I was watching the news the other day and I saw a bit about the government “misplacing” several billion dollars in cash that was sent to Iraq.  The fact was the Iraq government mishandled it, and that was indeed news worthy. 

 

The next day I was watching a show about the future of automobiles.  There was this group of manufacturers meeting while a government bureaucrat went on about the 12 million dollars the government was providing to help develop alternative fuels.

 

A bell went off in my head.  We sent billions (with a “B”) in cash to Iraq, and we are spending millions (with an “M”) at home to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.  Now, in the Middle East these people want to see Americans beheaded.  In America, farmers are worried about feeding their children. 

 

Biodiesel and E85 fuels that are available today, and can run the cars and trucks we have today.  They are generally made of corn, grown in the Midwest.  Both fuels are more environmentally friendly then oil, and as I said both are viable alternatives for use to use TODAY.  No research is needed to develop the batteries in these vehicles, no infrastructure is needed to transport hydrogen, and no gee whiz future development is needed.  We only need to make the cars and fuels widely available, and require their use where possible.

 

I decided to look up the facts, and I thought I would share them with you.  There are a lot of links at the bottom of the page, take some time and check them out, you might get mad too.

 

According to the EIA (Energy Information Agency) [1] there are 743,948 vehicles on the road today that are already E85 (Ethanol based fuel) compatible and most of the rest of the gas burning cars out there can be converted to run on E85 inexpensively.[2]  In fact according to Ve85.com your existing car will run on it but without converting some parts over long term damage may result.[3]  However, there seems to be some issue with the EPA and manufacturer warranties that makes wide spread conversions improbable.[4]

 

Now my point here is we can run our cars on corn, right now.  And our children are dieing in Iraq, right now.  So what do the government bureaucrats do?   They send 12 billion dollars in cash (our hard paid tax dollars) to Iraq,[5] and they offer $17 million dollars to Americans to help develop more methods of making ethanol.[6]  What if they spent $12 billion dollars on developing ethanol use and sent Iraq $17 million instead?  (Or maybe send Iraq nothing?)

 

It all seems too obvious to me, and to some scientists out there too.[7]