Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil - Hardcover

Zubrin, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591025915 ISBN 13: 9781591025917

Publisher: Prometheus, 2007

Synopsis

In this compelling argument for a new direction in US energy policy, world-renowned engineer and best-selling author Robert Zubrin lays out a bold plan for breaking the economic stranglehold that the OPEC oil cartel has on our country and the world. Zubrin presents persuasive evidence that our decades-long relationship with OPEC has resulted in the looting of our economy, the corruption of our political system, and now the funding and protection of terrorist regimes and movements that are committed to our destruction.

Zubrin’s plan is straightforward and practical. He argues that if Congress passed a law requiring that all new cars sold in the USA be flex-fueled—that is, able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels—this one action would destroy the monopoly that the oil cartel has maintained on the globe’s transportation fuel supply, opening it up to competition from alcohol fuels produced by farmers worldwide. According to Zubrin’s estimates, within three years of enactment, such a regulation would put 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on high-alcohol fuels, and at least an equal number overseas. He further advocates tariff policies favoring alcohol over petroleum imports.

Energy Victory offers an exciting vision for a dynamic, new energy policy, which will not only go a long way toward safeguarding homeland security in the future but will also provide solutions for global warming and Third World development.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Zubrin (Indian Hills, CO) is president of Pioneer Astronautics and also president of the Mars Society. For many years he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. In addition, he is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction books The Case for Mars, Entering Space, Mars on Earth; the science fiction novels The Holy Land and First Landing; and articles in Scientific American, The New Atlantis, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mechanical Engineering, and The American Enterprise. He has appeared on major media including CNN, CSPAN, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, NBC, ABC, and NPR.

From the Back Cover

"Americans are buying ammunition for their enemies every time they buy gas. Energy security is the way out of this dilemma and Dr. Zubrin has a plan to achieve it." Clifford D. May Syndicated columnist and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies "Robert Zubrin pulls no punches and moves effortlessly from a fascinating oil-centered take on WW II to making the mathematics of oil alternatives intelligible to lay readers. Oil and hydrogen take huge hits and alcohol fuels win big. Don't miss this one."

James Woolsey Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency "To win the war on terror, we need to remove the yoke of our oil dependence and cut the flow of petrodollars to regimes that spread radical Islam. Energy Victory is a bold, yet realistic plan to do just that. It is a vitally important book about the most critical issue we face today." Dr. Gal Luft Executive Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security "In Energy Victory, Zubrin supplies a forceful plan to finally break oil's global stranglehold and seriously address world development. This is something we've really needed for some time. Washington should sit up and take notice." James P. Clark Chairman of the World Technology Network "Americans are finally becoming aware that energy isn't just an economic or environmental issue; it's a grave national security issue. It's long past time to stop bankrolling terrorism by transferring billions of dollars to unstable and corrupt regimes that just happen to be sitting on top of most of the world's petroleum. Energy Victory is an important, timely contribution to the debate over breaking the oil habit and achieving energy security." George Weigel Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of Witness to Hope "Bob Zubrin is one of the smartest people I know. In Energy Victory he lays out a compelling case for the importance, and practicality, of winning the war on terror by making oil obsolete." Glenn Reynolds Columnist for Instapundit.com and Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tennessee "Robert Zubrin's Energy Victory highlights fuel choice in the transportation sector as a real-world option and imperative to reducing America's dependence on the petrostates that fund radical Islam. It is a compelling read." Anne Korin Executive Director of Set America Free Coalition and editor of Energy Security "In forcefully making the case for reducing US dependence on oil, Zubrin argues provocatively for a bio-fuel-based approach, suggesting benefits for international development that should command the attention of advocates, academics, and policymakers." Louis Putterman Professor of Economics, Brown University

From the Inside Flap

As prices at the pump ratchet up, the international oil cartel will continue to reap record profits. For the average American, this may simply seem to be simply a blow to the family budget. But what if much of the hundreds of billions of dollars consumers exchange for filling up their tanks went to funding terrorist organizations, terror-state nuclear weapons programs, and the indoctrination of legions of children to fanatical hatred? What if politicians, diplomats, and business leaders knowingly allowed these shocking relations to continue, all the while accepting stock options and partying it up with superrich foreign oil potentates? As long as America keeps running on gas, we will be paying for our own destruction.

In Energy Victory, world-renowned engineer and best-selling author Robert Zubrin exposes the scandalous state of energy affairs in America, and the political fakers and scientific charlatans who have for decades done little except to distract the public from truly practical alternatives to petroleum with shams and delusions: Hydrogen cars? They'd be impossible to fuel cost effectively. Conservation? It's a failing strategy so long as the enemy controls the only fuel. Zubrin's plan for energy victory is straightforward and practical. He argues that if Congress passed a law requiring that all new cars sold in the USA be flex-fueled--that is, able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels--this one action would destroy the vertical monopoly that the oil cartel has maintained on the globe's transportation fuel supply. Within three years of enactment, such a regulation would put 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on high-alcohol fuels, and at least an equal number overseas, stopping future petroleum price extortion by opening the fuel market up to competition from ethanol and methanol produced by farmers worldwide.

Instead of sending our fuel dollars as tribute to counties with ties to terrorism, we could be using them to help agriculture here and abroad, boosting our own economy and funding world development. Furthermore, by switching to alcohol fuels, which pollute less than gasoline and are made from plants that draw carbon dioxide from the air, this plan would facilitate the worldwide economic growth required to eliminate global poverty without the fear of greenhouse warming.

Energy Victory offers an exciting vision for a dynamic new energy policy, which will safeguard our liberties by truly winning the war on terror.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

ENERGY VICTORY

WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR BY BREAKING FREE OF OILBy ROBERT ZUBRIN

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2007 Robert Zubrin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59102-591-7

Contents

Preface.....................................................................................11Note on Units of Measurement................................................................15Chapter 1. Energy Independence within a Decade..............................................19Chapter 2. Terrorism: Your Gas Dollars at Work..............................................33Chapter 3. Corrupting Washington: Your Gas Dollars at Work, Part 2..........................49Focus Section: Saudi Interventions into US Policy...........................................58Chapter 4. How to Destroy OPEC..............................................................67Chapter 5. Changing the Energy Trump Suit...................................................83Chapter 6. The Technology to Break the Chains...............................................101Chapter 7. The Charlatans Strike Back: The Hydrogen and Pimentel Hoaxes.....................115Chapter 8. The New Alcohol World Economy....................................................139Focus Section: Alcohol Alchemy..............................................................158Chapter 9. The Brazil Experience............................................................163Focus Section: The Alcohol Economy verses Narcoterrorism....................................175Chapter 10. Defeating Global Warming........................................................181Chapter 11. Empowering the Future...........................................................199Chapter 12. Oil and Power...................................................................223Chapter 13. Energy and Statecraft...........................................................249Glossary....................................................................................265Notes.......................................................................................273Bibliography................................................................................305

Chapter One

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE WITHIN A DECADE

President Bush has said that Iraq is "the central front in the War on Terrorism." He is wrong. The central, decisive front is America's fight for energy independence.

The world economy is currently running on a resource that is controlled by our enemies. This threatens to leave us prostrate. It must change-and the good news is that it can change, quickly.

In this book I will lay out the plan that will allow America and the West to emerge victorious. But before explaining the solution, let us review the problem.

Using portions of the hundreds of billions of petrodollars they are annually draining from our economy, the Saudis have set up over twenty thousand radical madrassas around the world to indoctrinate young boys with the idea that the way to paradise is to murder Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, and Hindus. The graduates of these academies killed 3,000 American civilians on September 11, 2001, and have continued to kill large numbers of Americans in uniform in Iraq. Arab oil revenues are underwriting news media outlets that propagandize hatefully against the United States and the West, supporting training centers for terrorists, paying bounties to the families of suicide bombers, and funding the purchase of weapons and explosives. We are subsidizing a war against ourselves.

And we have not yet reached the culmination of the process. Iran and other states are now using petroleum lucre to underwrite the development of nuclear weapons, and insulate themselves from the economic sanctions that could result. Once produced, these nuclear weapons could be used directly or be made available to terrorists to destroy U.S., European, Russian, or Israeli cities. This is one of the gravest threats of the next generation-and, again, we are paying for it ourselves with oil revenue.

Our responses to these provocations have been utterly muted and hapless. Why? Because any forceful action on our part against nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia could result in the disruption of oil supplies that the world economy is completely dependent upon. We can't stand up to our enemies because we rely upon them for the fuel that is our own lifeblood.

The situation is even worse below the surface. In addition to financing terror indirectly and directly, oil exporters are using their wealth to corrupt our political system. Important Washington, D.C. law firms and lobbying organizations have been put on the payroll of Arab nations, and Saudi investors have made enormous buys in organizations like Time Warner and News Corporation. These purchases may soon place them in position to substantially influence domestic public opinion and the governmental decision-making process, thereby enabling them to prevent either retaliation or the emergence of any effective energy policy that might break their hold on our economy.

All this, however, is mere prologue. China and India are rapidly industrializing, and within a decade or two the number of cars in the world will double or triple. If the world remains on the oil standard, the income streams of many noxious oil exporters will soar. We will be impoverished to the same degree they are enriched. The vast sums transferred will finance not only global jihad and dangerous weapons development in the Middle East, but also increased potential for manipulation of the U.S. and Western economies. At currently projected rates of consumption, by the year 2020 over 83 percent of the world's remaining petroleum reserves will be in the Middle East, controlled by people whose religion obligates them to subjugate us.

In light of these realities, current U.S. energy policy is a scandal. There is no reason the United States should remain helpless, allowing itself to be looted by people who are using the proceeds to undermine us. Victory in the fight for energy independence is possible-and in fact the means by which it can be achieved are now apparent. Yet victory is not being pursued. To see how insane our national energy policies have been, let's review recent failures. Then I'll describe a starkly better alternative.

THE HYDROGEN HOAX

The energy panacea of the moment is a concept called the "hydrogen economy." Theorists propose to transition U.S. energy usage to hydrogen-a common element which, when combined with oxygen, releases energy with only water as a waste product. With hydrogen, it is claimed, we can achieve not only energy independence but also an end to pollution and global warming at the same time. As we shall discuss at greater length in Chapter 6, this concept is entirely false.

Hydrogen is not a source of energy. In order to be obtained, it must be made-either through using electrolysis to split water, or through the chemical breakdown of petroleum, natural gas, or coal. Either process necessarily consumes more energy than the hydrogen it produces.

When hydrogen is made by electrolysis, the process yields 85 units of hydrogen energy for every 100 units of electrical energy used to break down the water. That is 85 percent efficiency. If the hydrogen is then used in a fuel cell in an electric car, only about 55 percent of its energy value will be used; the rest is wasted as heat and so forth. The net result of these two processes: the amount of useable energy yielded by the hydrogen will be only about 47 percent as much as went into producing it in the first place. And if the hydrogen is burned in an internal combustion engine to avoid the high production costs of fuel cells, the net efficiency of this vehicle will be closer to 25 percent.

Hydrogen produced from hydrocarbons instead of water also throws away 30 to 50 percent of the total energy in the feedstock. That method actually increases the nation's need for fossil fuels, and thus greenhouse gas emissions as well. While hydrogen could also be produced by nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, or wind power, the process would continue to be dragged down by the fundamental inefficiency of hydrogen production. Such power supplies could always do more to reduce fossil fuel requirements simply by sending their electric power directly to the public grid.

The bottom line is that hydrogen is not a source of energy. It is a carrier of energy. And one of the least practical carriers of energy we know of.

Consider: A standard molecular weight (or mole) of hydrogen gas, when reacted with oxygen, yields 66 watt-hours of energy. Meanwhile a mole of methane (the primary component of natural gas) produces 218 watt-hours of energy. An equal number of moles of both can be stored in a tank of equal size and strength. Thus, a car that runs on compressed methane will be able to store more than three times the energy, and travel three times as far, as the same car running on hydrogen. In addition, the methane would be cheaper.

In short, from the point of view of production, distribution, environmental impact, and utility of use, the hydrogen economy makes no sense whatsoever. Its fundamental premise is at variance with the most basic laws of physics. The people who have foisted this hoax on the American political class are charlatans, and they have done the nation an immense disservice.

THE FAILURE OF CONSERVATION

The Democratic opponents of the Bush administration's hydrogen policy, while oblivious to the program's overall impossibility, have criticized it as being incapable of producing useful near-terms results. In this they are certainly correct; however, as we shall see in chapter 4, their alternative policy, that of decreasing energy dependence through conservation, is inadequate and will fail strategically.

To see this, it is simply necessary to run the numbers. About 17 million cars are sold each year in the US, or roughly ten percent of the total in active use. If every consumer were to buy a hybrid car offering a 30 percent fuel saving over their existing car, and none of these people chose to drive more because they now had a car offering better mileage, and there were no expansion in the US vehicle fleet, such an innovation would result in a reduction of gasoline use of 3 percent per year. However, gasoline prices have been, and will continue to increase at a rate much higher than 3 percent, so that even under this rosy scenario, the rate of looting of the US economy through fuel charges would continue to increase.

In fact, however, conservation offers no prospect of being even this effective. Most industry analysts predict a hybrid share not of 100 percent, but less than 1 percent of the market. But assuming that we grant such vehicles a wildly optimistic 5 percent market share, and assume another 10 percent of the market taken by people who choose to buy ordinary economy cars offering 15 percent better mileage than their current vehicles, the net reduction of average fuel use per car would be only 0.3 percent per year. This is much smaller than the annual growth of number of cars on the road, so that under any realistic conservation scenario, total gasoline consumption will continue to rise, with rapidly increasing fuel prices radically compounding the problem.

As a method of achieving energy independence, conservation through gasoline efficiency is a losing strategy. It is like trying to use buckets to bail out a ship whose bottom has been ripped open. Or perhaps, to illustrate the issue more graphically, it is like trying to survive in a gas chamber by holding your breath. We need to break out of the gas chamber.

NUCLEAR, HYDRO, WIND, GEOTHERMAL, AND SOLAR

Nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, and solar have all been offered as solutions to the energy problem. These all have various issues associated with them. However, the bottom line is that discussion of these technologies misses the point. It is true that, to the extent they can be done economically, these technologies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions be replacing coal or natural gas for electricity generation. But the central issue of energy independence is not electricity. The United States has plenty of coal, and if necessary it could generate all of its electric power in this way.

No, the key issue in energy independence concerns the availability of liquid fuels to power cars, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes. These systems are not merely conveniences that have become dear to our way of life. They are the sinews of the economy and the fundamental instruments of military strength.

During World War II, when the fuel supplies of the Axis nations collapsed, so did their war efforts. A modern war cannot be run, a modern economy cannot be sustained, without liquid fuels.

There is no prospect whatsoever of the large-scale economic generation of liquid fuels from nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, or solar power sources within the near future. Thus the discussion of these technologies is largely irrelevant to the immediate strategic problem that we face. In the long run, however, when combined with the switch to alcohol fuels, they can play a key role in enabling an open human future of worldwide economic development and rising living standards, without the threat of global warming. This will be discussed in chapters 10 and 11.

THE ALCOHOL SOLUTION

To liberate ourselves from the threat of foreign economic domination, to destroy the economic power of the terrorists' financiers, and to give ourselves the free hand necessary to deal as forcefully as required with such people, we must devalue their resources and increase the value of our own. We can do this by taking the world off the petroleum standard and putting it on an alcohol standard.

This may sound like a huge and impossible task, but with gasoline prices well over $2 per gallon, the means to accomplish it are now at hand. Congress could make an enormous step toward American energy independence within a decade or so if it would simply pass a law stating that all new cars sold in the U.S.A. must be flexible-fuel vehicles capable of burning any combination of gasoline and alcohol. The alcohols so employed could be either methanol or ethanol.

The largest producers of both ethanol and methanol are all in the western hemisphere, with the United States having by far the greatest production potential for both. Ethanol is made from agricultural products. Methanol can also be made from any kind of biomass, as well as from natural gas or coal. American coal reserves alone are sufficient to power every car in the country on methanol for more than 250 years.

Ethanol can currently be produced for about $1.50 per gallon. During parts of 2006 methanol was being sold, without any subsidy, for as little as $0.80 per gallon. With gasoline having roughly doubled in price recently, and little likelihood of a substantial price retreat in the future, high alcohol-to-gasoline fuel mixtures are suddenly practical. As discussed in chapter 6, cars capable of burning such fuel are no futuristic dream. This year, Detroit will offer some two dozen models of standard cars with a flex-fuel option available for purchase. The engineering difference is in one sensor and a computer chip that controls the fuel-air mixture, and the employment of a corrosion-resistant fuel system. The difference in price from standard units ranges from zero to $500, with $100 being typical.

Flex-fuel cars offer consumers little advantage right now, because the high-alcohol fuels they could employ are not generally available for purchase. This is because there are so few such vehicles that it doesn't pay gas station owners to dedicate a pump to cater to them. Were flex-fuel cars made the standard, however, the fuel they need would quickly be made available everywhere.

If all cars sold in the US had to be flexible-fueled, foreign manufacturers would also mass-produce such units, creating a large market in Europe and Asia as well as the US for methanol and ethanol-much of which could be produced in America. Instead of being the world's largest fuel importer, the United States could become the world's largest fuel exporter. A large portion of the money now going to the Arabs and Iranians would instead go to America and Canada, with much of the rest going to Brazil and other tropical agricultural nations. This would reverse our trade deficit, improve conditions in the Third World, and cause a global shift in world economic power in favor of the West.

By promoting agriculture, flexible-fueled vehicles also act as global cooling agents. Plants draw carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) out of the atmosphere. They increase water evaporation, and the water vapor thus produced transports heat from the Earth's surface to the upper atmosphere, where most of it is released to space.

The use of alcohol also reduces air pollution. In fact, environmental advantages were the motivation for the initial development of the first flexible fueled vehicles in California in the 1980s. During the era of $1.50 per gallon gasoline, methanol pleased ecological activists, but it was economically disadvantageous to consumers. Recently, however, the comparative economics of alcohol fuels and gasoline have changed radically.

Methanol can also be used as the raw material to produce dimethyl ether, a completely clean-burning diesel fuel that could be used by trucks, locomotives, and ships. Many cars could also eventually use diesel. Diesel engines are substantially more efficient than traditional internal combustion engines, and equal to anything realistically possible from far more expensive, and as yet impractical, fuel cells.

As we shall show in chapter 8, using these alcohol and alcohol-derived substances, we can not only replace petrochemicals for fuels, but also create an alternative plastic and synthetic fabric industry that can produce virtually everything now made from petroleum products, but with less pollution.

FLEX-FUEL TECHNOLOGY

Two developments make a rapid transfer to high-alcohol fuels possible. One is the recent rise of gasoline prices, making methanol and ethanol economically attractive. The other is a technological innovation: the development of sensors capable of continuously measuring the suitability of the fuel/air ratio in cars using mixed alcohol/gasoline fuel, and using this information to regulate the engine.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from ENERGY VICTORYby ROBERT ZUBRIN Copyright © 2007 by Robert Zubrin. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1591025915
• ISBN 13: 9781591025917
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336