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Coming soon to a factory near you...the Waxman-Markey anti-stimulus


Pssst...wanna hear a good one? Henry Waxman (the California ultra-leftist House democrat) has stated that his new climate bill WON'T harm the U.S. economy.

Can this environmental noodlehead actually be serious?

Waxman is the type of guy who stays up late thinking of new leftist ideas to force down our throats-- his dream for an ecological nirvana-- but it's a nightmare.

Yes indeed, the benevolent Henry Waxman, who claims his bill won't hurt the economy. It's like pretending cancer is harmless. Waxman's big lie of lies is nothing more than economic carcinoma in its most virulent form, because it will metastisize insidiously from one industry to another.

And now, we must introduce his partner in crime, Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), another leftist radical who--as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy &  Environment-- has been a one-man wrecking-crew to block drilling leases in Alaska in order to "save" the pristine habitat.

This lunatic claims that the current estimate of 30,00 polar bears are grounds enough to block oil exploration to avoid their extinction; so don't dare try to tell good ol' Ed that there ain't no global warming--no sir-ee--because he's having none of it.

Waxman and Markey are the Laurel & Hardy of environmentalism-- out to pass their clean air bill-- then sit back and watch it slowly leach the lifeblood out of every manufacturer, energy producer, farmer, and you guessed it...everyone else who uses energy-- all because of non-existent global warming.

And God save America if this bill passes! The cost of living, the cost of driving, and the cost of doing business for almost everyone-- all will literally go sky-high in the next decade-- or even sooner.

Their legislation requires that CO2 emissions be reduced 20 percent by the year 2020, and that all greenhouse gases be reduced by 80 percent by 2050.

That's right-- EIGHTY PERCENT!

And once our leftist Congress passes this travesty, we can expect to see life change precipitously for the worse (thanks to these two fascist fools) because it will virtually outlaw the internal combustion engine in the next decade, if "compliance" is to be reached.

We'll be forced to drive "green" cars. We can kiss goodbye to our power lawnmowers, snow-blowers and leaf-blowers. And wait till we open up our utility bills in a few years.

The Waxman- Markey clean air bill will suck so much disposable income from the average American (estimated at $3000 annually per household) that our consumer-driven economy may all but collapse under this final death blow.

And Waxman- Markey won't stop there, not by a long-shot.

This law will force us to adopt the green energy source of the future: windmills-- yes windmills-- a 16th-century, weather-dependent "technology," and forsake reliable, dependable coal-power, which generates almost 60% of our nation's electricity-- and provides it cheaply.

So think about all the coal miners that will be put out of work; think about all the steel workers and the rest of the heavy industry workers that will be forced out of their livelihoods for so-called environmental reasons, while the congressional aristocracy will continue to fly around in their privately-chartered, CO2--emitting jets, and be chauffeured around Washington sitting in the back seats of huge, gasoline-powered limousines.

Meanwhile, the Chinese will be the ones to benefit as our heavy industries either close down, or move overseas to greener pastures. This bill will only serve to indirectly subsidize our foreign competitors who could care less about green energy, and will continue to power their economies with dependable coal and fossil fuels.

But what about all the fun of driving the green cars of the future? It'll be bye-bye gasoline, and hello to battery power-- another "technological" breakthrough that was invented by Alessandro Volta in the year 1800.

And say "so long" to your sports car, "hasta-lavista" to your work truck; and bid "adios" to your SUV. The Waxman-Markey bill will eventually legislate them out of existence, much like the EPA did to Detroit's flourishing muscle car industry in the early 70's.

And to add insult to injury, the Obama administration is calling this--believe it or not-- a jobs bill--youch!

Not only will it grievously wound the private sector and drive millions of people to their local unemployment offices, just picture all the new "energy-police" positions that'll be created as an offshoot of this horrid legislation.

They'll be "energy inspectors" going everywhere, checking for "compliance." It will create an entire new layer of government workers-- a green energy Gestapo-- whose sole task will be the harassment and condemnation of any company (or any household) who refuses to comply--complete with the onerous fines to match.

It's all part of the cover: Create a bigger bureaucracy...more and more government employees; while more and more private-sector workers are forced onto the unemployment rolls, dependent upon their monthly Obama check-- or else starve.

Obama... Markey...Waxman...Congress...the EPA -- they all know what the master plan is: it's all about the tipping point-- where 50% of the people become dependent on the federal government-- which assures enough votes to keep this autocracy in Washington to "serve" the people for at least 4 more fun-filled years.

So they'll keep levying more regulations, which will beget more destruction of the economy, with 15% (or greater) unemployment-- plus a hugely expanded government work force-- as increasing political power inexorably flows to Washington, and hapless citizens with lost jobs, lost pride, facing a bleak future.

But all the while, they'll be breathing sweet, clean, fresh air.



www.keenobserver.blogtownhall.com

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Driving the EPA bulldozer over America's fragile economy

 

Get your motor running...head out on the highway! Everyone has heard "Born to be Wild", the classic 60's hit song. Especially Barack Obama, and his radical leftist cadre of cabinet appointees.

You can almost read their minds:

Taking a cue from the "first 100 days" of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 presidency, the Obama administration seems to believe in striking while the iron is HOT, and--like the words of the classic song --firing all of their guns at once.

But will all the new radical Obama measures eventually "explode into flames"?

Right now Obama is rattling off one leftist declaration after another, in conjunction with enough deficit spending to defy description. First it was mandatory "no-choice" abortions; next was the anti-stimulus bill; then a spending bill; then educational reform... nationalized health care... renewable energy...card check. Now we have talk of another second stimulus bill.

You name it, and Mr. Obama is planning to "bring it on" before the ardor for his anti-presidency cools off and falls back to reality.

America is about to realize that Obama's Kennedy-esque speeches (and soaring rhetoric) were not of the heart, but from only a teleprompter screen. Now he's removed his campaign mask and assumed his true socialist identity.

And next on comrade Obama's target list: destroying the energy industry.

Despite the fact that America uses gasoline and diesel to run 95% of its transportation needs, Generalissimo Obama has decided to make war on fossil fuels, and has wasted no time in reversing a decision that would have allowed oil exploration offshore, and opened up new exploratory leases within public lands in our interior.

Remember last year's horror of seeing, "regular 4.29", posted on street signs of gas stations? Just keep Mr. Obama's reversal in mind the next time pump prices head back up to 4 bucks/gallon.

But Obama would like to arrive at the European levels of 6, 7-- even 8 dollars /gallon. After all, didn't he accuse America as being wasteful and profligate? And that we are a nation comprising 5% of the world's population, yet consume (hog) 25% of the world's energy?

Mr. Obama will soon remedy that! How? By what he's about to do-- cleverly restrict our energy supply. And all under the masquerade of saving the environment, and halting the decline of the polar bears before its too late.

Despite the fact that we have a huge tracts of land containing an estimated 1.8 trillion barrels of oil (in the shale of our western states), America keeps getting drilled again and again.

First it was Nancy (Nazi) Pelosi, who has prevented every Republican domestic drilling bill from even reaching the House floor. And now our leftist
Interior Secretary, Mr. Ken Salazar, is putting the brakes on a Bush administration plan to open 77 new parcels of land to oil and natural gas drilling, while instead promising a “new way forward” for offshore wind projects. 


Salazar criticized the
Bush administration’s “drill-only approach,” saying the U.S. needs a "comprehensive energy" plan that considers all the "potential resources" in the oceans.

Great. Marvelous. No new oil drilling, no new domestic supply, and an open invitation to the commodity traders to again bid up the world price of petroleum back to $144/barrel -or even higher-- once the world economy revives.

Obama and the dumbo-crats keep lecturing about renewable and alternative energy (the justification is always environmental); but they're openly hostile to cheap and readily available fossil fuels, and are more than willing to treasonously allow us to send $700 billion a year to OPEC than drill our own oil and keep the money at home.

Yes America-- elections do have consequences.

And at a time when proposals for higher taxes are politically unpopular, the radical leftists in Congress have decided to thumb their noses at the average Joe, and are about to spring another cleverly disguised way to squeeze even more tax money from Americans.

Right now, Congress is debating legislation that would create a European-style scam that "caps" the maximum allowable amounts of CO2 from power plants, heavy industries, manufacturers, and you guessed it-- our vehicles.

So once it passes, everytime we get our motors runnin', and head out on the highway, every American driver will not be victimized as a taxpayer--but as a consumer.

This cap and trade system is "designed" to give companies incentives for reducing emissions; but unsuspecting Americans will soon realize it's nothing but a hidden tax in the form of higher utility bills (natural gas & electric) that will jack the prices of everything, including gasoline, food and consumer products.

Obama and his Stalinist minions claim that, "Cap and trade is there for a reason...you cap and trade to pay for investments in renewables, which will lead the country to energy independence."

Energy independence? The arrogance of the democrats know no bounds! And it's all courtesy of an American electorate that is so dumbed-down scientifically, that they know not the difference between harmless CO2 (carbon dioxide ) and poisonous CO (carbon monoxide).

So who was it that said, "We get the government we deserve?" And its a treasonous one indeed. 

 

Realistically, by collecting cap and trade fees from American companies--with the cost borne by consumers-- we are in effect, subsidizing our foreign competitors (China, India, et. al) who have already stated that they're placing economic development above any environmental considerations

It's economic war on every working American who uses energy, and will reduce our economy into a miasma of plunging competiveness, lost jobs, and foolishly misplaced alternative energy investments.

Now let's introduce Dr. Steven Chu, (aka "Dr. No"- no new drilling)  Obama's Energy Czar, who doesn't have "faith" in nuclear power, has called coal, "his worst nightmare," and predicts "dire consequences due to global warming".

But meanwhile, Sweden is "warming" to nuclear power, because in their misguided lengthy attempt to be a leader in alternative energy, they've discovered it's extremely difficult to replace conventional energy with solar and wind. So the Swedes will set aside a 30 year ban on nuclear reactors, and are joining a rapidly growing list of nations who view emission-free nuclear as the best way to deal with "climate change".

 

But predictably, the Obama administration has lent a deaf ear to all this, and has taken an opposite tack-- no nuclear-- at least  for now.

 

Expansion of nuclear power could create tens of thousands of badly-needed U.S. corporate jobs (such as with GE and Westinghouse) and would require a multitude of construction workers to erect new reactors. And these would be high wage jobs--not just some make-work stimulus proposal. And more importantly, it would put America on track to returning to the 90's when the country last prospered as a full-wage economy.

But leftist Chu (and comrade Obama) are having none of it, and have rejected the already agreed-upon desert site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste storage, saying... "that it's too close to the water table and could harm the environment."

So another solution to America's energy (and employment) problem literally "bites the dust."

Next in line for battle is the EPA's attack on coal, which will be led by Climate Czar, Carol Browner, who recently declared..."The Obama Administration will soon make an "endangerment finding” on carbon dioxide"...and that..."The next step is a notice of proposed "rule making” for new regulations on carbon-dioxide emissions".

 

An "endangerment finding?" Rule making?

Translation: Coal companies --prepare for chapter 13. Consumers --prepare for a 100% hike in your electric bills; and America-- get ready to turn out the lights.

How much more insanity can our country endure! This will turn out to be the ultimate attack on all of America-- the EPA determining that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant-- and setting off the most extensive set of costly regulations in American history.

So you think insane too strong of a word? Hah!

 

Browner's new clean air decree will tag any source as emitting more than 250 tons of a "declared pollutant" as being subject to regulation, potentially including schools, hospitals, shopping centers-- even commercial hog farms and bakeries.

So if you like to eat meat, or enjoy an occasional donut or a fresh loaf of bread, get ready to go vegetarian, unless you want to pay dearly for your dietary staples-- they're gonna cost a lot more once Ms. Browner gets through with her destruction of America's standard of living

So prepare for a revival of that the beloved tradition, "Depression Era cooking". Beans and greens anyone?

The EPA's so called "registry plan" would cover about 13,000 facilities that account for 85 to 90 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas output. EPA Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, in a recent statement, crowed..."This is a critical step toward helping us better protect our health and environment -- all without placing an onerous burden on our nation's small businesses".

 

But unless you push a hot dog cart or have a roadside hamburger stand, count on the EPA breathing down your neck with these so-called "reporting regulations". Even a farm with more than 25 cows would have to document their "emissions" of methane and other greenhouse gases.

 

Got milk? Maybe not for long--this portends more small farms closing down, and permanently higher dairy and meat prices.

It's all part of the cover-up to restrict supply, and drag America down to an energy-starved, tax-burdened, third world socialist nation, with Obama and his Politburo of cabinet members proudly beaming..."mission accomplished."

 

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Hardy har OPEC...low demand may give U.S. drivers the last laugh!


Oh terrible-terrible-terrible. Calamity! What misfortune. Ethanol, Congress' answer to our energy woes, is struggling mightily. It seems as though corn derived ethanol, supposedly the flexible fuel of the future, is proving to be decidedly inflexible when it comes to alternative energy.
 
Maybe they should have tried Mazola oil.

And because of this foolish shortsightedness of Congress, American consumers (and the rest of the world) have been suffering under the burden from high worldwide corn prices--which has added to the cost of almost everything –including the cost of living,

And woe is Iowa, the state that will be the biggest loser in the collapse of the ethanol energy boondoggle. It seems as though the corn belt is about to get belted-- right smack in its economic nose.

Barely a year after Congress enacted an energy law meant to foster a huge national ethanol enterprise, the goals lawmakers set for that industry are in serious jeopardy. Plants that make ethanol from corn had been sprouting across the Midwest. But now, with motorists driving less in the economic downturn, these plants are shutting down virtually everyday.

And is it any surprise? Every time Congress sticks its liberal nose into the laws of the free market, it backfires every time.

Corn ethanol in a word--is a bust. And so are all the other related energy-producing  "industries" such as wood chips, switchgrasss, and crop waste. Despite the flowery predictions of Barack Obama’s inaugural speech, the U. S. is not about to become the Saudi Arabia of "soil produced" energy.

And for all the greedy investors who rushed in to build ethanol refining plants, it’s back to square one.

Only months ago, refiners in some regions were buying up as much corn ethanol as they could to blend with expensive gasoline, effectively keeping pump prices down slightly. But those were the glory days of $144/barrel oil prices; and to the chagrin of the clean fuel lobby, those days might never return.

Since last summer, oil and gasoline prices have plunged, while the price of corn, from which virtually all commercial ethanol in this country is made, has remained relatively high. And so have food prices, which initially rocketed upward after congress' fateful mandate in 2007.

The alternative energy worshippers are about to discover that ethanol will only be the first to topple from the false gods of clean fuel. From the nation's 150 ethanol entities and their 180 plants, 10 or more companies have shut down a total of 24 plants over the last three months.

Most of the nation’s largest ethanol producers have suspended production. And all of them are teetering on the brink.

But the dumbo-crats in Congress never seem to learn about the law of unintended consequences (a cousin of Murphy's law). It cannot be repealed. But predictably, this is not how it was supposed to be when Congress required that refiners blend ethanol into the country’s transportation fuel supply.

Congress, in a hapless attempt to create a demand where there was none, had mandated a doubling of corn ethanol use, to 15 billion gallons a year by 2015. But it’s turned out to be only a futile try at reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil, and to lower the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

Energy experts project that national gasoline consumption in 2009 and 2010 will be 6 percent or more below the 2007 level. And future ethanol production targets could represent no more than 10 percent of gasoline production.

And because congressional regulations had set a 10 percent blend limit for ethanol in most gasoline, there seems  to be no other place for ethanol production to go.

But ethanol’s downfall may be threatened on another front-- in Detroit. Automobile manufacturers say most of their cars are not designed to run on high ethanol concentrations.

Ethanol (alcohol) is a solvent-- this includes fuel lines, and all other rubber-based connectors that go under the hood. So car manufacturers despise it. And while it may burn cleaner than gasoline, the bang for the fuel buck just isn’t there. There’s no oomph compared to the power you get with gasoline.

It’s all about combustibility--this means poor mileage, poor ability to start in cold weather, engine knocks on hills, pre-ignition, and your basic displeasure from a public used to a driving tradition of 100-plus years on good ole gasoline.

But this abject failure probably will only encourage the dumbocrats to try harder the next time-- damn the economy-- full environmentalism ahead! “It’s possible we may have to look at the targets again,” said Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Translation: although we liberal do-gooders were dead-wrong, and have roiled worldwide food prices, we shall not be deterred.
 
And they’ll never learn.These coconut heads refuse to be confused by the hard economic facts of science-- refining plant-derived energy requires the expansion of fossil fuel energy to achieve the end result. It’s the scientific equivalent of chasing your tail…a zero-sum gain.

Producing these “advanced” fuels entails breaking down a tough material, cellulose, that is abundant in corn cobs, wood chips and other biological waste; then converting it to liquid fuel requires the expansion of more energy than the end product may be worth in today’s volatile markets.

While scientists have proven it can be done, the cost is still high, and solving the technological hurdles for these plant-based fuels has proven to be an exercise in futility.

But despite all evidence to the contrary, the media will continue to hang by the side of the enviro-crats in Congress, maintaining that …“Cellulosic ethanol is something that’s less than five years away.” But  five years later we’ll get to the point where it’s still five years away.

And then what?


www.keenobserver.blogtownhall.com



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Got Global Warming? It's Dr. Chu to the rescue!


 

Note to Mr. Obama: Your buddy, Tim Geithner, is more than an embarrassment; he's a scofflaw. His offense is not civil, but criminal in nature. It's that "intent" thing--  like deliberately trying to avoid paying self employment taxes for FOUR years.

Obama claimed it was, "Just a memory lapse...a "common' mistake...and "that shouldn’t bar the Senate from confirming him".

But in saying this-- is Obama embarrassing himself? Didn't he maintain during his campaign that his administration would be the most 'transparent" in history?

And treasury Secretary nominee-designate Geithner has also been deemed, by an-eager to-confirm-Congress, also as being no embarrassment. "Just a few hiccups," said majority Senate leader Harry Reid. So despite his obvious sin, looks like ol' Timothy is in for treasury czar.


OK now, who's next for confirmation? Apparently it's for the Dept of Energy... "Calling the renowned Dr Stephen Chu! You're wanted by president Obama to appear in front of the senate energy committee for confirmation"!

 
 
But the "renowned" scientist Chu, may himself be an embarrassment--an embarrassment to the intelligence of energy scientists and physicists around the world. Dr. Chu last September stated that, "somehow we have to figure out how to get the price  of gasoline in the US  to the level of that in Europe". In April of 2007,  Dr. Chu, at a presentation at the University of California at Berkeley, stated that, "Coal is my worst nightmare".

Presently, coal represents almost 66% of our electricity production, and its use as a cheaper alternative than natural gas is re-surging. But evidently, the dreaded thoughts of coal have caused the renowned  Dr. Chu to experience even more unsettling bad dreams ...(quote) "The abundance of coal in the U.S. means we won't run out of energy, but it represents enough carbon in the ground to really cook us". Hows that sound-- OUR energy secretary... our proposed energy czar, can't sleep because of his coal nightmares.

But rest easy fellow Americans; Dr. Chu has some interesting cures for his global warming  paranoia; and in the future, every time we go to raise our thermostats, or fill up at the pump, it's us who'll be having the nightmares! This man intends to use science in place of practicality and common sense. He seeks not what's best for America, but what he deems will be best for the environment-- reducing consumption by raising energy prices.

Dr. Chu is about as diehard a global warmonger as anyone you can think of. And our green obsessed new president is right alongside with him about saving the planet; turning back the oceans; and stopping the biblical like apocalypse of mankind burning up the planet with fossil fuels.

Yes president Obama...you've made a great choice for our new energy secretary; right at a time when Dr. Chu's plan to reduce consumption of oil and electricity come when both energy prices and and consumption are falling, because of MARKET FORCES. And Dr. chu, exprimenting away in his shelter from the real world at his Livermore lab, probably thinks "Market Forces" is some hot new title on X-box.

Dr Chu is determined about his mission to turn plants into petroleum substitutes, and actually hopes to find (or engineer) better biofuel plants. Chu wants to develop processes for breaking down cellulose and transforming it into fuel, at costs "competitive" with gasoline. This would indeed be a huge breakthrough, replacing gasoline with cellulosic ethanol.

Just imagine how afraid OPEC must be right now....
 
 
scene: OPEC HEADQUARTERS

oil sheik #1; Hmmm, what are we going to do about this guy, Dr Chu? 

oil sheik# 2 : we've got to stop this madman.

oil sheik#3: this cellulose for fuel thing looks like it's the end of  the line for us.  Now we'll all have to get real jobs ...I hear that new resort complex over in Bahrain might be hiring.


If you want to get a level of the enthusiasm (fanaticism ) Dr. Chu has toward  "saving the earth from fossil fuels", get a gasoline-vapored whiff of this recent AP quote: "DOE (dept. of energy)  will be run by Dr. Stephen Chu of U.C. Berkeley, who after winning a Nobel Prize for capturing atoms with a laser at Stanford, then took over the Laurence Berkeley Lab and gutted its research staff, transforming it from a  power research unit, to one working on "alternative energy" (i.e., wind and sun only).

 

But predictably, ever since the fanatical Dr. Chu has been in charge, Lawrwence Berkely Research Lab (LBRL) has accomplished exactly nothing in energy research- except a barrage of peer-reviewed papers on (what else?) Global Warming. (All of which boil down to Chicken Little screaming "The Sky Is Falling!")

Can you picture cellulose replacing oil? Are we about to enter the age of..."fill-er-up there Shorty, with premium cellulose''.

 
 
And what else does the great Dr. Chu, besides cellulose, have in mind?  What other scientific treasured energy gems does he have waiting to reveal to us? Are we totally hell-bent on spiraling back to the stone age? While we're saving the earth, lets just get it over with now--end all land-based and ocean based energy exploration. It simply leaves too great of a "carbon" footprint...bring on the biomass!
 
Consider Dr. Chu's profoundly scientific approach to coal (his worst nightmare). Sixty-some percent of America’s power comes from coal, and Chu’s earlier comments have made the coal industry and the mining unions extremely nervous. But Chu has assured the senators in the energy committee that science and technology will allow coal "to keep the lights on".
 
 
However, when it comes to making federal investments in coal sequestration (i.e. clean coal), Chu acknowledged that research into new sources of energy will take a higher priority than cleaning up coal CO2 emissions by "sequestering" them into the ground. Oh those poor groundhogs! Will  PETA  be cool with this?

 

Chu’s two hour confirmation hearing touched on all the energy issues: wind and solar power, on shore and off shore oil and gas drilling. Chu also spoke on renewable resources, which  he deemed to be "carbon neutral" and can replace coal eventually.  Dr. Chu supports federal loan guarantees to restart the nation’s nuclear power industry, but is quick to say that, " Science must find a solution to store nuclear waste".


Translation; since nuclear waste has a "hot" half-life of about 99 hundred-thousand years (i.e. forever) Chu and his ilk will never let another nuclear plant go on line during the next 8 years; and you can take that to the bank...er, waste dump.

Despite all the conflicting evidence (and extremely cold recent weather) Dr. Chu has been unambiguous in stating that carbon dioxide emitted by cars, power plants and industry is a direct cause of global warming; and that urgent action to slash emissions is needed to avoid upheaval of the planet’s climate. Yes, it's Dr. Chu to the rescue.

Dr. Chu's stated mission for the last four years as dirctor at LVRL has been to use so-called synthetic biology to convert plant cellulose into fuel; these plants would be  a biomass composed mostly of switch grass and woodchips. But the growing of plants for fuel competes with the growing of food.

And since cellulose plants (like switch grass) have less energy content than planting corn for ethanol, they require eight times as many acres to produce equivalent amounts of energy. One estimate says replacing corn ethanol with cellulose fuel would require planting enough switch grass to cover the state of Ohio.

There's a basic truth that cannot be altered - each drop of crude oil has an energy content that far surpasses the same amount of corn, switch grass or anything else. A gallon of ethanol can't take you as far as a gallon of gasoline because there's less power in it.

And don't forget--the burning of biofuels still emits carbon dioxide, even if it is the same carbon dioxide that the plants had sucked out of the air. Subsidizing ethanol while suppressing domestic drilling, and halting construction of refineries and nuclear power plants, is a big reason why energy costs keep climbing.

To Dr. Chu's credit, there area few pluses. Cellulose energy might indirectly bring down food prices in the future. Cellulosic ethanol, while not yet ready for market, has more favorable energy ratios than corn, and presents more room for productivity gains, making it appealing to investors, farmers and refiners.

But large-scale development of cellulosic ethanol is plagued by environmental problems. Turning cellulose into fuel would require a huge expenditure of increasingly scarce water resources; and the mass production of cellulosic ethanol would likely impact soil quality.

Cellulosic energy DOES represent a better alternative than corn ethanol. But Dr Chu-to our peril--ignores one scientific fact:--gasoline is a better fuel than ethanol by many measures, especially because a gallon of gas has about 20% more energy in it than you get with the absurdly low increase in energy yield from either corn or cellulosic ethanol.

 The bottomline? Political correctness makes for a lousy energy strategy. Are you listening out there Dr Chu? We know your intentions are good, but you  must understand; America simply does not have even a fraction of the acreage necessary to grow enough of anything that would replace petroleum.

So those OPEC sheiks can rest easy, and put away the want ads for now.

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