The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 512
"This book is about morality, about right and wrong. To me, the question of what
to do about fossil fuels and any other moral issue comes down to: What will
promote human life? What will promote human flourishing— realizing the full
potential of life?"
On pages 29-30, Alex writes:
"Ultimately, when thinking about fossil fuels, we are trying to figure out the right
thing to do, the right choices to make. But what exactly do we mean by right
and wrong, good and bad? What is our standard of value? By what standard or
measure are we saying something is good or bad, great or catastrophic, right
or wrong, moral or immoral?
"I hold human life as the standard of value, and you can see that in my earlier
arguments: I think that our fossil fuel use so far has been a moral choice because it has enabled billions of people to live longer and more fulfilling lives..."
On page 84, Alex writes:
"Without the energy industry, the agricultural industry would not exist; the world
could not support a population of 7 billion or 3.6 billion and perhaps not even 1
billion. To starve our machines of energy would be to starve ourselves."
This comes in a chapter titled "THE GREATEST ENERGY TECHNOLOGY OF
ALL TIME," under the heading "MORE FOSSIL FUELS, MORE ABILITY." Once
again, Alex is making the claim that only petroleum oil fuels could power the
machines of energy (so cheaply and so reliably) to feed the country. I've heard
this specific claim before by others who will say, "To grow the crops that can
produce ethanol the farm machinery must run on gasoline or petroleum diesel."
But it's an incorrect statement because the internal combustion engine machinery that they are referring to can run on ethanol or biodiesel made from ethanol...ethanol that can be produced right on the very farm where the crop is
grown. This was part of Henry Ford's vision for building the Model T, as well as
farm equipment powered by virtually the same engine as the one in a passenger
Model T. Instead of needing fuel that is sources from oil wells hundreds or thousands of miles away, shipped/trucked/piped to a refinery that's another few hundred or thousands of miles away, that then must be shipped/trucked/piped to a
local distribution point; the farmer can just tap into his own supply of fuel on his
very own property.
In Chapter 7, page 151, titled "REDUCING RISKS AND SIDE EFFECTS," Alex
writes about many of the risks and side effects of fossil fuels that we all know
