A mandate is a rather blunt instrument. A case can be made for a tax on oil imports on national-security grounds, provided that the revenue is used to reduce other taxes rather than wasted on boondoggles.
Why should we expect OPEC to be nice to us? Of course not, they are our rivals, if not our enemies.
So, we need to become energy independent. But the idea that we can do so through some mystical government mandate for “FFV” technology is really loony.
No, sorry, the primary answers are 1) drill, 2) build many nuclear power plants, 3) develop clean coal technology and reverse clinton’s lock-away of Utah coal, 4) shale and oilsand technology, 5) build more refinery capacity and do our own refining, and 6) alternative technologies like the one mentioned. Also, 7) forget all that global warming, carbon credit nonsense. Frankly, alternative technologies will never do more than help at the margins, until we have more time to develop them. We should certainly do so, but they are not the immediate solution.
And where are we going to find these mystical alternative fuels used in FFV? By cutting down the Brazilian rain forests? By sending the price of food even higher? Even that would only marginal, I’m afraid.
Sorry Frank, ethanol is NOT a solution to anything.
Especially if you’re willing to be hoodwinked by the “CO2 causes global warming” crowd.
You would have us harvest the very plants which clean up the CO2.
Never mind that ethanol requires more energy to produce than you generate with the end product.
(ask any hillbilly about his moonshine recipe)
I wonder if Frank Gaffney is a paid shill for some alternative-fuels industry group. I only say that because the last article I saw along these lines was written by someone who was exactly that.
why can't they ever propose a solution that is: cheaper, and uses less government instead of more ?
I totally agree!