I listened with interest to your brief April 25, 2006 speech on oil prices and felt I should let you know my feelings on the subject.

As a citizen concerned about the energy issue I have personally taken an active role in learning all I can about this issue and educating as many people as possible on the facts. I have attended two alternative energy conferences in the last two months to listen to the opinions from some of the top minds in the world on the energy issue. Speakers that I have listened to and spoken with personally include: 

• Key players in state and federal government organizations such as the DOE and NREL, 

• Oil companies involved in alternative energy, 

• Alternative energy companies focusing on ethanol, solar and wind, 

• Major power utilities, 

• University researchers. 

Having spent the time to learn the depths of this problem, I have concluded that very few government officials seem have a grasp of this issue. Bill HR 5143, H-Prize Act of 2006 illustrates this lack of understanding. The authors of this bill seem to be of the opinion that Hydrogen and the so-called Hydrogen economy will be a solution to our energy supply issues. Nothing could be further from the truth. I continue to be amazed at how people still believe hydrogen is a source of energy. It needs to be made clear that Hydrogen is NOT a source of energy. There is no place on earth you can drill to get hydrogen. Hydrogen must be manufactured, and to manufacture it requires significant energy usually more then you get back when you use the hydrogen. Energy to make hydrogen almost always comes from fossil fuels, usually natural gas. Focusing on hydrogen will not solve our problems if it must be made using fossil fuels, which is all we have right now and for the foreseeable future. In fact what it is doing is making us think we have a solution to the problem when we actually don’t. 

The other day at a conference at LSU I attended a presentation by Dr. James Fischer, Senior Technical Advisor - Board of Directors, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Dept of Energy. In his presentation he talked about all the work the DOE is doing on alternative energy sources and listed Hydrogen as an energy source. I questioned him about this and he conceded that hydrogen was not an energy source, but a carrier of energy. I asked him why it was listed in his presentation as a energy source and he said it was because they didn’t have a good place to put it. I commented that by doing so the public (and maybe even the House of Representatives considering the above bill) has been confused into thinking this was a source of energy that can save us. His response to this was that he had a plane to catch and had to leave. The other speakers at the conference from the oil companies stated that they didn’t see hydrogen being a factor for 20 or 30 years and probably never will be. This makes me seriously question why our government seems to continue to hang their hat on this supposed source of energy. 

From my research, I have found that there are three practical sources of alternative energy. They are Solar, Wind and Ethanol. I won’t comment on solar and wind in this letter but I do want to say some things about ethanol. 

Most of the ethanol we produce in the US is made from corn. This is a highly inefficient way of making ethanol and depending on who you talk to may actually take more energy to produce then you get back, yet this seems to be where the majority of our focus is. Making ethanol from sugar cane is far more efficient then corn. Even more efficient is cellulose ethanol that uses waste material such as straw, wood chips, corn stalks or energy crops such as switch grass yet these methods don’t seem to get as much attention as using corn. Again it seems there is a lack of understanding of the issue.

I have to say that it was refreshing to hear the word conservation in your speech because that has to be a major part of the solution. There simply is not enough oil, natural gas and alternative energy to meet current demands, let alone increased future demands. For some reason there is almost no focus on conservation. Simple things like requiring people to switch to energy efficient light bulbs would reduce massive amounts of energy demand, yet we still rely on technology developed in the 1800s by Edison to light our houses.

I am not an advocate of drilling for oil in Alaska as a solution. This will only serve to delay the problem as this will not make enough difference long term. This also does not even address the Global Warming issue which almost everyone now agrees is real. You may not be aware that even the EPA has maps on their web site that show most of Southern Florida and vast amounts of other states under water as a result of global warming. Experts from NASA have stated publicly that they have solid evidence of Global Warming, yet we seem to be in denial about this issue. The signs are everywhere yet we only seem to be concerned about how much it will cost us to drive to the mountains this summer. At the LSU conference a speaker from Shell stated that their President of Alternative Energy has not only stated that Global Warming is real, he has stated that its already too late to stop. A direct quote was, "the game is over" with regards to global warming. Even the oil companies know this is a problem, so why doesn’t our government address it? Maybe we can’t stop it completely, but at least should try to slow it down before its too late. The only way to slow it down is to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. The concept of sequestering C02 is a long way off, if it is even possible. 

In my view our lives will soon change radically if serious attention is not given to this problem. Oil supplies will peak if they haven’t already and the price will continue to go up and up until our economy is destroyed. That summer trip that you talked about in your speech will be the last thing on people’s minds. At the same time will we be seeing more and more evidence of Global Warming like we did last fall with Katrina and Rita. Personally I think things can be done. I am a firm believer that Americans can rise to the occasion and solve these problems, but not when people don’t want to hear the facts. We have to get off this hydrogen delusion and other non-solutions like corn ethanol and get serious about the problem.

Contact Rick Jaworski