II. And communities and large farms are doing the same thing today. Let's quit giving our money away--let's break the yoke the oil produces have on our necks. We can do it and we can reverse this wealth transfer, but it takes all of us to do it.