The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 636
Shockingly, more people today are basing their automobile purchasing decisions on fuel economy rather than the criteria that are really important: Hard top
or convertible, 2-doors or 4-doors or 5-doors, with or without GPS navigation,
business or pleasure, how many seats, what color; these are the decisions that
are important. It’s a world gone mad; a world turned upside down; our freedom
to come and go as we please has been greatly compromised. We would all
laugh if someone said he purchased one vehicle over another because spark
plug A had a longer life than spark plug B. This is essentially what has happened
with fuel, more correctly and precisely with gasoline fuel, but it’s not a laughing
matter.
There are people who are not going on job interviews because they can’t afford
the gasoline. There are people who are turning down educational opportunities
because they can’t afford the gasoline to travel to schools. The freedom that
the automobile gave us is now limited by a rather insignificant element controlled by regimes who don’t even respect their own fellow countrymen and coreligionists; how will they ever respect us?
The great truth that the oil industry and people like Robert Bryce have been
desperately working to squelch is that there is another fuel that can do the job.
Another fuel that can cost less, that is more environmentally friendly, and can
be produced within our borders by our own citizens. And it is available right
now, today. That fuel is ethanol.
Moreover, the great preponderance of the passenger vehicles on our roads can
use high quantities of ethanol immediately without any conversions or adjustments done to its engines. This is a remarkable technological feat. It’s akin to
saying that you can take a music DVD and insert it into a cassette tape player
and hear the music. You can’t put diesel in a gasoline engine and expect it to
work. You can’t put CNG in a gasoline engine and expect it to work. You can’t
put milk in a gasoline engine and expect it to work. But you can put ethanol in
your gasoline engine and it will work, and it will perform almost as if it was gasoline. The only real difference is that ethanol will cost less and be better for the
environment. Oh yeah, and then we won’t have the need to fight quite so many
wars.
Even if ethanol was not as economical, and even if ethanol in any blend level
did create engine damage, the answer is not to abandon ethanol; the answer is
to immediately mandate that all applicable new passenger vehicles and light
trucks to be sold in America be built with engines that are optimized to run on
ethanol (not gasoline).
