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Tuesday, 26 December 2006 14:52 |
| | Anne Korin |
By JIM GENARO
After discussing the threats posed by the dependency of the U.S. on foreign oil at UNC Ashevilleës Humanities Lecture Hall Dec. 12, Anne Korin of the Set America Free Coalition answered questions and some challenges to her proposed solutions to the problem.
"I understand the importance of getting off the oil, so to speak," a man in the audience told her. "But do you realize that corn this year so far has gone up $60 a bushel? Are we just going from one pocket to another pocket" by moving towards biodiesel as a fuel?
"Biofuels
are not the only fuel," Korin replied. Ethanol ÇƒÓ which can be made from
sugar cane as well as corn, she noted ÇƒÓ is a viable option that costs
about the same amount of money to produce as petroleum.
"Youëre not
going to see a reduction in price in the short-term," she noted. "But
less and less of our money will be going to countries that are working
against us and are, in fact, imposing a huge external cost."
Korin also
downplayed the potential impact of hydrogen-powered vehicles, noting
that "hydrogen is a storage medium, like electricity" rather than a
fuel, because it requires more energy to separate it from oxygen in
water than can be produced by burning hydrogen.
"I seriously, seriously doubt that we will ever see a car run by hydrogen alone," she added.
However, Korin
said, "Fuel cells have a lot of potential." The first fuel cells that
are likely to be available to consumers will not be hydrogen cells, she
added, but methanol.
Another man took
issue with her argument that a good solution to oil dependency was
electrically powered cars, saying that coal-burning power plants
contribute to global warming, acid rain and other environmental
problems. "What do you think?" he asked.
"Iëll tell you
what the environmentalists in my group say," she answered. By all
standards, electricity ÇƒÓ even when generated from the most polluting
power plants in the country ÇƒÓ has been shown to by cleaner than oil for
powering automobiles, Korin said.
Furthermore,
power plants continue to produce the same amount of electricity at
night that they do during the day, even though the demand for power is
much less, she noted.
Because this
energy is not used and cannot be stored, power companies estimate that
they could power up to 30 percent of vehicles on the road if they were
run on electricity and were charged at night, without taxing the power
system at all, Korin elaborated.
"Are there trucks being fit to alternative fuels?" a man asked.
Korin replied
that long-haul commercial trucks need to run on a fuel such as diesel
in order to pull such significant weights. However, some measures can
be taken to minimize their impact on the environment.
For instance,
most truck-drivers leave their engines running when they sleep to power
their air conditioners, phone chargers, laptops and other devices.
Onboard generators can fulfill the same function while consuming far
less fuel, as can truck stops that provide feeds of electricity and
cooled air by way of tubes, she said.
"You make an
interesting case that in a couple of decades, the current inventory of
automobiles in the country will turn over and somehow magically become
flexible-fuel vehicles," a man said. He asked her how this was going to
happen and whether tax dollars should be spent to do it.
"It doesnët make
sense for any technology to be subsidized over the long-haul," Korin
responded.
However, new technologies often take a few years of
development to become commercially viable, she said. "In the initial
phases, tax incentives can be very helpful in getting a new technology
off the ground."
Korin said the
case of hybrid automobiles demonstrated this effect, as they initially
were supported by tax incentives, but now are fully competitive in the
auto market.
Audience member Dot Sulock asked Korin, "What about the military costs" involved in oil production?
In reply, Korin
cited a study by the National Defense Council Foundation, which said
that "if you actually add it up, youëre looking at $7 per gallon for
gas at the pump" once the external costs, such as military costs are
factored in. "There are a lot of externalities associated with this."
"Is it true that ethanol is an energy system that runs downhill ÇƒÓ it takes more energy to produce than you get?" a man asked.
"It is always
going to take more input of raw energy to get a unit of useful energy
and thatës okay ÇƒÓ as long as it makes sense," Korin answered.
She added that ethanol produced from sugar is "very efficient" ÇƒÓ eight times as efficient as corn-based ethanol.
The problem,
Korin argued, is a political system that is slanted towards oil, making
it seem like a much more cost-effective fuel than it actually is.
"Clearly the way to deal with this is to remove the subsidies, remove the tariffs and let the market take care of it," she said.
"Flexible-fuel vehicles actually open the market. Right now, thereës not competition for gasoline," Korin added.
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