National Addiction -- Part II

Brother Bill From Brasil weighs in our National Addiction to Fossil Fuels.

Here's what's on his Very Fertile Mind ...

Hi there,

Great Blog about the forgotten carborator.  Here's another angle you may want to consider.....

Your brother lives in Brazil where when we pull into a gas station we can choose from multiple pumps:  Ethanol, Regular Gas, Diesel, AND Natural Gas.  Most cars here run on one or two of the energy sources.  What make of cars pulls up to the pumps?  Fords!  Chevrolets!  Toyotas!  Fiats!  And every other make and model.

It makes my blood BOIL when I think of these same companies (some/many U.S.) who will not, do not and refuse to convert our American-driven cars to these multiple-choice energy solutions. A car owner here can do it in an afternoon at a service station for a couple of hundred dollars if the car wasn't built with the fuel choice-button already installed.

The infrastructure in Brasil for the Natural Gas pumps is SO easy to install.  Every gas station has the usual gas, ethanol, diesel tanks below ground.  When you look to the left or right of the station you see a huge tank (about the size of a Airstream Trailer) that holds the Natural Gas.  The tank has a two-inch hose that goes to one or more pump where cars pull up for their LNG. 

When I think of America's (non-existant) energy policy and I see American car manufacturers selling energy efficient cars here I sometimes laugh, mostly cry and know who's truly controlling the situation in our beloved America:  The F-n Big Oil Companies that don't want us to use anything but what THEY process and sell. 

And, don't get me going about the huge wind farms we have in our state of Rio Grande do Norte  and now all over Brazil along the coast.  I took a 2 day trip last week to see them for myself and what I saw, not hearing one single sound but the whoosh of the wind, was electrical energy being produced efficiently, cleanly and cost effectively.  Each new 'farm' had a new powerline (grid) running from the farms to the main energy corridor along the highways.

Brazil is not perfect, but it can boast proudly that it is one of the largest, most successful, fast-growing economies in the world and is TOTALLY energy independent.  Yes, it has a few nuclear power plants, has dammed up some lovely river basins and you see more gas-guzzling SUVs now that people have more money.  But.... it imports no oil and nearly every car can be powered by multiple resources. 

If Detroit can do it for Brazil, why can't they do it for their own nation?!?  It's called Leadership.  It's called Smart Energy Policies.  It's called Brazil.

BTW.... Obama is here this week and the country's going CRAZY about him......  They can't get enough of that Kenyan-born, socialist radical. 

I love it.....