Support from the Kansas City Star

E. Thomas McClanahan in the Kansas City Star:

A group called Set America Free, with backing from both sides of the political spectrum, has put together a list of suggestions, which seems a good starting point for debate.

Supporters of the group include both Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

To me, the group’s key point is that we should make greater use of technologies that exist today, rather than do nothing while we wait for those that require further development.

That means, among other things, we should make more cars that can run on ethanol. A flexible-fuel vehicle capable of running on either gasoline or ethanol or different ratios of both requires only a different fuel-control chip and different fittings in the fuel line to accommodate ethanol. Additional cost: About $100.

I know. Ethanol is in bad political odor right now, but I’m not necessarily talking about corn ethanol. If we’re serious about energy diversification, we should drop the tariff on imported sugar ethanol.

Today, up to two-thirds of Brazil’s autos run on ethanol, primarily made from sugar. When the next energy crisis hits, a flexible-fuel vehicle fleet would be a nice ace in the hole.

We also need more hybrids, powered by a combination of gasoline and electricity, as well as what might be termed super-flexible cars: flexible-fuel, plug-in hybrids.

These would run on gasoline or ethanol, as well as electricity produced by the car’s generator and captured braking energy. At night, its batteries could be recharged with the plug-in feature.

Powering more of our vehicle fleet with electricity would shift more transportation uses away from exclusive dependence on oil. Electricity can be provided by a range of sources, including coal and nuclear, and, yes, wind — although it’s still not clear how much difference wind power will make.

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