"Hey Orville, I got a crazy idea".....

It’s never stopped me before, so I’m about to explain something I don’t understand.

While most of our oil comes from Canada, a non OPEC country, it’s the bullies over at OPEC that are causing this mess. Think about it, they control the faucet and set the price as they wish with no rhyme or reason. Or perhaps there is a reason. I don’t think you’d get too much of an argument if you said, “Most OPEC countries hate America… Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, yep, we’re hated.” Hugo Chavez wants oil at $200 a barrel; you think he likes us (US).

Saudi Arabia was the only friend we thought we had. But it’s funny now that Saddam Hussein is no longer around (threatening border countries) the Saudis have little use for the protecting arm of the United States. With Saddam gone one has to wonder if the two aren’t related.

Robert Zubrin, (Google him if you wish,) is an aerospace engineer, with a boatload of knowledge. He understands more than this pee-brain of mine will ever comprehend. But what I can follow, he makes a lot of sense. He feels OPEC is out to destroy America by making fuel unaffordable. In turn, our country will have a depression, which would cause stocks to drop. Major corporations will lose their value allowing anyone with cash to purchase stocks for pennies on the dollar. So who do you think will have cash when no one else does? Voila, the terrorists win and they own America. Some OPEC families are already investing in American stocks, so the ball is rolling.

Make no mistake, this is a world war, I needn’t remind you that most of the terrorists who flew planes into our buildings were from Saudi Arabia. And you know all about Iran’s leader. Then we add Venezuela (America hating Hugo Chavez) to the mix.

Fuel is the lifeblood of our economy and we’re losing blood at a rapid pace. Yes, I’m afraid the next terrorist attack we’ve been waiting for is already here. We’re just too stupid too realize it. Instead Congress brings in oil executives and lectures them on being greedy. The environmentalist and politicians (both sides) won’t allow drilling on so- called sacred soil. Hey, my thought is, if the Grand Canyon has oil beneath its surface, God must have put it there for us to use… Fill the sucker up! But that’s just me.

Here’s a word for our environmentalist friends… Shut-up!
I love the planet, after all I live here. I’m for wind and solar power, let’s do it. But don’t stand in the way of all the things nature has given. This planet, like it our not, was supplied with crude oil by our creator. I guess you could call it a gift from God. What makes you so pompous to dictate where the US drills for God’s gift?

Because of you, we can’t drill in the Gulf of Mexico. However, you can’t stop Mexico and Cuba from drilling in the same waters. So now we can’t have a piece of that pie. No, no, no, we’ll hurt the fish. See fish only die when Americans drill for oil.

You know Clinton back in 1995 vetoed a bill that would’ve allowed drilling in Alaska. Had he signed it along with drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Dakotas, this blog might not be necessary. But what’s done is done, and we play the, “What are we going to do game,” while continuing buying oil from terrorists, dictators and countries where women have no rights. How come that’s okay? You’d think OPEC would be protested by every human rights organization this side of Ralph Nader. And if they stood by their principles, not only would they want to drill in Alaska, they’d demand it.

If we could drill, finding refineries would be the next problem. The last refinery was built in 1976. That’s when John McCain was still in the Navy, Bill Clinton wasn’t inhaling, and Barack Obama went by the name, Barry. It’s no wonder this oil mess didn’t start years ago.

You want to bring OPEC to their knees? Give them competition, which brings me back to Robert Zubrin, he wants to make all new cars flex-fueled. Mr. Zubrin states, that for a little over one hundred dollars cars can be altered to run on gas, pure sugar ethanol, or methanol, in other words, flex-fuel. This would give the consumer a choice. Now I know we’ve had problems with corn-based ethanol, but he’s talking about pure ethanol made from sugarcane, which wouldn’t throw our food crops out of whack. But I’m more interested in his methanol theory.

Robert Zubrin says methanol can be made from wood, coal, or even trash. Remember this is a rocket scientist, and when they speak I tend to believe them. Continuing his thought, we have more than enough coal, undergrowth woods that need to be managed, and trash to have methanol coming out of our ears. If you compare equivalent gas vs. methanol think about this. Currently methanol is selling $1.60 a gallon… I said one dollar and sixty cents a gallon…. What am I missing? Isn’t this the biggest no-brainer in history?

You want to see gas prices drop, let OPEC know we’re sniffing around this idea and oil will drop $20 a barrel. If we do more than sniff and actually put methanol cars into production, suddenly the hunted become the hunter and we might just tell OPEC how much we’ll pay for their oil.
We are Americans, the land that brought us Edison, Ford, and Gates. We’ve put men on the moon; now the same men tell us this can be done. Isn’t it time we listen to the big-brained people instead of the little minds that run Washington?

Our politicians can’t grasp new ideas. They’d rather point fingers at the President, oil companies and you and me for driving SUVs. I say enough is enough. We’re at war with OPEC and it’s time to get out of our defensive crouch and strike back.

From here on out, every Senator’s conversation should start and end with how do we make our cars run on methanol and when can the plants get up and running?

Maybe methanol isn’t the answer, I don’t know. If the country was full of people like me, we’d still be rubbing sticks together hoping for fire. But thankfully we live in a country that’s been blessed with thinkers who can use their mind for unbelievable things. Think how far we’ve come since Henry Ford, but we’re still using the same type fuel that powered the Model T. You really believe that’s where our intelligence stopped? We’ve sat far too long on this antiquated idea of petroleum based propulsion. It’s time to get out of the crude oil ages and the United States needs to lead the way.

You’ve probably never heard of Percy Spencer or Martin Cooper, but you use their inventions everyday. You can thank old Percy the next time you throw popcorn into a microwave and teenagers ought to build a shrine in honor of Martin Cooper. He came up with the crazy idea of a cell phone. Just think a few generations ago these two inventions seemed as foreign as; oh I don’t know, turning trash into fuel.

Do your own research; some call Robert Zubrin a crack-pot with crazy ideas. Well, that’s what they called the Wright Brothers. And at one time some experts said the public had no use for a personal computer. Now I have a bigger hard drive on my laptop than the computer that landed man on the moon.

We can do anything. Necessity is the mother of all invention and we have a mother of a problem. Our enemies have realized flying a few planes into buildings only kill some of us. But if they slowly grind us into a depression, they’ll kill us all.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Why isn’t this on the editorial page of every newspaper? This news shouldn’t fall on a dolt like me who listens to an obscure radio program in the middle of the night.

This stuff should be written by professionals who know how to string coherent sentences together. The best I can do is give you a few links where the case is made a little clearer, and urge you to write your congressmen about flex-fueled cars.

www.energyvictory.net
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-methanol-alternative

The way I see it, we got two choices, we can continue to point fingers while bowing down to OPEC, or we show the world what good old American know-how can do.
If we chose the latter, one day future generations will look back at us and say, this was America’s finest hour.

In the mean time, I’ll be in my backyard rubbing sticks together and hoping for fire.