Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil

A methanol solution to the energy crisis

Dr. Zubrin documents how flex fuel vehicles burning methanol (CH3OH) or ethanol (C2H5OH) can save the USA more than a 10 trillion dollars in 5 years of implementing his plan on page 145. On page 94 he discusses how farm waste product such as stems, roots and leaves can be used to make methanol. Coal could be converted to methanol - pg 96. The USA has the world's biggest coal reserves so this technique alone would almost free us from OPEC and the Saudi Royals. He describes how methanol can be made from garbage such as sawdust and rice bran on pg 153 plastics, synthetic fabrics, yard waste, paper, rubber tires, cardboard, styrofoam, glue, natural fibers like cotton and linen, etc. We could greatly reduce the amount of stuff going into our land fills if we cooked most of it into methanol. Building cars that can burn any mixture of gasoline and methanol would cost $100 extra for improved materials in the fuel line. On page 107 he discusses why this system is better for the environment. On page 126 to 135 he debunks the claims that alcohol fuels cost more oil to create than what they save and documents how these exploded theories keep getting air time in the big media. On page 137 he talks about methanol and how it can help poor farmers through out the world rather than giving our billions to OPEC. To us a $140 / barrel of oil is inconvenient, but to a poor 3rd world farmer trying to get his crop to market it is a impossibly cruel tax. Food is rotting on the field for lack of money to buy gasoline to bring it to market.

To Process-Chemical-Engineer reviewer

Did you actually read the book, or are you part of the problem Zubrin exposes? (Ie are you a farm (ethanol), big oil, or Saudi Arabian lobbyist?) Zubrin's solution is methanol (wood alcohol), made from sources ethanol (grain alcohol) can't be made from, including coal, natural gas, human and animal wastes, ordinary garbage, all plant materials (ie species now considered weeds), and many industrial by-products now considered noxious pollutants. Methanol could economically replace ALL gasoline and diesel within 10 years, and the only impact on the price of food would be its reduction as the price of the fuel used to grow and transport it dropped. In fact, an immediate move towards methanol would force the Saudi's to drop the price of oil to $50 or less, probably within 3 years. That's what competition does, of which there's no meaningful amount in the transportation fuel market and can't be for 15+ years, based on current technologies that exclude methanol. And to answer the unstated canard you would have used had you known I would write this answer to your review, methanol is not a meaningful polluter (especially compared to what it would replace, oil), as proven by the hundreds of millions of gallons of methanol INTENTIONALLY released into the environment every year via windshield washer fluid, of which methanol was the main component until very recently. Methanol was chosen because, as alcohol, it's food for microorganisms and therefore is quickly broken down in the environment. (And that's VERY unlike MTBE, made from methanol and held up by the disingenuous as proof methanol is a polluter. MTBE is a completely different chemical, and does NOT break down easily in the environment, so it has caused problems.) Your ¿choice¿ between OPEC oil and world starvation is a straw man. The real choice is between OPEC oil and unutilized resources abundantly found in practically every country in the world, including the US.

Nice idea but not for this world

It needs not commenting from me that the current policy for energy crops has risen prices for starches and oils in levels that should create scepticism to us. What would you choose, global hunger or to depend on OPEC? The solution to energy issue is to upgrade the renewable sources technology and to economize as much as possible (house insulation, hybrid vehicles, mass transit, etc.)

A blueprint for indepndence that only needs political will to succeed.

¿Are we still a nation of pioneers? Do we choose to make the efforts required to continue as the vanguard of human progress, a people of the future, or will we allow ourselves to be a people of the past, one whose accomplishments are celebrated only in museums?¿ so wrote Robert Zubrin from the preface to his first book ¿The Case for Mars¿, reminding Americans¿ that their nation achieved greatness because they, as a people, always sought the future. And in their seeking they found a way free of control and of any check against their collective dreams for themselves and their children¿s children. In establishing the American age, they would find that national greatness comes from a shared vision as a people for a future lived in freedom, and not just from some happenstance or whim of nature. Often as a nation we have aimed high and missed the mark, but never have we been a people to settle, to content ourselves with going along for the ride. As ¿The Case for Mars¿ asks the question of why we are content to dabble in space post-Apollo, Zubrin¿s latest action inspiring book, ¿Energy Victory¿ asks the resounding question of the American age - why has America remained a contented captive of the Arab Petroleum cartel? And why does America continue to help cultivate, finance and shelter the benefactors of the very forces that we commit our young men and women in the armed services to fight in a struggle of ¿kill or be killed?¿ In ¿Energy Victory,¿ Zubrin details not only a plan for energy independence, but demonstrates conclusively the absurdity of our present national energy policy. From pointing out the role of Saudi Arabia in spreading worldwide the fanatic Islamic Wahhabi worldview and that worldviews direct ties to our current ¿terror war,¿ to the use of petroleum wealth in buying influence in the corridors of Washington, our national energy policy is seriously missing the mark of American national interest. For anyone still doubting that Islamic terrorism is a grave threat because of the vast wealth of the oil Sheiks being used to finance it, and the influence that their wealth buys in the corridors of power in the world¿s remaining ¿superpower,¿ Zubrin¿s first sixty pages are conclusive for all but those few still awaiting their second cup of Kool-Aid. Yet ¿Energy Victory¿ goes beyond just building the case about an oil and Islamic fanaticism co-dependency, but sets an ambitious strategic goal of destroying the OPEC cartel and creating an energy independent America that plays straight to our nation¿s natural resource strengths. Based on Nineteenth century technology and chemistry that is easily understood with no more than a high school chemistry background he argues that to ¿annihilate the oil cartel, we need to switch the world to a different fuel.¿ In the chapter ¿Changing the Energy Trump Suit,¿ Zubrin acknowledges that currently oil is the fuel with the trump role and the United States is by far the worst loser in the energy game with oil as the trump ¿card.¿ Yet the U.S. energy position changes dramatically when the trump fuel cards are changed to one of the world¿s other major energy resources of coal, natural gas, or biomass. To make that change in the trump card the U.S. would need to convert coal, natural gas, and biomass into their ¿energy equivalent in usable liquid fuels,¿ or simply ¿all we need to do is make alcohol,¿ and in point of fact the simplest alcohols ¿ ethanol and methanol. And while the energy densities, as Zubrin points out, of the alcohols are not that of petroleum based liquid fuels the current price points of gasoline and other fuels make alcohols very attractive and doable, while the strategic imperative of breaking the back of terror¿s financiers makes an alcohol based energy source a necessity. The technologies exist today, and have for the last 30 plus years, to convert our automobile production to 100% flex-fuel internal combustion, meaning an internal engine monitoring that burns

A book dense with ideas and facts

A powerful book which suggests and documents a path for energy independence. I believe it will define the energy debate from this time forward. Dr. Zubrin does not pull any punches. From criticisms of the current administration's energy policy to arguments against the 'hydrogen economy' and global warming there is something to offend almost every power group in Washington. The history of Brazil and how it has achieved energy independence is especially interesting.

A clear and decisive plan for winning the war on terror

Robert Zubrin has written a masterful exposé of the connection between our global oil economy and Islamic terrorism. Energy Victory gives us a clear and decisive plan for winning the war on terror by freeing the world from oil dependence¿using existing technology and our own natural resources. A simple mandate¿a single act of Congress¿could shift the world economy from oil to alcohol fuels within a decade. Every American should read this book.

A reviewer

Zubrin forcefully postulates that a switch to ethanol and methanol fuel, replacing Mideast Oil, particularly from the Saudis, is America's answer to true Energy Independence. Starting with forced conversions to flex fuel for all new vehicles sold in the U.S.--doubly more ambitious than the Administration's exhortations to the Big Three Automakers that half their annual production be flex-fuel- capable by 2012--alcohol fuels based on flex-ubiquity, Zubrin contends, would quickly supplant petroleum as the dominant fuel source. Using a methodical historical narrative, Zubrin traces the flow of petrodollars from the U.S. to Osama Bin Laden. A petro-feed to hatred of the West, the route carries us through the Saudi Royal Family's support of radical Islam, its strict fundamentalist teachings and zealotry traced to Ibn Abdul Wahhab and Bin Laden. 7.5 million barrels a day of alcohol fuels, a tough but attainable goal, is the counter balance that leads us to Zubrin's Energy Victory. Laced with facts and figures and some easy math, it's sure to devolve to the policy points of some presidential candidate.

No text was provided for this review.