The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 447
who sit in the stands to watch a baseball game, and those on the field who can
hit a 90-mph fastball into the center field stands.
What I'm getting at is that the reverence over someone having a Ph.D. or JD
after their name should be tempered, a lot. Or maybe a new title is in order,
such as Ex.D.: Doctor of Experience. This way we would go to a Ph.D. to hear
the philosophy of how something might work, but then rely on an ExD to learn
how it actually works.
In the years that The Auto Channel has been actively advocating alternative
fuels (particularly ethanol), we've come across a number of quack** PhDs and
JDs who oppose alternative fuels (particularly ethanol). The opposing focus on
ethanol is because ethanol is the primary competition to petroleum oil fuels.
Some time ago, when compressed natural gas appeared to be the serious upand-coming alt-fuel, the oil industry made CNG a bigger target with its lies and
exaggerations - although CNG is ironically one of their own derivative products.
Now that no automaker in America regularly manufactures CNG-powered vehicles, and they've coerced Federal and state governments to virtually outlaw the
conversion of gasoline engines to use CNG, the oil industry feels safe in promoting their ugly step-child and they go hog-wild in finding more natural gas.
It's literally a fracking mess.
On the other hand, the oil industry and their quack spokespeople generally don't
oppose electric vehicles because they know that electric vehicles are no real
threat to the oil industry. It may become a real threat in the 22nd or 23rd century,
but for the coming decades of this century, electric passenger vehicles are
simply an expensive curiosity.
I've written to and about several of the oil industry's quacks, such as Richard
Rahn, Barry Ritholtz, George Banks, David Pimentel, and Tim Searchinger. Of
these five, only "Doctor" Ritholtz has responded. His response was to ask me
six questions, and after I sent him my reply of 16 pages of answers I never
heard back from him - even though he was supposed to provide his own answers to the same six questions in order to explain his anti-ethanol position.
