Energy Self Sufficiency

[lkentn]

Here is a message I sent to the President of the USA recently with copies to Senator Grassley and Congressman Nussle from the State of Iowa:

Dear Mr. President:

I am a retired person who is very concerned that our American way of life is being threatened and we seem to be doing nothing about it except fighting a conventional war with radical Islamic terrorists when we should also be fighting them where it will hurt them the most, in their pocketbook. Every time I fill up my family automobile with gasoline I am helping to fund people who hate America and everything we stand for. When I fill the tank of my motorhome with diesel I am giving money to Al Qaeda and Iran who are plotting our demise. I feel terrible when I am an agent of the demise of our American way of life which we hold dear. Mr. President, we need to become energy self sufficient right now and we already know how we can do it but we sit by on our hands and do little if anything to achieve it; all our politicians do is give it lip service. I hear no enthusiasm for energy self sufficiency; I see no practical approach to this extremely important problem. We need to attack this problem with the energy and enthusiasm we did with the Manhattan Project. We need to set an ambitious goal of five years for being well on our way to becoming energy self sufficient.

My vision for the achievement of this self sufficiency goal is to enthusiastically mobilize the people of the US to make it happen. Here are a number of things we need to begin to do quickly:

1. Sell the idea of the use of "biofuels" to everyone in America. We need to increase our capacity for the production of ethanol and biodiesel and we need to do it now. My vision is to see the upper Midwest become the biofuels center for the whole world. Ethanol and biodiesel plants are going up in the Midwest but not anywhere close to the rate they should be going up. Energy self sufficiency should be front page stuff in all of the media reporting the news but we hear relatively little. My state of Iowa is loosing manufacturing jobs at a very high rate to countries around the world that can perform them as well as we can with labor costs that are much lower than ours here in Iowa. We can put our displaced workers back to work in the new biofuels industry that could begin to emerge here in Iowa if we will only make a commitment to do so.
2. The automobile industry needs to make flexfuel vehicle availability its highest priority. We need vehicles that will safely run on fuels ranging from unleaded gasoline to pure 100% ethanol or methanol. Hybrid vehicles are only a vanilla kind of solution since they still run on gasoline. How about a hybrid vehicle that runs on 100% ethanol as well as electricity? That way we are not just conserving gasoline we are helping more to become energy self sufficient.
3. We need to make biodiesel more available to run our nation's trucks. Every time I see the price of diesel considerably higher than that of gasoline I shudder to think what effect that is having on the cost of all goods and services here in America. Those costs are certainly being passed on to all consumers in even unseen ways and driving inflation higher. If biodiesel is safe to use in trucks and even my motorhome, we don't know it and we can't find the product easily if it is truly available. I have a good friend who is a prominent Iowa farmer who has been safely utilizing biodiesel in his diesel tractors for some time. Why doesn't America know that?
4. America needs a biofuels delivery system. If biofuels are available and safe to use, why don't we know where to purchase the products? Why aren't there easily accessible filling stations out here? If Brazil can run its automobiles on 100% ethanol, why can't we?
5. Biofuels are environmentally friendlier than gasoline. The plants we grow to produce biofuels put oxygen back into the atmosphere and the effluents from the vehicles burning biofuels are just a bit cleaner for the environment. Petroleum should be preserved as a raw material to fuel the petro-chemicals industry only in the future since it is not a renewable resource. I feel we are misusing the petroleum that remains on our planet by burning it in automobiles.
6. We can do a whole lot more with wind electrical generation here in America. I see farms here in Iowa that have large arrays of wind generators producing clean electricity. There are areas in the Southwestern US that are pretty much waste land where the wind blows hard and often that cry out to be turned into wind generating areas. Why can't that be done?

I believe we should combat radical Islamic terrorism on two fronts equally. We should continue to engage them with guns and steel as we have been doing; but we should also hit them where it hurts equally by drying up their funding and in doing so by putting many of our displaced workers back to work here in the Midwestern US.

Thank you Mr. President; I know the challenges you face are unprecedented in our history but with the enthusiasm I know you can muster, America can remain a world leader in the future.

[lkentn]

Here is a message I sent to the President of the USA recently with copies to Senator Grassley and Congressman Nussle from the State of Iowa:

Dear Mr. President:

I am a retired person who is very concerned that our American way of life is being threatened and we seem to be doing nothing about it except fighting a conventional war with radical Islamic terrorists when we should also be fighting them where it will hurt them the most, in their pocketbook. Every time I fill up my family automobile with gasoline I am helping to fund people who hate America and everything we stand for. When I fill the tank of my motorhome with diesel I am giving money to Al Qaeda and Iran who are plotting our demise. I feel terrible when I am an agent of the demise of our American way of life which we hold dear. Mr. President, we need to become energy self sufficient right now and we already know how we can do it but we sit by on our hands and do little if anything to achieve it; all our politicians do is give it lip service. I hear no enthusiasm for energy self sufficiency; I see no practical approach to this extremely important problem. We need to attack this problem with the energy and enthusiasm we did with the Manhattan Project. We need to set an ambitious goal of five years for being well on our way to becoming energy self sufficient.

My vision for the achievement of this self sufficiency goal is to enthusiastically mobilize the people of the US to make it happen. Here are a number of things we need to begin to do quickly:

1. Sell the idea of the use of "biofuels" to everyone in America. We need to increase our capacity for the production of ethanol and biodiesel and we need to do it now. My vision is to see the upper Midwest become the biofuels center for the whole world. Ethanol and biodiesel plants are going up in the Midwest but not anywhere close to the rate they should be going up. Energy self sufficiency should be front page stuff in all of the media reporting the news but we hear relatively little. My state of Iowa is loosing manufacturing jobs at a very high rate to countries around the world that can perform them as well as we can with labor costs that are much lower than ours here in Iowa. We can put our displaced workers back to work in the new biofuels industry that could begin to emerge here in Iowa if we will only make a commitment to do so.
2. The automobile industry needs to make flexfuel vehicle availability its highest priority. We need vehicles that will safely run on fuels ranging from unleaded gasoline to pure 100% ethanol or methanol. Hybrid vehicles are only a vanilla kind of solution since they still run on gasoline. How about a hybrid vehicle that runs on 100% ethanol as well as electricity? That way we are not just conserving gasoline we are helping more to become energy self sufficient.
3. We need to make biodiesel more available to run our nation's trucks. Every time I see the price of diesel considerably higher than that of gasoline I shudder to think what effect that is having on the cost of all goods and services here in America. Those costs are certainly being passed on to all consumers in even unseen ways and driving inflation higher. If biodiesel is safe to use in trucks and even my motorhome, we don't know it and we can't find the product easily if it is truly available. I have a good friend who is a prominent Iowa farmer who has been safely utilizing biodiesel in his diesel tractors for some time. Why doesn't America know that?
4. America needs a biofuels delivery system. If biofuels are available and safe to use, why don't we know where to purchase the products? Why aren't there easily accessible filling stations out here? If Brazil can run its automobiles on 100% ethanol, why can't we?
5. Biofuels are environmentally friendlier than gasoline. The plants we grow to produce biofuels put oxygen back into the atmosphere and the effluents from the vehicles burning biofuels are just a bit cleaner for the environment. Petroleum should be preserved as a raw material to fuel the petro-chemicals industry only in the future since it is not a renewable resource. I feel we are misusing the petroleum that remains on our planet by burning it in automobiles.
6. We can do a whole lot more with wind electrical generation here in America. I see farms here in Iowa that have large arrays of wind generators producing clean electricity. There are areas in the Southwestern US that are pretty much waste land where the wind blows hard and often that cry out to be turned into wind generating areas. Why can't that be done?

I believe we should combat radical Islamic terrorism on two fronts equally. We should continue to engage them with guns and steel as we have been doing; but we should also hit them where it hurts equally by drying up their funding and in doing so by putting many of our displaced workers back to work here in the Midwestern US.

Thank you Mr. President; I know the challenges you face are unprecedented in our history but with the enthusiasm I know you can muster, America can remain a world leader in the future.

[mamaloya]

Here in NC, there was a news article about a station now selling the fuel you mention. Not too familiar with it, but have heard of it. I also read somewhere about how to convert your diesel engine to run on veg oil.

I think we are slowly coming around, but if word would get out faster, we would be better off.

[Paulin]

I agree 110% with the need for synthetic fuels. And, I believe the technology and brain power to develop these fuels is available. But, since the President and Vice Presedent are both oil men, we may be wasting our time contacting them. We need to rally our congress and the consumers.

Paul

[rvcrazy]

Very well written and right on the mark. It will be very interesting to hear what kind of response you get.

Keep up the fight.

[DonavonP]

The demand for biodiesel has already caused a spike in the price of cooking oil. Probably won't hurt people in the USA but lets hope we don't cause additional hunger in 3rd world economies.

[RustyJC]

If you drive through West Texas on either I-10 or I-20, you might be surprised at the wind generation facilities that are already in place!!

Rusty

[Teach]

A recent article in USA Today states that if we were to convert 100% of our current grain production into bio-fuels it would only meet 1/6 of our needs.