Turning Oil into Salt
I’m home from the Energy Freedom Summit in Chicago with so much material and information that it’ll take me weeks to digest, understand, summarize, and disseminate it to you. Let me start with a “sound-bite” sized summary of the theme of the conference…
Once was a time when nations went to war over salt. Seriously.
Until the 19th century salt was a strategic commodity much like oil is today. Salt was required to preserve meat - and preserved meat was required to allow armies to march. Salt was required for societies to grow beyond traditional collectives, and salt was required to store, transport, and sell meat that could not be consumed immediately. Wars were indeed fought over salt, and those nations with large salt reserves had tremendous political and economic prosperity - and power over those who needed their salt - much like countries with oil do today.
So, what happened to change the world, and strip salt of it’s strategic importance?
New technologies were invented which made salt unnecessary for food preservation. The invention of electricity, refrigeration, canning, and other preservative technologies forever changed the world, and salt became just another freely traded commodity like we are accustomed to today.
You can still preserve your meats with salt if you wanted to, but most choose to refrigerate it.
Today we find ourselves in a 19th-century dilemma again, where oil has replaced salt as a global strategic commodity, and where the trade in this commodity is tightly controlled in order to weild political and economic power.
Oil’s strategic value stems from it’s monopoly in the transportation sector. This monopoly gives the petrocrats that control OPEC and the bulk of world oil reserves unacceptable power over the global economy.
How exactly can we “turn oil into salt”. The answer is surprisingly simple and familiar - by using technology to provide fuel choice thru Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) and plug-in hybrid w/ FFV engines or new 100% electric vehicles (EV).
“Future-Proof” Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) keep to a liquid-fuels based technology that is no different from the norm today. The element of “choice” is created by allowing drivers to decide what type of fuel to consume, with options ranging from straight gasoline (no change from existing habits) to a variety of blends of alcohol/gasoline like E25, E85, M50. FFV technology does not restrict auto manufactures in any way - they can make any variety of vehicle they’d want, from scooters to Hummers.
Plug-in Hybrids w/ FFV engines (similar to the Prius Plug-In) move the hybrid technology forward by decoupling the vehicle from the gasoline pump. With a plug-in hybrid, you can choose to recharge your car using your residential electricity. For distances greater than your battery capacity, your hybrid will switch to using it’s FFV engine, where you’ll have the same fuel options of non-hybrid FFV’s.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) (like these from an auto show earlier this year) are quite different and have no engine and require no liquid fuels on board. Instead they have bigger and better batteries and electric motor(s) which meet commuting needs of most Americans, and are recharged at home or at specialized recharging stations around town. This option allows a “no-oil” choice, as your car is recharged by the power grid. (The power grid is of course fueled somehow, in the U.S. usually natural gas, hydro-electric, coal or nuclear.)
At this point, when there are a variety of ways to power your vehicle, gasoline will have to compete with other forms of fuel that are not completely controlled by “big-oil”. As in Brazil, market forces will control costs and create a vigorous new-energy economy. Consumers decide what fuel to buy, based on a variety of reasons they get to determine.
When consumers have a choice and a real alternative to replace 100% gasoline, oil will no longer be a strategic commodity and it will be forced to be valued competitively, just like salt.
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3 Responses to “Turning Oil into Salt”
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You need to explain this to me a little more. I didn’t even know that we had FFVs already… I thought the Prius was the only real way to go.. How does FlexFuel “turn oil into salt” exactly?
@gr33n4lif3 - Most modern cars on the road are capable of burning E20 or E25 (20%/25% blend of ethanol and gasoline). But to burn the E85 (85% ethanol) you need a few special parts - these aren’t expensive, and some manufacturers have been adding them to their autos for years. There hasn’t been a big push to publicize it, however (probably due to the scarcity of E85 pumps). For several years, manufacturers weren’t even marking the vehicles as “FlexFuel” - just selling them as gasoline-only cars, just like all the rest. Follow the link above to check if you are driving a flex-fuel capable car already.
Some addition reading on the history of flex fuel vehicles:
http://ricardosblog.com/blog/2006/06/brief_history_of_the_flex_fuel_car_.html
Obligatory WikiPedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible-fuel_vehicle