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Home Considering All Things Considered	Considering All Things Considered NPR is the Last Hope for a Democratic American Media, Let's Keep it Honest... Saturday, 10/23/04 re: Interview with Phil Verleger, Energy Consultant Reporter: Jennifer Ludden Dear ATC: Your program normally does a good job of balanced reporting. However, you are not alone in failing to comprehend the complete technological obsolescence of petroleum for both internal combustion (automobile) engines and utility turbine power generation. Gasoline, derived from petroleum as the principal fuel for internal combustion engines that are currently in use, has been obsolete for at least thirty years. It is artificially propped up and has been known for sixty (60) years to be one of the most destructive forces in our environment. Dr. Phil Verleger, whom you interviewed today, has a long record of advocating energy reform as long as such reform does not challenge the hegemony of fossil fuels and the Big Oil corporate structure that is artificially subsidized by our tax money, military invasions and political suppression of technologically practical alternatives. The fuel technology for replacing gasoline in internal combustion engines has been around since the early twentieth century: Specifically, the carburetion of all current engines could easily be adjusted for ethanol and/or methanol. Verleger is on record opposing ethanol even as a mere fractional additive that replaces the extremely toxic gasoline additive MTBE. The scientific facts indicate that ethanol, rather than merely an additive, should be at least 80% of all automotive fuels. Both ethanol and methanol are derived from organic materials, grown or decaying and are, therefore, plentiful. Their producing, distilling and processing would create a competitive fuel marketplace for the first time since before the New Deal. The resulting much reduced, yet legitimate, role for oil does not please oil-power executives, stockholders, "energy consultants" and military strategists. It is unlikely that Farmers and distillers would need to pay top fees to an "energy consultant." Every automobile engine in current use needs only a relatively insignificant carburetion adjustment -- no race cars here in Indianapolis use gasoline anymore, just ethanol and methanol. That is because higher octane (power output) can be achieved from a lower burning temperature than with gasoline and, consequently, wear and tear on engines is much less. The scientific evidence in hundreds of European and US studies has been irrefutable since 1924. However, without a national infrastructure of supports and incentives to farmers, car manufacturers, fuel distributors, recyclers and retailers that any effective technological paradigm has required -- from railroads and automobiles to the Internet -- renewable fuels will never compete with oil. Level playing field? As the most subsidized industry in the world, Big Oil IS the playing field. What is still missing is balanced media presentation and, therefore, clear public understanding. Since John D. Rockefeller constructed the Standard Oil Trust in the late 19th Century no industry has come close to the oil industry for constricting national energy and foreign policy; our most pervasive and insidious domestic myth goes "we have no choice but oil." Both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison invested in and clearly preferred ethanol over gasoline, however, Standard Oil consolidated its power and finally squelched ethanol in the 1930s. Ethanol, solar and related renewable energy technologies had a strong start in the late 70s and some startup companies had public stock offerings. However, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush in 1981 obliterated all US Department of Energy programs that had begun under Jimmy Carter in 1978 to lay out a national sustainable fuels infrastructure. Our technological progress was abruptly undercut for what is now becoming twenty-five years. Need Proof? I'll send it to you. I have the 1980-81-82 DOE Budgets that clearly reveal the malfeasance of Reagan-Bush. Myopic "consultants" such as the one you presented today are not nonpartisan on this issue. Dr. Verleger would not receive a penny of corporate fees if he was an authentic "energy consultant" who demonstrated that he is courageous on this most critical issue of our time. You have chosen to present Dr. Verleger as an "expert" on fuel technology options. Yet there are more comprehensive thinkers and experts on this subject. His bromides are no more profound than a middle management oil data collector or a drilling-rig crane operator. Dr. Verleger is an unremarkable researcher and spokesman for our global status quo of oil dependency. I am no position to attribute his motives to being anything more suspicious than abysmal ignorance. Yet, ignorance is no longer tolerable either in an energy consultant or a president. As our nation is persuaded by such experts and presidents to support vicious oil kingdoms and dictators we now see the blowback of 9-11 and we are promised more to come. The stakes of ignorance and greed are high. Science is unequivocal regarding the direct role of fossil fuels on global climate degradation. Armies are murdering, pillaging, raping and devastating cultures in many parts of the world such as Sudan, Chechenya, Burma, Georgia, Columbia, etc., to control what is left of petroleum resources; there is a credible body of evidence that Iraqi oil is the invasion motivation of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and company. Certainly, "weapons-of-mass-destruction" and a faux "democracy" do not begin to explain such an indefensible adventure or America's bizarre acceptance of it. The question is not US vs foreign sources of petroleum. It's all the same few globally subsidized suppliers anyway. The questions that I would beg you to start asking center on the true choices that are kept off the table by the parasitic oil companies, utilities, their political and media supplicants and impostors who are wrongly called "experts." Thank you. -- Keni Washington, Energy Consultant, Indianapolis E-mail comments to: earthvoices1@aol.com.	Other Articles: David Horowitz Pie-Faced At Butler University!!! by Keni Washington An Open Question To All Able-bodied Supporters of the War On Iraq: Why Aren't You In Iraq? by Keni Washington 9-11-04 -- Letter to Secretary Powell by Keni Washington 9-23-04 -- Open letter to Iraq by Keni Washington

Considering All Things Considered

NPR is the Last Hope for a Democratic American Media, Let's Keep it Honest...

Saturday, 10/23/04
re: Interview with Phil Verleger, Energy Consultant

Reporter: Jennifer Ludden

Dear ATC:

Your program normally does a good job of balanced reporting. However, you are not alone in failing to comprehend the complete technological obsolescence of petroleum for both internal combustion (automobile) engines and utility turbine power generation.

Gasoline, derived from petroleum as the principal fuel for internal combustion engines that are currently in use, has been obsolete for at least thirty years. It is artificially propped up and has been known for sixty (60) years to be one of the most destructive forces in our environment.

Dr. Phil Verleger, whom you interviewed today, has a long record of advocating energy reform as long as such reform does not challenge the hegemony of fossil fuels and the Big Oil corporate structure that is artificially subsidized by our tax money, military invasions and political suppression of technologically practical alternatives.

The fuel technology for replacing gasoline in internal combustion engines has been around since the early twentieth century: Specifically, the carburetion of all current engines could easily be adjusted for ethanol and/or methanol. Verleger is on record opposing ethanol even as a mere fractional additive that replaces the extremely toxic gasoline additive MTBE.

The scientific facts indicate that ethanol, rather than merely an additive, should be at least 80% of all automotive fuels. Both ethanol and methanol are derived from organic materials, grown or decaying and are, therefore, plentiful. Their producing, distilling and processing would create a competitive fuel marketplace for the first time since before the New Deal.

The resulting much reduced, yet legitimate, role for oil does not please oil-power executives, stockholders, "energy consultants" and military strategists. It is unlikely that Farmers and distillers would need to pay top fees to an "energy consultant."

Every automobile engine in current use needs only a relatively insignificant carburetion adjustment -- no race cars here in Indianapolis use gasoline anymore, just ethanol and methanol. That is because higher octane (power output) can be achieved from a lower burning temperature than with gasoline and, consequently, wear and tear on engines is much less.

The scientific evidence in hundreds of European and US studies has been irrefutable since 1924. However, without a national infrastructure of supports and incentives to farmers, car manufacturers, fuel distributors, recyclers and retailers that any effective technological paradigm has required -- from railroads and automobiles to the Internet -- renewable fuels will never compete with oil. Level playing field? As the most subsidized industry in the world, Big Oil IS the playing field.

What is still missing is balanced media presentation and, therefore, clear public understanding. Since John D. Rockefeller constructed the Standard Oil Trust in the late 19th Century no industry has come close to the oil industry for constricting national energy and foreign policy; our most pervasive and insidious domestic myth goes "we have no choice but oil."

Both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison invested in and clearly preferred ethanol over gasoline, however, Standard Oil consolidated its power and finally squelched ethanol in the 1930s. Ethanol, solar and related renewable energy technologies had a strong start in the late 70s and some startup companies had public stock offerings.

However, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush in 1981 obliterated all US Department of Energy programs that had begun under Jimmy Carter in 1978 to lay out a national sustainable fuels infrastructure. Our technological progress was abruptly undercut for what is now becoming twenty-five years. Need Proof? I'll send it to you. I have the 1980-81-82 DOE Budgets that clearly reveal the malfeasance of Reagan-Bush.

Myopic "consultants" such as the one you presented today are not nonpartisan on this issue. Dr. Verleger would not receive a penny of corporate fees if he was an authentic "energy consultant" who demonstrated that he is courageous on this most critical issue of our time.

You have chosen to present Dr. Verleger as an "expert" on fuel technology options. Yet there are more comprehensive thinkers and experts on this subject. His bromides are no more profound than a middle management oil data collector or a drilling-rig crane operator.

Dr. Verleger is an unremarkable researcher and spokesman for our global status quo of oil dependency. I am no position to attribute his motives to being anything more suspicious than abysmal ignorance.

Yet, ignorance is no longer tolerable either in an energy consultant or a president. As our nation is persuaded by such experts and presidents to support vicious oil kingdoms and dictators we now see the blowback of 9-11 and we are promised more to come. The stakes of ignorance and greed are high.

Science is unequivocal regarding the direct role of fossil fuels on global climate degradation. Armies are murdering, pillaging, raping and devastating cultures in many parts of the world such as Sudan, Chechenya, Burma, Georgia, Columbia, etc., to control what is left of petroleum resources; there is a credible body of evidence that Iraqi oil is the invasion motivation of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and company.

Certainly, "weapons-of-mass-destruction" and a faux "democracy" do not begin to explain such an indefensible adventure or America's bizarre acceptance of it. The question is not US vs foreign sources of petroleum. It's all the same few globally subsidized suppliers anyway.

The questions that I would beg you to start asking center on the true choices that are kept off the table by the parasitic oil companies, utilities, their political and media supplicants and impostors who are wrongly called "experts."

Thank you. -- Keni Washington, Energy Consultant, Indianapolis

E-mail comments to: earthvoices1@aol.com.