Alternative Fuels and Transportation

By John Wayne Tucker

We can keep our powerful cars and increase our travel options.

It is clearly evident that we cannot continue to rely on foreign oil. Not only does it cost more than our economy can absorb, it puts us in dangerous Middle East problems. We have many options regarding fuel, however. The important thing to remember is that our powerful internal combustion engines will run on a myriad of different fuels. We already have many of these fuels in abundant supply. There are bio-fuels which work great, however, there now seems to be a problem with the cost of food as a result of its use. There is hydrogen, methane, and a large number of other bio products that are not food related. Additionally, I have every confidence that American ingenuity can create any number of cost effective synthetic products that will burn in existing engines with little or no modification. The importance of operating the internal combustion engine as we now have is multi-fold. First, Americans have come to expect and appreciate the performance of the present engines that we have. Secondly, there will be no additional burden on American manufacturers to create and tool up for a completely new kind of technology. This takes financial burden off the auto manufacturers so they can continue to compete effectively on the world market. All we have to do is accept the fact that we need to change our fuel source. Of course, there is also the possibility that there is plenty of oil available right here in America. Being able to tap that supply (if it is really available) is an important thing.

Also, I propose that America is far behind in the area of public transportation. In Europe, anyone can travel anywhere on a train. In America (the birthplace of efficient train travel) we cannot easily travel on a train. The technology exists to produce trains that travel at very high speeds, both efficiently and cleanly. It is clear to me that it makes much more sense to ride a high-speed train from St. Louis to Kansas City in an hour or so, rather than expect a multi-million dollar airplane to take us there with significantly less efficiency. We need to use airplanes for long distances as they were intended and trains for short or long distances. This would have many benefits. Firstly, it would create an enormous number of jobs from high tech to the simplest of jobs. The entire job spectrum would be covered. Secondly, it would reduce the large amount of long distance highway traffic, thus making our roads last longer and requiring less fuel.