Dubai Ski Resort in the desert

Built in  desert by American Gas Consumers Americans spend their hard earned dollars to make snow at Dubai ski resort.

 Replacing  gasoline with Natural Gas is the solution to unemployment,

By Jack Corbett

This picture is of a Dubai ski resort in the middle of the desert created  from American dollars, European euros, Japanese yen and other currencies from countries that have become such slaves to Mid-Eastern oil that  they've finally succumbed to throwing their national treasures into the toilet.  The U.S. has meanwhile been fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while its own economy has been tottering on the brink as it continues to justify these totally useless and un-winnable wars as nation building.   But there is no nation building going on in the U.S. and there hasn't been for some time.  There is a solution to this, but obviously our present government representatives either are such morons that they've never thought about it or have had their souls purchased by special interest groups such as Big Oil and a military industrial complex that needs armed conflict to preserve itself.  The United States has up to a hundred year supply of natural gas.  It is successfully being used in such countries as Thailand which are weaning themselves off expensive Mid-East oil where it's available at a fraction of the cost of gasoline.  Natural gas needs to made a vital part of a comprehensive solution to U.S. dependence on Mid-East oil that is comprised of home grown energy alternatives to Mid-East oil such as Wind-power, Ethanol, Solar, nuclear and even including domestic sources of oil which need to be utilized in such vitally needed specific industries such as farming even while they are being phased out for normal passenger car use.  Such a policy, in spite of huge initial costs and setbacks will result in a rebirth of the American economy together with the elimination of an expensive military presence overseas.  And it's not just the economy which will win, it is also likely that the destruction of our planet as we know it today will be saved.  The solution is simple--that is to put such large taxes upon foreign oil so that consumers will be forced into choosing such alternatives as Natural gas, ethanol and so on.  The beauty of natural gas powered passenger vehicles is that it's very inexpensive to convert existing engines to utilize such natural gas derived fuels as NGV and it's available now. 

We are in the middle of a recession that many say will become more devastating to the American economy than the great depression was during the 1930's when we saw 28 %unemployment. It took World War II, an event of catastrophic proportions to pull us out of it.  It is going to take another war of similar dimension to pull us out of our present great recession.  So don't even think that half way measures are up to the task.  It's going to take a complete reversal, a revolution, to our present way of doing things.  And even if hadn't gotten into the current recession, we would still have to contend with a huge spiral of ever increasing energy costs.  The fact is that as such nations as China and India become more and more prosperous with large percentages of their huge populations demanding and getting cars and other energy consuming products, the demand for oil will in the future increase exponentially.  This means huge increases in price.  The result will be a tremendous decrease in the living standards of Americans.

So anything that weans us off our dependence on Mideast and other foreign oil is a huge win for Americans.  The price for imported oil is simply too high to pay.   And by the way, we can add to this price the cost we have been paying for two wars, the one in Afghanistan and the one in Iraq.  Both are in the Mideast and both have everything to do with oil.  If we were to become energy self-sufficient we could kiss the cost of all such wars or even of having a military presence in the region goodbye.

So what happens when we station 70,000 troops in Germany, 150,000 in Iraq and another 100,000 in Afghanistan?  The troops spend their money overseas, not in the U.S.  It all amounts to the same thing as sending our petro dollars over to such countries as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.  We help build the infrastructure of overseas countries at the expense of our own.

Okay then, let's move onto the vital subject of energy independence.  Let's start with a single simple concept.   That is it's better to spend a dollar in the U.S. for energy produced in the U.S. than it is in some far distant land because that dollar will wind up being spent in the U.S. to buy goods and services in American stores, to pay the wages and salaries of American workers, to pay for cars built in the U.S. and so on.  It doesn't go to build ski resorts in Dubai, to pay terrorist organizations in Saudi Arabia or to build a hotel in Kuwait.

In fact, it's better to spend a dollar fifty for energy produced in the U.S. than it is to spend a dollar for Saudi oil.  This is because that dollar and a half will be used to buy things in the U.S. which will create jobs in the U.S. or to pay the wages of American workers who now have the money to go out and buy goods and services they couldn't before which once again creates new jobs for Americans.

Now here's where we start to get truly revolutionary.  Let's take windpower for instance.   There is no doubt enough windpower to supply the entire U.S. with electricity.  One question is at what cost?  But there's large areas in the U.S. both on and off shore where a huge amount of energy can be obtained at relatively low cost.  The main objections I've heard against wind power is that it won't generate enough electricity to supply a significant portion of our needs, that all those windmills are unsightly and that they pose significant hazard to birds.   The first objection doesn't even make sense.  Where there's a great amount of wind the wind generators can be grouped together closely enough to produce ungodly amounts of wind and if anyone doesn't believe me, just let me take them out to certain areas of the American West where the wind's a driving very uncomfortable force.   As to wind generators being unsightly let me just say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  For me, just seeing all those wind generators lined up in row after row just shows how many wars we didn't have to pay for, how many foreign soldiers we didn't have to train at the American tax payer's expense and how many sky scrapers in the Mideast were not erected due to American unwillingness to pay for them.  Lastly as the danger that windmills pose to birdlife, let me just say this.  There are smart rabbits and there are dumb rabbits.  The dumb ones don't have the common sense to get out of the way of cars whereas the smart ones survive.  Like most animals, birds are smart and there will be enough smart ones to be able to survive the wind generators.

Here's the real reason wind power is not getting the shot that it deserves.  Or solar.  Or practically anything that is not based on oil.  Our politicians are being bought by the oil companies.  Here's a few links to support this conclusion.  Big Oil protects it interests. Here's a great resource that's called dirtyenergymoney.com Simply put in your zip code and your U.S. representative and state senators will come up.   You can then zero in on how much the oil companies have donated to each one, which energy companies donated and how much each company donated.  For instance, I put in my zip code 62533.  My representative John Shimkus came up along with my two Senators Roland Burris and Richard Durbin.   Senator Durbin received $136725 whereas Representative John Shimkus received $527,831 since 1999.

And that's just for publicly disclosed campaign contributions.   What about under the table money?  And how about money spent by the oil companies for lobbying and entertaining our politicians?  Is it any wonder why wind power, solar power, ethanol and anything that is not big oil is getting a bad rap? Thomas Friedman, a three time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times just came out with his latest book, Hot, Flat, Crowded.  All Americans need to read this book.  Without exception.   What Friedman suggests and his reasons for his overall solution to America's addiction to foreign oil is far more complex for me to get into much of it here other than to say 1.  If the U.S. fails to become energy self sufficient it will soon become a second rate country and 2.  The solution to our dependence upon foreign oil must be a multi faceted strategy that both employs all alternative energy sources that can be home grown in the U.S. as well as energy conservation on the consumption end.

One thing Friedman fails to address is how the use of natural gas can be expanded to replace a lot of the gasoline that is currently being used in cars and other vehicles.   First off, it's available now, with up to a one hundred year supply of it and it's available right here in the United States.  What this means the jobs won't go overseas as nearly everyone who's involved extracting it, storing it, and distributing it is likely to be American.  If we were to replace all the gasoline presently being used in our passenger cars with Natural gas and natural gas products such as LPG and NGV we could say once and for all, goodbye to all those precious petro dollars going to the Mid East to fund our enemies, to build wasteful ski resorts in the desert, and to build the infrastructure of Middle Eastern oil producing countries while our own is crumbling.

Arguments against replacing oil with natural gas in cars range from its being explosive, hence unsafe, to its offering limited range compared to gasoline, taking up too much trunk space, and there not being a big enough infrastructure to support a widespread distribution of fueling stations.  May I suggest that most of these arguments are spread by the oil companies and their supporters who don't want to see any alternatives to big oil, no matter how many wars big oil is going to cost us or how costly it's going to get, and how many pink elephants Mid Eastern oil producing countries expect us to build for them.

Let them eat their own oil.  I have been living in Thailand for five years.  LPG and NGV is currently being used in nearly all taxis I've taken to and from the Bangkok airport.  It's becoming more and more popular in passenger cars too and the reason is it's only 20 to 25 % of the cost of gasoline.  I have yet to see an LPG or NGV powered vehicle catch fire.   And none of my friends have either.

In Thailand between 2006 and 2011 (projected) its deployment of natural gas powered vehicles has increased from 28840 to 256,000 while  the number or refueling stations has gone from 104 to 535 NGV Global News