Dubai Ski
Resort in the desert
Built in desert by American Gas
Consumers Americans spend their hard earned dollars to make snow
at Dubai ski resort.
Replacing gasoline with
Natural Gas is the solution to unemployment,
By Jack Corbett
This picture is of a Dubai ski resort in the middle of the desert
created from American dollars, European
euros, Japanese yen and other currencies from countries that have become
such slaves to Mid-Eastern oil that they've finally succumbed to throwing their
national treasures into the toilet. The U.S. has meanwhile been
fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while its own economy has been
tottering on the brink as it continues to justify these totally useless
and un-winnable wars as nation building. But
there is no nation building going on in the U.S. and there hasn't been
for some time. There is a solution to this, but
obviously our present government representatives either are such morons
that they've never thought about it or have had their souls purchased by
special interest groups such as Big Oil and a military industrial
complex that needs armed conflict to preserve itself. The United
States has up to a hundred year supply of natural gas. It is
successfully being used in such countries as Thailand which are weaning
themselves off expensive Mid-East oil where it's available at a fraction
of the cost of gasoline. Natural gas needs to made a vital part of
a comprehensive solution to U.S. dependence on Mid-East oil that is
comprised of home grown energy alternatives to Mid-East oil such as
Wind-power, Ethanol, Solar, nuclear and even including domestic sources
of oil which need to be utilized in such vitally needed specific
industries such as farming even while they are being phased out for
normal passenger car use. Such a policy, in spite of huge initial
costs and setbacks will result in a rebirth of the American economy
together with the elimination of an expensive military presence
overseas. And it's not just the economy which will win, it is also
likely that the destruction of our planet as we know it today will be
saved. The solution is simple--that is to put such large taxes
upon foreign oil so that consumers will be forced into choosing such
alternatives as Natural gas, ethanol and so on. The beauty of
natural gas powered passenger vehicles is that it's very inexpensive to
convert existing engines to utilize such natural gas derived fuels as NGV and it's available now.
We are in the middle of a recession that
many say will become more devastating to the American economy than the
great depression was during the 1930's when we saw 28 %unemployment.
It took World War II, an event of catastrophic
proportions to pull us out of it. It is going to take another war
of similar dimension to pull us out of our present great recession.
So don't even think that half way measures are up to the task.
It's going to take a complete reversal, a revolution, to our present way
of doing things. And even if hadn't gotten into the current
recession, we would still have to contend with a huge spiral of ever
increasing energy costs. The fact is that as such nations as China
and India become more and more prosperous with large percentages of
their huge populations demanding and getting cars and other energy
consuming products, the demand for oil will in the future increase
exponentially. This means huge increases in price. The
result will be a tremendous decrease in the living standards of
Americans.
So anything that weans us off our dependence on Mideast and
other foreign oil is a huge win for Americans. The price
for imported oil is simply too high to pay. And by
the way, we can add to this price the cost we have been paying
for two wars, the one in Afghanistan and the one in Iraq.
Both are in the Mideast and both have everything to do with oil.
If we were to become energy self-sufficient we could kiss the
cost of all such wars or even of having a military presence in
the region goodbye.
So what happens when we station 70,000 troops in Germany,
150,000 in Iraq and another 100,000 in Afghanistan? The
troops spend their money overseas, not in the U.S. It all
amounts to the same thing as sending our petro dollars over to
such countries as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We help build
the infrastructure of overseas countries at the expense of our
own.
Okay then, let's move onto the vital
subject of energy independence. Let's start with a single simple
concept. That is it's better to spend a dollar in the U.S.
for energy produced in the U.S. than it is in some far distant land
because that dollar will wind up being spent in the U.S. to buy goods
and services in American stores, to pay the wages and salaries of
American workers, to pay for cars built in the U.S. and so on. It
doesn't go to build ski resorts in Dubai, to pay terrorist organizations
in Saudi Arabia or to build a hotel in Kuwait.
In fact, it's better to spend a dollar fifty for energy produced
in the U.S. than it is to spend a dollar for Saudi oil.
This is because that dollar and a half will be used to buy
things in the U.S. which will create jobs in the U.S. or to pay
the wages of American workers who now have the money to go out
and buy goods and services they couldn't before which once again
creates new jobs for Americans.
Now here's where we start to get truly revolutionary.
Let's take windpower for instance. There is no doubt
enough windpower to supply the entire U.S. with electricity.
One question is at what cost? But there's large areas in
the U.S. both on and off shore where a huge amount of energy can
be obtained at relatively low cost. The main objections
I've heard against wind power is that it won't generate enough
electricity to supply a significant portion of our needs, that
all those windmills are unsightly and that they pose significant
hazard to birds. The first objection doesn't even
make sense. Where there's a great amount of wind the wind
generators can be grouped together closely enough to produce
ungodly amounts of wind and if anyone doesn't believe me, just
let me take them out to certain areas of the American West where
the wind's a driving very uncomfortable force. As to
wind generators being unsightly let me just say that beauty is
in the eyes of the beholder. For me, just seeing all those
wind generators lined up in row after row just shows how many
wars we didn't have to pay for, how many foreign soldiers we
didn't have to train at the American tax payer's expense and how
many sky scrapers in the Mideast were not erected due to
American unwillingness to pay for them. Lastly as the
danger that windmills pose to birdlife, let me just say this.
There are smart rabbits and there are dumb rabbits. The
dumb ones don't have the common sense to get out of the way of
cars whereas the smart ones survive. Like most animals,
birds are smart and there will be enough smart ones to be able
to survive the wind generators.
Here's the real reason wind power is not
getting the shot that it deserves. Or solar. Or practically
anything that is not based on oil. Our politicians are being
bought by the oil companies. Here's a few links to support this
conclusion.
Big Oil protects it interests. Here's a great resource
that's called
dirtyenergymoney.com
Simply put in your zip code and your U.S. representative and
state senators will come up. You can then zero in on
how much the oil companies have donated to each one, which
energy companies donated and how much each company donated.
For instance, I put in my zip code 62533. My
representative John Shimkus came up along with my two Senators
Roland Burris and Richard Durbin. Senator Durbin
received $136725 whereas Representative John Shimkus received
$527,831 since 1999.
And that's just for publicly disclosed campaign contributions.
What about under the table money? And how about money
spent by the oil companies for lobbying and entertaining our
politicians? Is it any wonder why wind power, solar power,
ethanol and anything that is not big oil is getting a bad rap?
Thomas Friedman, a three time Pulitzer
Prize winning columnist for the New York Times just came out with his
latest book,
Hot, Flat, Crowded. All Americans need to read
this book. Without exception. What Friedman suggests
and his reasons for his overall solution to America's addiction to
foreign oil is far more complex for me to get into much of it here other
than to say 1. If the U.S. fails to become energy self sufficient
it will soon become a second rate country and 2. The solution to
our dependence upon foreign oil must be a multi faceted strategy that
both employs all alternative energy sources that can be home grown in
the U.S. as well as energy conservation on the consumption end.
One thing Friedman fails to address is how
the use of natural gas can be expanded to replace a lot of the gasoline
that is currently being used in cars and other vehicles.
First off, it's available now, with up to a one hundred year supply of
it and it's available right here in the United States. What this
means the jobs won't go overseas as nearly everyone who's involved
extracting it, storing it, and distributing it is likely to be American.
If we were to replace all the gasoline presently being used in our
passenger cars with Natural gas and natural gas products such as LPG and
NGV we could say once and for all, goodbye to all those precious petro
dollars going to the Mid East to fund our enemies, to build wasteful ski
resorts in the desert, and to build the infrastructure of Middle Eastern
oil producing countries while our own is crumbling.
Arguments against replacing oil with natural gas in cars range
from its being explosive, hence unsafe, to its offering limited
range compared to gasoline, taking up too much trunk space, and
there not being a big enough infrastructure to support a
widespread distribution of fueling stations. May I suggest
that most of these arguments are spread by the oil companies and
their supporters who don't want to see any alternatives to big
oil, no matter how many wars big oil is going to cost us or how
costly it's going to get, and how many pink elephants Mid
Eastern oil producing countries expect us to build for them.
Let them eat their own oil. I have been living in
Thailand for five years. LPG and NGV is currently being used in
nearly all taxis I've taken to and from the Bangkok airport. It's
becoming more and more popular in passenger cars too and the reason is
it's only 20 to 25 % of the cost of gasoline. I have yet to see an
LPG or NGV powered vehicle catch fire. And none of my
friends have either.
In Thailand between 2006 and 2011 (projected) its
deployment of natural gas powered vehicles has increased from 28840 to
256,000 while the number or refueling stations has gone from 104 to 535
NGV Global News
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