Published: July 14, 2008 05:19 pm            

CURRAN: Let's not green-wash our problems, let's solve them

A friend recently tried to explain to me how a hydrogen generator could be made, installed into a vehicle and immediately double gas mileage with a slightly more elaborate version virtually eliminating the need for gasoline. Now, I don't do well with diagrams, am not mechanically inclined, but best I could tell, this was a pretty simple, doable contraption.

He drew this on a Waffle House napkin in a matter of minutes, telling me he and a few other guys were working on the best design with the goal of giving the specs to anyone interested. This came up between him and me when another friend mentioned a guy he knows customizing vehicles with a similar device for a few hundred dollars with the same promise of at least halving gas use.

A couple Kentucky guys believe they've found an opportunity and want to build a plant to produce ZAP or Zero Air Pollution, all electric vehicles, in their home state. These vehicles are commonly seen on large properties such as campuses. The guys are already dealers of these cars.

The hang-up appears to be the company's reluctance to open a factory in a state which does not allow the little money and energy savers to be licensed for road use. The entrepreneurs believe the may have a chance to produce the vehicles elsewhere if Kentucky fails to loosen up their laws to allow this investment.

Most indications are that the current high fuel prices are generating not only major changes in individual behavior as we drive less or with less gas use, but also increased innovation in alternative energies and technologies that use less energy of any type.

Some authors, academics and particularly politicians and business leaders have hailed the oncoming of a new green economy that will provide the jobs of tomorrow that will rival the manufacturing jobs of the past and pay more than today's service jobs. These jobs will be in producing clean and sustainable energy, energy-saving products, and other products with less or no environmental harm compared to those currently in use.

This sounds like a diverse and robust new economy that will allow for people to take a good idea, get others to invest or buy because the idea will save energy or the planet and help maintain elements of today's lifestyles while saving money. It could equal the industrial revolution in producing self-made men and new household names while putting thousands to work all while reducing the harm done by that earlier industrial period.

From those business leaders and politicians, though, there is something perverse when discussing what should be a new, exciting and diverse economy. Those in power would like to keep all that new opportunity in their own circles. Many of the potential new innovations are likely to be co-opted, regulated, corrupted and turn into, well, ethanol.

Ethanol is a biofuel. Biofuel is pretty much a good thing. Crops can be replaced much quicker than trees or fossil fuels. We can handle it domestically so we're not contributing to terrorist networks like we are when buying oil. It burns cleaner. Since the fuel source is a crop, its increased use will help increase fuel income for farmers.

It isn't as good as it sounds. The most efficient way to produce large amounts of corn involves a lot of chemicals for pests, weeds and to provide fertilization. To really make money, a farm needs a lot of machinery. Farm machinery uses gas and oil and emits carbon dioxide, and, in fact, ethanol production produces a net increase in the amount of petroleum products used.

The farm operations able to produce like this aren't Farmer Joe, his wife and kids, but large corporate farms. Ethanol doesn't eliminate gas use at the pump, only cuts it a fraction. The increased demand for corn increases the cost, which makes it harder to buy corn for food. High food prices hurt the poor and squeeze discretionary spending among other groups enough to drag on the economy. Corn also doesn't make the best biofuel.

Corn-based ethanol hasn't become as common as it is because consumers or private investors thought more environmental harm, more corporate control and higher food costs were a good idea. The increase in ethanol production is directly connected to government mandates requiring the subsidization and use of ethanol. Wonder what the odds are agri-business and/or oil company lobbyists had a hand in that legislation.

If we really want technologies that will save us money and harm while creating businesses, employment and opportunities, our ears should perk up when we hear things about, for instance, providing incentives (read: tax dollars or special laws) to oil companies to invest in new energy technologies. Why do these guys have some entitlement to provide our energy? Why should we trust them? Why shouldn't they just make their own investments then see if their products can compete?

If the new economy and the technologies involved are subsidized and regulated by the government, there is little doubt tomorrow's solutions will be delivered by the same guys as today's problems because they've spent millions now and in the past getting government to see things inside their box.

Jeffersonville resident Kelley Curran saw a diagram on a discarded restaurant napkin and thought it would solve energy problems, but it was only half-chewed sausage. Send your ideas to kelinawriterhat@aol.com.

        

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