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Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:00 AM

From the Iowa plains to the Amazon jungle

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  • Thursday, May 17, 2007 01:33 PM

    And behind door number 3 . . .

    Biodiesel is not the answer unless, as in Taiwan, we are required to recycle cooking oil, and even then it would benefit only the relative handful of diesel powered autos in the U.S. and, perhaps, commercial trucks.

    Ethanol is the post-industrial age equivalent of snake oil. It's really worth nothing (except to the criminally subsidized agri-business giants) unable to cure our energy woes.

    The third way is, of course, the hard way. We regulate the auto industry so that you'd never again see Becky-Jo driving a Ford F-350 (with obligatory NASCAR number on the rear window) to Wal-Mart or some freshly-minted professional athlete multi-millionaire, with posse in tow, cruising to Fat Burger in his "pimped" Escalade. The Govenator would be paying several thousand dollars a year in gross weight and engine displacement tax for each of his "Hummers," with the proceeds going to pay for mass transit.

    Americans have proven to be incredibly selfish, shortsighted and, frankly, none to bright. Since we can't make the right decisions about our energy use, they will need to be forced upon them. But, of course, this will never happen.

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