Stating the bleeding obvious

But then lots of FUD. OPEC no longer has the monopoly on the oil market. This was effectively broken years ago. Recent high oil prices have been set by the financial markets. Of course, OPEC countries benefit initially from higher oil prices when selling oil but Iran actually suffers because it has to import refined oil products such as petrol. Inflation in OPEC countries is starting to get unconformtable: cf. article in this week's Economist.

As for the rest: we cannot sustainably grow enough plants to sustainably produce the energy we require. The reason we use coal is that deforestation and population expansion meant that there weren't enough trees, which provide by far the highest yield of energy per square linguini, to go round. So, either we use less energy, or we find ways of adapting the sun's energy directly for our needs.

So, either take the piss out of the guy and his book or tell us more about his work on expensive and useless laser guns!

&Anonymous Coward

To be fair, if the value of all the externalities of relying on oil that Zubrin mentions were included in its price - environmental damage, islamic radicalism, enormous military spending, long-term involvement in dubious regimes - oil might actually BE uneconomic. Zubrin just doesn't seem to frame his argument that way.

But I have to disagree with the core of his argument. While considerable sums may have been directly diverted into Islamic radicalism, I would say that the majority has been used to bribe the Saudi population into passivity. This has partially contributed to radicalisation by producing a large number of educated young men with absolutely nothing to do, but it has mainly obstructed any move towards political and economic reform in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is totally reliant on oil money, and if the funds are suddenly shut off, the place will probably collapse, creating a turbulent breeding ground for islamic radicalism.

Unfortunately, at this point, it's too late to disengage with the Middle East - we have to clean up the mess before we can get out.

Pork Power

Reading the comment that methanol the would probably be produced from coal rather than from natural cellulose materials reminds me of the slightly odd situation here in Australia.

The general hype is that we are running our diesel cars on natural plant based diesel and by doing so we are saving the planet with our highly credentialled vegetarian cars. Not only is it green, it is appreciably cheaper than real diesel.

The grim reality is that our 'bio' diesel is made out of industrially processed tallow (rendered animal fat). Strictly speaking it is 'bio' but not of the sort your average greenie will feel comfortable using - not to mention those who want their vehicles to be halal, kosher, or even whatever the hindu equivalent is.

So somehow the industrial economics have made it cheaper - without subsidies - to make diesel from rendered animals rather than from other oil sources such as vegetable oil like canola, or from oil dug up from the ground and shipped from Saudi.

The only problem with getting your poke from a pig or speed from a sheep is that the car manufacturers won't honour warranties if you fill up with B5 or B20 diesel (5% or 20% bio respectively). They will sanction a B1 to B2 as that is what normal diesel is. To get low supher emissions manufacturers have to process the diesel in a particular way and the only way to get engine life and parts lubrication with the new diesel is to stick in biodiesel in as an additive.

Jeremy

Biodiesel from tallow?

I suppose that qualifies as waste-not-want-not, but it takes a huge amount of corn (fertilizer, and water) to produces a small amount of animal fat. I recall reading that it's so inefficient that if you ride a bicycle, but get the extra calories by eating beef, you'd be better off driving an SUV.

One good reason for proper flex-fuel vehicles it that it will reduce the barrier to entry for methanol OR ethanol whenever oil prices rise too high, and get the infrastructure in place. The only downside to methanol is that stuff is deadly poison; the wonderful thing about ethanol is that our bodies tolerate it in relatively large quantities.

A little conservation sure wouldn't hurt, either.

80%+ of new cars in Brazil already FlexFuel

Here in Brazil we have used ethanol cars since the 70s, and since the start of this century most of the new cars sold are FlexFuel ones. We are using it to power even our crop dusters.

Granted, we produce ethanol from sugarcane, and not methanol from other types of biomass, but at the moment sugarcane has the highest energy output per square yard for our climate, at least among vegetable materials that are already used to produce energy on an industrial scale.

We also don't subside ethanol production anymore - with over 30 years of industrial scale production to improve the technology, it's already cheaper to run on ethanol than on petrol. The fact that FlexFuel cars can change to petrol or back to ethanol at the drop of a hat also contributes to keep prices low - we have consumer choice and two different industries competing here.

And, of course, drivers love the fact that running on ethanol, besides being cheaper and greener, gives a 10-20% HP increase :)

BioFuels

Use of current biofuels sources, corn, compete with humans whom selfishly 1- like to eat and 2- like cheap food. Mexicans are currently experiencing high prices/shortages in corn. Current biofuels require non-renewables in their production, making them marginally less polluting than non-renewables alone, although that may be changing. Dr. Z is on to something in that we should be making biofuels from something outside the human food chain. But farmers are remarkably adept at feeding their animals (for slaughter) with roughage from all sorts of stuff outside the "human" food chain. Dr. Z is also on to something that a vehicle should be able to consume any kind of mix you throw into the tank, but that is generally what environmentalists and planners have been saying about energy in general for years. He's simply applying the idea to vehicles. But first, let's trade our Hummer for a Honda.

Ignoring the true issue

This ignored a point we had reached earlier in the week when Ms Legless promoted veganism as the end-all solution: There's too many of us. We are too many for what is available in resources.

How is production in (non Opec) Iraq doing?

Well energy efficiency looks like the easiest win to me. When I decided to cut my energy costs, I chose an apartment near my work and near my food. Instead of a 1 hour daily commute and a similar amount of driving each week to the out of town supermarket, I now cycle to work. I walk to the smaller local supermarket, so we can make more trips whenever we fancy something, instead of having to buy a weeks shop ahead.

My petrol costs went from a tank full every 3 days, to a tank full every 2 or 3 months, with less commuting time giving me more free time. Something like a 600 Euro a month saving.

So hydrogen generated by solar and nuclear MAY become viable after people reduce their energy costs.

Oil costs will not plummet, because there is no instant switch from oil to hydrogen. As the price increases, more of the economy will switch to other energy sources, if oil price went down, then that conversion to other sources would slow down in compensation.

Coal oil sucks, it's very expensive to make (energy expensive) which is why it isn't done on a large scale, sure it may be, but the energy that takes over will be the one that is cheapest, so if hydrogen + nuclear becomes viable at $140 a barrel and coal oil doesn't become viable till $180, then coal oil will never be made.

As for the idea that shortages are OPEC manipulating the oil market, the worlds biggest army now controls the worlds second largest oil reserve, hows Iraq's oil production going? Face it, we're running out of oil.

The horse that broke the camel's back

Why worry about upsetting the people in the middle-east by cutting their income, when a company in Dubai has already come up with the alternative-powered transport system we should all have...

http://fleethorse.net/

I just love how anybody could seriously think that this would actually work. Still, I'm sure someone said exactly the same thing about petroleum once.

*rushes to find coat and taxi before heckling commences*

The solution...

quit driving, quit eating meat and quit making more than one baby each.

thank you and good night.

Clever Bastard

Zubrin may be a clever bastard but he sounds as though he has a GW style anti ayrab axe to grind there. He does make a lot of good points but misses out on a few things. To arrive at an infrastructure that is capable of providing the west with it's fuel needs via either wood alcohol or bio derived ethanol means we had better start replanting the rain forests and the Sahara desert sometime around twenty years ago and even then there probably would not be enough to power all our needs. It is not just car and truck fuel that oil provides it is also most of the raw material for all the plastic in our lives as well as the energy to produce the plastics. If Zubrin can come up with a laser pistol small enough to fit in my back pocket I'll have one or a light sabre but his alternative energy hasn't used enough of his vast intellect.

Did anyone else immediately think of the Delorean from Back to the Future 2...

...when he was going on about powering your car from basically "junk and trash"?

I'm behind any man that advocates time-traveling, flying Deloreans powered on my garbage.

Nutter or Genius ?

Nutter? No , eccentric maybe ,

Genius? His qualifications suggest in certain fields he is .

He gives much food for thought and lets face it any idea on new energy sources has to be explored. I firmly believe that the energy problem worldwide is much more serious than Governments admit to the public. I also believe that technologies already exist that only the chosen few know about which will if developed and put into production dramatically reduce the worlds dependence on oil . Unfortunately these will only become public knowledge at the last minute as oil is about to run out. Guess who will hold all the patents and production rights ? The oil companies !

The only reason these technologies are not being used now is that they are more expensive than using up our extremely finite oil reserves .

In the future the oil magnates will still have us over the barrel , GB and all the world leaders by the balls !

Methanol is also corrosive

of many automotive type matreials, and is generally a pain to deal with...

methanol yes

requiring cars to be able to accept various fuels seems to be a good idea and puts pressure on oil to reduce in price. eg methanol could be used in petrol cars and biodiesel in diesel cars. seems like a no brainer, but I hope the critics out there are not going to say I have no grey stuff. I don't think the hydrogen route is at all viable...difficut to store and needs load of electricity to produce.

from ma.

This guy is full of it, not energy precisely

I agree with A. Heenan above. This guy's book is not about energy but rather about politics: bigoted, racist and supremacist politics of the kind we seem to find more and more recently. The idea is to kill, maim, ethnically cleanse and displace some people, Muslims in general, while they are being accused of terrorism, suicidal fanatism and disregard for their own life as they attempt a defense or mere survival.

However I would agree with one thing: he appears to write for some think-tank in Washington that applies "Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues ..." whatever. Well, the "Judeo-Christian moral tradition" approach to the Middle East usually meant doom and suffering for those poor people, starting with the Crusaders and not ending any time soon. So he is only doing what is expected from him and what they pay him for.

Also, he is so obsessed with Muslims, that he fails to consider the effect of China entering in the energy market.

That's not a nice way to refer to us Australians!

<<alcohol fuels can mix with water. They dissolve and are readily consumed by common bacteria>>

We may be common and we may consume vast amounts of ethanol (usually mixed with water) and we may smell a bit, but you shouldn't refer to us as bacteria!

Water power

If only someone could split water into the oxygen and hydrogen components to power a car.

Water is the solution here

@Brett Brennan:

"Alas, the power infrastructure that would yield the permanent relief from petroleum and all the related issues will take about 30 years to retool."

I'd like to know where you get your figures from, because I'm pretty positive it isn't based on your experience in moving from one energy source to another.

@Sameer:

"Hydrogen, as Zubrin correctly points out, is a piss-poor energy carrier ... NOT A FUEL SOURCE."

You are correct in stating hydrogen isn't a fuel source as it takes energy to produce it (not much hydrogen found in a pure form on Earth).

However, it certainly IS NOT a piss poor energy carrier. Hydrogen is a great energy carrier. You clearly haven't heard of nuclear fusion (hydrogen bombs included). How about the fact it is a major component of the fuel source used to launch the space shuttle? It's a better energy carrier than petrol.

Now we come to the production of hydrogen. The best ways to do this are the most sustainable ways. You can use bacteria, like in the Dailytech story mentioned by Hugh Sweeten. Algae is another good solution: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/24/pond_scum_breakthrough/

The absolute best solution to the transport issue is one that is glossed over because it sounds too good to be true: water-powered cars. This is possible due to discoveries made by an inventor called Stanley Meyer, who worked out a way to massively increase the efficiency of electrolysis (producing hydrogen using electricity). Best of all, you wouldn't need specially treated water (can even use salt water) and the process doesn't pollute, so as long as the electricity used in the process is from renewable resources you have the perfect solution.

Links here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_cell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIgOn1kRw5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXo7CVFI5Sk

@Andrew Heenan

"Of course it's true that Saudi Arabia is the main sponsor of Muslim terrorism. That's no secret."

True 'nuff.

"But removing the prime source of cash would not remove the terrorist organizations, or their motivation, or their ability to recruit. There many such organizations that have operated successfully for decades on minimal cash."

Not quite the case. Arab & Muslim extremists are motivated by standard nationalism (same thing that drove the Vietnamese insurgency against the French, so many years ago, or in Algeria the first time around, or in India in the 1900s, and same in many other colonial properties), and cloak it in ideology in the standard manner. What drives their appeal and desires is standard issue anti-colonialism: they want the foreigners out. If you're honest and reasonably well informed, you'll have to agree with 'em. Western & Russian control of the middle east has been a disaster for the people living there.

'Disaster'... some readers might say that it got rid of the Ottomans. Well and good, but the new system put & kept in place the Shah and his torture cells, the Saudis, the Baath party in Iraq, it perpetuated a stasis that prevented political change in Syria, Lebanon, and, yes, Israel. AFAIK, the Ottomans did not apply a scientific approach to torture and infiltration to breaking any and every political opposition. That was *our* innovation in the Middle East, and the west sent a lot of advisors to teach or 'oversee' it's application.

Removing the western need to interfere would remove the western interference in the politics and governance of the Middle East. Removal of western interference could only serve to lower the political/rhetorical temperature. This can only be a good thing.

@Andrew Heenan

>>Of course it's true that Saudi Arabia is the main sponsor of Muslim terrorism.<<

Er, how can you call Zubrin a bigot, whilst simultaneously concurring with his basic premise?

Zubrin argues from a very simple perspective. End the petrodollar flow to the Middle East, stem or end the Wahabbism that it funds in the West. That's economically sound in my view.

Create a new OPEC from the major users, rather than as before, from the producers

The price of oil was inflated by a group of oil producers who created a cartel called OPEC, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. So why not turn the tables and close the free market for oil and creat an new organisation called OPIC; Organisation for Petroleum Importing Countries and then set a price OPIC will accept as realistic and refuse to buy at any higher price?

A free market is where any purchaser is free NOT to purchase.

Yes, for a while, we would have to live without oil while the exporters tried to exploit the new market by refusing to sell. But every market has its price. In the end, they either give up exporting or accept the price.

Downside?

Yes, it would give the likes of China the potential to buy the production and hold us to ransom. Any middle man with deep enough pockets can try and hold the rest of us to ransom.

Food for thought?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

This guy is right about one thing. We will be using a lot less petroleum in the future. The global supply of oil peaked in 2006. Biofuels included. 'Conventional' oil supply peaked in 2005. It's all down hill from here, folks. The oil price is now $98.90, (still hasn't hit the third digit) but it ain't going down. Ever. The world demand is currently 88million barrels/day. Supply is 85 million barrels and falling. Nobody knows how fast the supply decline will be, (anything from 25 to 5% decline per year) but in a world where the entire economic model is predicated on indefinite exponential growth of everything, including energy, it spells one thing - global economic collapse. There isn't enough arable land in the world to grow biofuels for all our cars. In fact, without fossil fuels, there isn't enough arable land to feed us all. Tough one that, especially for Africa. Oil represents 39% of the world's primary energy supply. There is nothing that replace it in anything like the quantities we use.

Of course, the US dollar is tanking, and the 'real price' of oil is not rising quite so fast for us Europeans, but that will change. Once we get in a real bidding war in a few months time, it will be a case of the price rising until somebody can no longer afford it. And that very well could be you. Already large parts of the third world (Nepal, Zimbabwe, Burma, Bangladesh etc) are facing real fuel shortages. Soon it will be Western countries. Expect rationing within five years.

@Kim Mason

Yes and I suppose the Iranians should be grateful for having the Shah forced upon them by the US/UK when they already had an elected government. Speaking of which the US is proposing the next leader of Iran be a man who is related to the Shah.

How very patronising of you to assume that all lefties automatically side against the west. I'm well aware that the enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend.