Picking the Future’s Fuel

Re “Cruising the Ethanol Highway,” Commentary, Feb. 15:

Finally someone gets it. Investing billions of dollars on a dubious hydrogen future, to the exclusion of current technologies like plug-in hybrids, just doesn’t make sense. If we can get past the significant technical and economic hurdles, we are likely to find ourselves no better off than we are today.

The real point of David Morris’ commentary, however, is lost. Plug-in hybrids, which he promotes as part of an ethanol-based transportation infrastructure, allow most local miles to be driven on electricity that could easily be supplied by clean, renewable sources. If 85% of our transportation miles were driven on cheap, clean electricity, we could end our dependence on petroleum and return our air quality to healthful levels. Whether the rest of those miles are driven on ethanol, natural gas or even gasoline is secondary.

Mike Kane

Newport Beach

Morris made a shortsighted recommendation that electric cars be primarily powered by the electric grid and be backed up by ethanol. Morris is a promoter of ethanol.

Before people recommend that cars be powered by the electric grid and ethanol, they should consider that the electric grid is powered by oil, coal and nuclear energy. Additionally, it is less efficient to power cars off of the grid because of power line and battery losses.

Second, you must consider that agricultural production of ethanol entails using nitrate fertilizers, which pollute the air and, when they wash off into rivers and the ocean, result in fish kills and toxic algae blooms.

Hybrid cars are a great step toward reducing oil imports and air pollution. Mixing it up with ethanol is counterproductive.

Clifford Lazar

Los Angeles

It certainly was refreshing to read the commentaries by Morris and David Goodstein (“Beyond Fossilized Thinking,” Commentary, Feb. 15).

Yes, plugging in hybrid vehicles would dramatically reduce gasoline consumption and increase overall efficiency as well as open up markets for more expensive fuels like ethanol or hydrogen, which would be needed only for long trips.

Yes, we are likely to see a global peak in oil production (and a domestic peak in compressed natural gas production) in the next five to 15 years. The U.S. economy is based on cheap transportation. When the world cannot pump it out of the ground fast enough, prices will go up dramatically.

Forget global warming, forget worries of nuclear power plant waste. Americans should be concerned about peak oil production for the sake of the U.S. economy and to assure our continued position as a global leader.

Greg Hanssen

Irvine