The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 487
affected by the excessive taxation on alcohol, ethanol was the preferred highperformance internal combustion engine fuel. If Ms. O'Sullivan can't get this
basic fact correct - or worse yet, chooses to ignore it - then she has no business
writing and lecturing about the subject.
Machines may have been later adapted to take advantage of petroleum-based
fuels' lower price, but these adaptations actually resulted in significant health
and societal problems that include everything from lunacy to severe chronic
respiratory illnesses, to the increase in autism and Alzheimer's disease, to virtually all major wars over the past 103 years.
Simply put, gasoline and petroleum diesel fuel are deadly poisonous - literally,
figuratively, and metaphorically...at least in the universe that I live in. With or
without the addition of ingredients like tetraethyl-lead, MTBE, benzene, or toluene, petroleum-based fuels are hazardous to all animal life. A greater abundance of poison is not beneficial. Poison multiplied by more poison does not
equal less poison.
"WINDFALL" argues for the status quo of petroleum oil as an internationally
priced and fungible commodity, regardless of where the oil originates. Ms.
O'Sullivan ridicules the idea of American energy independence on both a physical and philosophical level: That it's impossible to completely eliminate the
need for foreign oil to meet consumer use of fuels, and that the attempt to regulate trade would create an economical disaster. She cites the current relatively
low level of imported oil in an attempt to dismiss energy independence as being
unnecessary. These arguments are similar to those posed by Robert Bryce in
his overly quoted cesspool book "GUSHER OF LIES." I always use the word
"cesspool" to describe Mr. Bryce's book, instead of the word "seminal" because
everything in it stinks like a cesspool. It's sort of like choosing to use the word
"infamous" instead of "famous." (My 60+ page review and commentary on
"GUSHER OF LIES" can be found later in this book.)
I suppose that in a universe that only has petroleum oil-based fuels that it would
be prudent to retain international availability and pricing. But again, in my universe where it is possible to go without vanilla ice cream and not suffer from ice
cream deprivation, I think Ms. O'Sullivan's vision is unfounded and far less delicious.
By standardizing U.S. engine fuel to a blend level around E30 (30% ethanol
and 70% poison, er, I mean, gasoline), we would eliminate the need for imported petroleum oil. Coincidentally, tests have shown that E30 in any gasolinepowered passenger vehicle (flex fuel and non-flex fuel) provides MPG
