BendGovernment

35 mpg CAFE into law? 86 mpg Honda Insight..No problemo!

December 19, 2007
Now it's pen-on-paper official:

Let's just be thankful that the 35 mpg standard survived all the backing down. And the Detroit News mentions this: **a measure in the bill that will provide at least $90 million annually for battery research to make plug-in hybrids a reality.**

Somehow I thought the PHEV money had been stricken. Hey, it's nice to be wrong. While the 35 mpg number won't kick in until 2020, the bill mandates changes starting with the 2011 model year. My, that's soon.
========== AutoblogGreen.com

PHEVs are a reality, only not in large scale production yet. There is a thriving business in converting the Prius and other makes from hybrid to PHEV. = TG

Labels: auto, Bush, CAFE, hybrid, hybrids, law, mpg, President Bush, sign

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez says he wants to send oil to $200 a barrel. Robert Zubrin has a plan to stop him. In his just released book, Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil,


The clever Saudis are the most lethal enemy of our Western free world. Osama was / is a Saudi. 1999 oil income approx 4 Billion$…2007 oil income 800 Billion$. The Saudis finance madrasses world wide where hungry young men are offered regular meals along with anti-western brain washing.

Robert Zubrin correctly suggests a stroke of the pen in USA congress that will limit oil price gouging. There is NO shortage.
================== Expert and Author: of Energy Victory.

In a nutshell, his proposal is this: that the American congress should pass a law mandating that all new cars sold in the United States be flex-fueled, which is to say able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels. Flex fuel is proven technology which only adds a few hundred dollars to the cost of a car.

[ In 2008/09, 100% of all new cars sold in Brazil will be 100% Flex fuel.= TG]

In 2007, roughly 90 percent of all cars sold in Brazil were flex-fueled, but outside of that country, their market share was quite low - comprising about 3 percent of US auto sales, for example. However, as Zubrin argues convincingly, if it were mandated that every new car sold in the USA had to be flex fueled as a standard feature, then practically every auto manufacturer in the world would be forced to switch their lines over to flex fuel.

[ If you own a Flex fuel vehicle you have a choice. Gas at $1.05 -litre or E85 or M85 at 49 cents per litre. If the Saudis / Opec lower gas prices to compete, you can revert to gasoline anytime the price is below biofuel prices.= TG]

Thus the effect of a US flex fuel mandate would be global, and within a few years, put hundreds of millions of cars on the road worldwide capable of running indifferently on either methanol, ethanol, or gasoline.

With such a market available, alcohol fuel pumps and associated infrastructure would quickly appear, and the vertical monopoly that the oil cartel holds on the world's vehicular fuel supply would be broken, as gasoline would be forced to compete everywhere against alcohol produced from multiple sources, including biomass, coal, stranded natural gas, recycled urban trash, and so forth.


To be sure, such a development would not quite destroy OPEC. Alcohol fuels are only competitive against oil when the price exceeds about $50 per barrel. So in a free market, the best Zubrin's plan could accomplish would be to send oil prices back down to that level. Still, in the face of current oil prices of $100 per barrel, and much worse potentially in the offing, forcing the price back to $50/bbl and containing it at that level would certainly be an enormous accomplishment.

[Hugo Chavez is suggesting Opec pricing go to $200 per barrel. ]

Which brings us to Zubrin's idealism. He doesn't just want to take away the Saudi's treasure. He wants to use it to end world poverty. He says: **Instead of financing terrorism, our energy dollars could be used to fund world development. Instead of selling blocks of our media to Saudi princes, we could be selling tractors to Africa. Instead of paying for death, we could be helping to spread life. Instead of buying arms for our enemies and chains for ourselves, we could be building a world of prosperity and freedom.**

http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/The_Plan_To_Destroy_OPEC_999.html
====================
As Zubrin puts it: **So the crux of the matter comes down to this: Do we want to win or lose? The issue at stake in energy security is not a matter of whether the price of gasoline will be $2 per gallon or $3 per gallon; it is who will determine the human future. Do we want to have the enemy's fate in our hands, or do we want to have ours in theirs?**

[BTW… gasoline in the UK sells for about $8 a gallon.. ]

Laos harvests sweet yams for bio fuels. China has been ramping up production. Brazil learned the lesson of 1972/73. North America*s and UK*s ExxonMobile, Chevron, Shell, BP and all are in bed with the devil.. Too bad for us. = TG

Labels: energy, flex-fuels, Hugo Chavez, hybrid, oil, Opec, terrorism