Has anyone read this book? I just finished it up and I am having a hard time disagreeing with this guy, someone help me figure out where his plan doesn't work.

Basically the author, world renowned engineer Robert Zubrin is saying that the government should very soon mandate all cars in the U.S. be flex fuel vehicles. He says in the book any car can become flex fuel with under 500 dollars in parts. If we do this we can stop funding the Saudis who are the true enemy we are fighting in the middle east. Our farmers here at home can grow the corn we need to produce ethanol so we can run all of our cars off of e85.

The book spends a lot of time dealing with how the Saudis are the worst people over the middle east and how our unending funding of oil money to them is fueling them to support terrorist organizations.

He also talks about Brazil and how they are starting the policy he wants to have our own government enact and how successful it has been.


Also, I got this off another forum I spend some time on.. It's something I've been thinking about recently but haven't had the time to blog on it or post a thread.. so anyway here's my say.

It would suck for the gas stations... But gas prices are already ridiculous, and it would open more jobs relating to e85.

What do you guys think of this plan?

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"I suppose I always knew America would eventually break the planet, like some ghastly, hyperactive toddler that gets hold of a mobile phone and then smashes it repeatedly against the edge of a table". Quote from british journalist.

What an idiot! We don't really need "flexfuel" cars. We could become energy independent in 180 days if we wanted to right now, with very little effort. Toss that silly book on the fire, to stay warm.

lol, I didn't read the book. Read toward the bottom when I said I got the topic off another forum. Anyway yeah we could become energy dependent as well.

We need another alternative for fuel. Something like hydrogen that won.t mess up the
enviroment and leed to global warming. I hate Saudis.

I agree with every one of Med's words in the above post (yikes, did I really say that?).

Here's what one country did:

The Peruvians hate Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government, so the government leaders of Peru came up with a great idea to become independent from Venezuelan oil. Peru is flush with natural gas, so they converted all the vehicles over to natural gas. The cost of the conversion is around $2,500 per car. For those people who cannot afford to convert their cars to the new fuel, the government pays for the conversion. They install a sensor in the filler pipe and the citizen pays the government back at a rate of ten-cents per gallon. The sensor automatically adds the ten-cent charge as the gas is being pumped. Natural gas at the pump is about one-third the cost of regular gasoline, so everyone is making out. Cleaner air, cheaper fuel and Hugo Chavez takes it up the wazoo.

I'm thinking very seriously about buying a new Toyota Prius. Drove one the other day at the Toyota dealer. Sweet car ... actually averages about 50mpg.

Vi
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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!

Don't forget to change those light bulbs,~LOL~.

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"I suppose I always knew America would eventually break the planet, like some ghastly, hyperactive toddler that gets hold of a mobile phone and then smashes it repeatedly against the edge of a table". Quote from british journalist.

~lol~ ... Fuck that Med. I bought fifteen cases of regular, 60 & 100 watt light bulbs just to fuck with those socialist bastards in Sacramento. There's a whole bunch of us here in California who are hoarding the old lightbulbs. Don't tell anyone though. You know how those socialists are ... they make a mistake, then ratchet up government power to cover the mistake with another mistake. In other words, if the word gets out about us hoarding the old lightbulbs, they'll outlaw regular sockets, pass a regulation for new sockets, then pass another regulation to modify the cork-screw, whimpy light bulbs they want us to use to fit the new sockets.

Have you forgotten ... its 1984 here in California.

Vi

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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!

As I have said before, a few small changes would result in a 30 percent fuel savings. For instance:

1. Evict illegal aliens
2. Take EVERY illegal driver to jail
3. Change the 2 most used lights in your house to CFL
4. Add a surcharge to high consummation vehicles
5. Twist fucking Detroit's ball sack tightly and FORCE them to make diesel cars available
6. Forget corn-fuel and replant prairies and fields in switch grass. Distill it into fuel and it makes a great air
cleaner (better than a pine tree).
7. Reinflate car tires with nitrogen.
8. Change major boulevards into 12 second green light intervals from 6 second green light intervals
9. Suspend the driving privileges of everyone caught speeding 11 over
10. Demand shippers move more freight on rails and less on trucks, Even a small percentage of change would have HUGE results.
11. Shift the tax advantages away from commercial vehicle replacement toward commercial vehicle enhancements (for energy savings).
12. Change the work schedules of all government employees to a 3 and a half day work week. Everyone would still work 40 hours per week, but in a shorter week. Services would actually spread out for consumers and fuel consumption would go down.
13. Make tax advantages for construction of large square foot structures next to light rail lines and bus lines. Urban sprawl is killing us and it is the result of negative tax policy.

Shit I could do this all night. There is NO energy shortage, only an energy allocation mess. By the way, gasoline is fungible and fairly inelastic in demand. So a 10 decrease in demand would seriously mess up the oil companies profit structures.

Combine a couple of these topics and you have a 10 percent fuel savings. Fuck the oil companies. Fuck the car companies that wish to "promote" hybrid and flex fuel cars (they make a lot of money on these trash heaps). Fuck politicians who favor the lobbyists that want us to depend on these companies to survive.

"12. Change the work schedules of all government employees to a 3 and a half day work week. Everyone would still work 40 hours per week, but in a shorter week. Services would actually spread out for consumers and fuel consumption would go down."

The city in which I live actually did this a few years ago. It turned into such a pain in the ass for real people, who actually do real jobs, that actually produce real products, that actually produce a profit, that they had to go back to five days a week.

In addition to that, like most government bureaucracies, they didn't think their little plot through. They didn't think about the city employees who would be driving their cars, mowing the lawn with the power mower, water skiing behind the power boat ... and just generally doing things that more normal people do on their days off.

The clincher was, though ... a brighter bulb, in the private sector of course, came up with the suggestion that the city employees take days off during the middle of the week just to prove that their little scheme wasn't intended to just get very long weekends.

We're back to normal now.

Vi



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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!