Our auto industry has to do a better job and producing fuel efficient vehicles and rather than wait for the government to force them to do it, they ought to find ways to do it via the free market system. Why do foreign auto makers continually exceed US fuel performance? If you look at the chart above, you will note how far behind the rest of the world we are in our mileage per auto. This is a brief summary of what fuels we utilize to drive our economy. Aviation Industry Special Concern While

all industries suffer from escalating oil prices, the aviation industry especially takes a heavy hit since fuel is the lifeblood of transport, not just another cost. In addition, other than reducing costs; there is no other viable way to keep prices down in the face of the cost of oil. There also are no alternate fuels to use. You cannot fly a multi-thousand ton wide-body on a battery. So aviation, as much of American industry requires fossil fuels; get used to it, it's a fact of life and will not change until we get that major energy breakthrough. I evaluated several of the renewable energy sources. The good news is that today, there are corporations fully vested in solar and wind energy. The bad news is that they still are not economically viable at this point in time. Wind Energy Even the vaunted Danish installation of over 6,000 wind fans which supposedly supply Denmark with 20% of their energy has a dirty little secret. What is it? All Danish traditional oil and coal burning plants have to be online all the time even when the wind turbines are turning. So while the wind fans are economic on their own, no industry or no city wants to risk a power shortage if the wind cannot keep the

turbines running; so the wind-fan installation is now fully funded by Danish tax-payers. I had to send 21 emails to various Danish agencies to discover this

anomaly. I had asked why the total cost of energy production did not jive with their savings tables. (See excerpt below from a Norwegian Government* analysis of Danish wind farms) Do we eliminate wind power based on these early endeavors? No, I believe we need to keep on trying to find a way to make them work and build them where there is optimum economic benefit. But they never will be a long term, nor a major part of any energy grid. An excellent and independent analysis of wind farm economies was published by Beacon Hill and is available on the following

There are similarities in the disadvantages of solar power as there are to wind power. They both require very expensive capital, have to be funded by government and yield energy only when external conditions allow. They cannot be depended on at any point in time. There are applications where solar power can prove a viable solution, especially in homes, small businesses and in communities in the southwest United States where you have weather conditions that make it possible. As described above, Solar power requires government funding so we eventually need to ask ourselves whether it might be wiser to use other, more cost efficient methods while we search for more long term solutions.

There are two sources of energy we know are available, know that they work but for different reasons, do not get as much press or as much favorable pubic relations as the sexier wind and solar solutions. One is nuclear power and the other is Natural Gas. Notwithstanding Congresswoman Pelosi's unfortunate lack of knowledge; Natural Gas is not an alternate fuel, it is a fossil fuel that exists as a by-product of oil extraction; and we are only using a very tiny portion of our known reserves. There is over 211 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico alone. But government price controls and limitations on drilling have dampened the supply. When I was Gas Marketing Manager at PSE&G, one of my responsibilities was Natural Gas Vehicle promotion and I discovered how viable, efficient and environmentally sound natural gas is. We used to run a test with a handkerchief behind the exhaust pipe for several minutes and the cloth was as white at the end as it was when we first inserted it on the exhaust. Nuclear energy is another story and it begins with the 3 Mile Island accident; but it ends there too. We have had no major leak since then. Government supervision and over-sight has been rigid and I believe it is now a safe and secure source of energy. It is both interesting and ironic that the world's leading edge nuclear developers are American companies, based in the US such as Duke Energy, and they do not build plants here. They are now building facilities primarily in Europe and Asia and are currently building reactors in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Nuclear is also environmentally friendly with no carbon emissions. And it certainly is cost efficient being the cheapest way to generate electricity.

I truly believe that our government - both the executive and legislative branches - relies heavily on their constituencies' ignorance to do some of the things they do. Not stupidity, ignorance. With our hectic day to day schedules, most of us do not have the time to do the research, even when it does have a direct bearing on our lives. The ethanol idea which is the distillation of corn into fuel is a cruel joke on the US consumer. Not only has it caused major increases in food prices across the board from eggs to flours and to direct corn products. Even more troubling, it has as a result of increased prices, caused loss of food supply for famine areas in Africa and Asia. To cap it off, it does not even work on it's own as an economic way to utilize fuel. The only people making out in the boondoggle are the farmers, the Wind Farm Companies such as the Boone Pickens venture and the PACs who are promoting this travesty. In 2005, America used 15% of its corn crop to replace just 2% of its gasoline. Two new studies say use of bio-fuels will leave the world a warmer and hungrier place. The law of unintended consequences has reared its ugly head once again, with a study published in the Feb. 7, 2008 issue of the Journal of Science. According to University of Minnesota ecologist and study co-author David Tilman, converting the grasslands of the U.S. to corn for ethanol releases excess CO2 emissions of 134 metric tons per hectare (equal to 2.47 acres). The reason is that plants, from grasses to trees, store carbon dioxide in their roots, shoots and leaves. In addition, to get ethanol from corn, the corn has to be distilled and put through a multitask, energy dependent process. And what is the source of energy we need to produce ethanol? Fossil fuels of course. So in order to save fossil fuels and reduce carbon, we use a source of supply that requires an energy premium of 30% more fossil fuels for the energy that is produced. The geniuses who thought this up are the same folks who want to run our healthcare system. But then again, Washington is the place where there are more Agricultural Department Government employees than there are farmers.

Next month we will look at alternative solutions to the fossil fuel supply issues in the US and abroad, and how we may be able to drill for oil and maintain a sound environmental policy at the same time. We will also do a more in depth analysis of energy and aviation.