Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans, President Bush outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil. He stated that breakthroughs were close that would double the gas mileage of our cars.
Bush stated that some of these foreign suppliers have "unstable" governments that have fundamental differences with America."It creates a national security issue and we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us."
What? There are oil producing nations that don't like us? Say it isn't so!
Back in the mid seventies I bought my wife a little Madza Mizer station wagon. On a trip to Denver and back, it averaged 52 (fifty-two) miles per gallon. It had a four cylinder all aluminum engine and could transport four adults easily. Our oldest son christened it "the slug" because in the Rocky Mountain passes it did do some major slowing down while going uphill, but for 52 MPG, we didn't complain.
So what is the President's claim here? It's not really improved gas mileage, it's all about cars that have battery backup, not more fuel efficient gas engines. One important thing he didn't mention was that these cars are costly. Another thing he failed to mention is how many more power plants we are going to need to charge up all those big batteries.
Our power plants run at full capacity doing the warm summer months, so the additional electricity has to come from new plants... a lot of them. I once read that if all the cars on our highways were replaced by "pollution free" electrics, we would need three times as many power plants to satisfy the demand.
Since nuclear plant construction has been completely stopped by the greens for almost thirty years in the United States, these new plants would most probably be coal or oil fired. How's that for pollution?
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