By Alex Binkley
True North Perspective
OTTAWA
American economist Robert Zubrin wants Western countries to embrace biofuels to choke off some of the funding for Middle East based terrorists.
While Zubrin talked mainly about ethanol and methanol during a recent presentation to the Economic Club of Ottawa, any biofuel that displaces demand for petroleum in the western and developing world will reduce what we annually fork over to OPEC. Some of that money finds its way into the hands of Middle East terrorists.
Zubrin was promoting his book Energy Victory in which he marshals a tonne of data and charts to support his argument that increasing the use of biofuels will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and won’t trigger a dramatic rise in food prices.
He contends the United States spends $500 billion a year importing oil and only $4 billion to support renewable fuels. More biofuels would mean less money to the OPEC cartel and lower support payments to its farmers because they would have stronger returns from the market.
“Farmers will have all the production they can handle,” he said. “There will be huge markets for farm commodities.” Biofuels played only a small part in the recent rise in food prices that was mainly the result of crop failures and rising demand in Asian countries. He noted that rice, which isn’t used in biofuels, rose by 6% in price last year.
“The real drivers of consumer food price inflation, as the USDA or any reputable economist will attest, are non-farm factors like labor costs, energy prices, transportation, packaging and marketing,” he says. “In fact, all grains and other farm products combined account for just 19 cents of the consumer's food dollar.”
With better incomes, farmers will be interested in a higher yielding varieties that serve both the fuel and food markets. Cropland that idled because of low prices will go back into production.
Zubrin suggests a simple way to kick start the biofuel revolution would be for the American government to mandate that in a couple of years, all new cars must be able to burn gasoline, ethanol or methanol.
The technology for automakers to do so is feasible at about $100 more per vehicle and with the lead-time, all foreign and domestic manufacturers would adapt. The switch would force gasoline to be price competitive with biofuels. The competition plus the lower demand would likely knock down the cost of imported petroleum by $50 a barrel.
“By making America a flex-fuel market, we will effectively make flex-fuel the international standard. Around the world, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of sources. This will enormously expand and diversify humanity's fuel resource base, protecting all nations from continued blackmail and robbery by the oil cartel.”
Brazil successfully charted a biofuel path that made itself independent of OPEC, including fuel-flex cars, and other countries can follow similar policies suited for their climate and resources, he says.
Zubrin, whose ideas are attacked by the oil lobby in the United States, says imported petroleum accounts for nearly half of America's trade deficit. “If there is any problem with biofuels it is that America needs to produce more, not less, to put an end to the pick-pocketing of our national purse by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. This year, we will import 5 billion barrels of oil. At $100 a barrel, that amounts to a $500 billion tax we pay directly to foreign petro-tyrannies every year.
“By making America a flex-fuel market, we will effectively make flex-fuel the international standard. Around the world, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of sources. This will enormously expand and diversify humanity's fuel resource base, protecting all nations from continued blackmail and robbery by the oil cartel.
“That, not a blind and dangerous reliance on the status quo, should be our course.”
______