The Glass Half Full

Driving around Northern California recently, I was struck again by the staggering problem presented by current fuel prices, as well as the compelling "glass half full" analogy that our current situation underscores.

The "great" thing about diesel at $5.25/gallon and regular gasoline at $4.00/gallon, is that it hammers home the message that we are in the midst of a serious problem. We are in the midst of a problem that may ebb and flow, but will never go away, and will likely trend worse (higher prices). We are in the midst of a problem that will remind us daily - through the miserable, depressing, 18" numbers on every gas station in this country - as we go about our vehicularly-based lives, that a significant portion of our collective income is being spent on driving inefficient cars. We are in the midst of a problem that we need to solve.

How did we get here?

It is tempting to use the 20/20 hindsight glasses and point our fingers - I have a long list that I could point at (and will later) - but at the end of the day, it starts with a long look in the mirror. Yep, I am ashamed to say that while I drive one fuel-efficient car, my family also has an SUV that boasts four-wheel drive, enough room for 3 kids and a dog and more than 8 cup holders; it gets 16mpg on the highway, going downhill. I paid good money for this beast, and I am embarrassed every time I load the family into it (it's for sale). So I am culpable - mea culpa!

But I am willing to change. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a more diesel/gas efficient, full size, 4WD option, and found exactly ZERO.

Imagine my righteous pointing finger starting to take aim here....Detroit, addicted to SUV profits, spent ZERO of their cash waterfall on forward thinking, fuel-efficiency technologies (these must be the same people who still don't believe in global warming) - how can the Earth's most compelling, fuel efficient car be (and look like) the Prius? Our big-oil-friendly senators and congressmen enacted ZERO legislation that would have forced the car companies to prepare for better standards, defaulting instead to debating drilling in ANWR and reducing summer gas taxes. And our Big-Oil Company profit engines have done ZERO to change a situation that generates $35 Billion a quarter in net income, deciding instead to take the 'harvest" route and ride the ever increasing price curve up until it inevitably falls off the cliff - easier that way: less R&D, less strategy, more golf.

So, here we are at $4.00/gallon for the majority of US drivers and $5.25 for the diesel drivers. In Europe, the cost is $10/gallon (!). I believe that we are NOT witnessing the proverbial "train wreck". It's already happened! We need to recover. We need ALTERNATIVES. And the mundane misery of daily pump price increases will force all of us to re-evaluate what must come next.

BIODIESEL is a superlative alternative. There are many others - solar, wind, geothermal, electric cars, hydrogen, etc - and they all need to be supported. But Bioidiesel is here today; it works; and if you use RVOWS (recycled vegetable oil and other waste streams) it's a lot cheaper than the petroleum alternative and, importantly, it's a lot cleaner. And yet there is limited governmental support for biodiesel alternatives. In fact, most politicians have not bothered to take the time to understand the differences among and between Biofuel alternatives; instead lumping them together and either speciously or unknowingly (a euphemism for ignorance) labeling them "a problem". The problem is the government is not supporting clean, available alternatives, and in fact is "unknowingly" hampering wide spread adoption, by ignoring the policy changes that could begin a process of weaning this county off oil.

Think, Act, Support Bioidiesel