Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil [Paperback]

Robert Zubrin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2009

In this compelling argument for a new direction in US energy policy, world-renowned engineer and best-selling author Robert Zubrin lays out a bold plan for breaking the economic stranglehold that the OPEC oil cartel has on our country and the world. Zubrin presents persuasive evidence that our decades-long relationship with OPEC has resulted in the looting of our economy, the corruption of our political system, and now the funding and protection of terrorist regimes and movements that are committed to our destruction. Debunking the false solutions and myths that have deterred us from taking necessary action, Zubrin exposes the fakery that has allowed many politicians - including current US president George W Bush - to posture that they are acting to resolve this problem while actually doing nothing significant toward that goal. Zubrin's plan is straightforward and practical. He argues that if Congress passed a law requiring that all new cars sold in the USA be flex-fueled - that is, able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels - this one action would destroy the monopoly that the oil cartel has maintained on the globe's transportation fuel supply, opening it up to competition from alcohol fuels produced by farmers world-wide. According to Zubrin's estimates, within three years of enactment, such a regulation would put 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on high-alcohol fuels, and at least an equal number overseas. This book shows how we could be using fuel dollars that are now being sent to countries with ties to terrorism to help farmers here and abroad, boosting our own economy and funding world development. Furthermore, by switching to alcohol fuels, which pollute less than gasoline and are made from plants that draw carbon dioxide from the air, this plan will facilitate the world-wide economic growth required to eliminate global poverty without the fear of greenhouse warming. "Energy Victory" offers an exciting vision for a dynamic, new energy policy, which will go a long way toward safeguarding homeland security in the future and provide solutions for global warming and Third World development.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Energy Victory is one of the best books written on our oil dependence problem. The solutions it offers are economically, technologically, and politically feasible. They should be heeded as an insurance policy against the next energy crisis that is already looming on the horizon." -- Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009

From the Inside Flap

As prices at the pump ratchet up, the international oil cartel will continue to reap record profits. For the average American, this may simply seem to be simply a blow to the family budget. But what if much of the hundreds of billions of dollars consumers exchange for filling up their tanks went to funding terrorist organizations, terror-state nuclear weapons programs, and the indoctrination of legions of children to fanatical hatred? What if politicians, diplomats, and business leaders knowingly allowed these shocking relations to continue, all the while accepting stock options and partying it up with superrich foreign oil potentates? As long as America keeps running on gas, we will be paying for our own destruction.

In Energy Victory, world-renowned engineer and best-selling author Robert Zubrin exposes the scandalous state of energy affairs in America, and the political fakers and scientific charlatans who have for decades done little except to distract the public from truly practical alternatives to petroleum with shams and delusions: Hydrogen cars? They'd be impossible to fuel cost effectively. Conservation? It's a failing strategy so long as the enemy controls the only fuel. Zubrin's plan for energy victory is straightforward and practical. He argues that if Congress passed a law requiring that all new cars sold in the USA be flex-fueled--that is, able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels--this one action would destroy the vertical monopoly that the oil cartel has maintained on the globe's transportation fuel supply. Within three years of enactment, such a regulation would put 50 million cars on the road in the USA capable of running on high-alcohol fuels, and at least an equal number overseas, stopping future petroleum price extortion by opening the fuel market up to competition from ethanol and methanol produced by farmers worldwide.

Instead of sending our fuel dollars as tribute to counties with ties to terrorism, we could be using them to help agriculture here and abroad, boosting our own economy and funding world development. Furthermore, by switching to alcohol fuels, which pollute less than gasoline and are made from plants that draw carbon dioxide from the air, this plan would facilitate the worldwide economic growth required to eliminate global poverty without the fear of greenhouse warming.

Energy Victory offers an exciting vision for a dynamic new energy policy, which will safeguard our liberties by truly winning the war on terror. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 357 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591027071
• ISBN-13: 978-1591027072
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Blueprint for Energy Independence through Alcohol Fuels, November 13, 2007

By 

William J. Wolski (Wheaton, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil (Hardcover)

Zubrin forcefully postulates that a complete switch to ethanol and methanol fuel, replacing Mideast Oil, particularly from the Saudis, is America's answer to true Energy Independence.

Starting with forced conversions to flex fuel for all new vehicles sold in the U.S.--doubly more ambitious than the Administration's exhortations to the Big Three Automakers that half their annual production be flex-fuel- capable by 2012--alcohol fuels based on flex-ubiquity, Zubrin contends, would quickly supplant petroleum as the dominant fuel source.

Using a methodical historical narrative, Zubrin traces the flow of petrodollars from the U.S. to Osama Bin Laden. A petro-feed to hatred of the West, the route carries us through the Saudi Royal Family's support of radical Islam, its strict fundamentalist teachings and zealotry traced to Ibn Abdul Wahhab and Bin Laden.

7.5 million barrels a day of alcohol fuels, a tough but attainable goal, is the counter balance that leads us to Zubrin's Energy Victory.

Laced with facts and figures and some easy math, it's sure to devolve to the policy points of some presidential candidate.

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Energy Salvation via Alcohol Fuel, December 5, 2007

By 

Fred W. Hallberg "A Retired Humanities Prof." (Janesville, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil (Hardcover)

Robert Zubrin's book could not be more relevant to the current political scene. The compromise energy bill is moving toward a vote in both the House and Senate. A simple majority is assured, but will it be filibustered to death or vetoed by the President? A few more Republican votes would assure passage over against such resistance, and Zubrin's book just might produce that effect.

Zubrin is quite hawkish in his views about the current world-wide struggle by the democratic West against "Islamofascism." His critique of Wahhabism (the puritanical version of Islam widely affirmed within the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia) seems well grounded. (He draws heavily for his historical interpretation of Islam on the writing of Ibn Waqrraq, whom I believe to be quite reliable.) He then draws an analogy between the vulnerability of the Nazis and the Japanese to the American attacks on their sources of oil in World War II, to our vulnerability to "Islamofascism" in the current war on terrorism. (He opines, for example, that the reason the first President Bush did not provide air support for the Kurds and Shiites who rose against Saddam Hussein after the First Gulf War, was because the Saudi's were able to enforce their desires on us through back channel threats of oil disruptions.)

What is his solution to this threat by the Saudis to our political autonomy? Simply develop bio-fuels in the form of methanol and/or ethanol as a substitute for petroleum as a transportation fuel.

This solution has been on the table since the Carter admisistration. But it has been negated every time it has gotten close to implementation by two countervailing forces. The Saudi's have been able to reduce prices enough to make the transition to bio-fuels economically unattractive, or else the oil industry supporters have been able to use their money to sabotage such policies in Congress. Zubrin hopes there is now enough political support to push through a bio-fuels program despite such resistance. His book is part of that push to realize his ideas.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has emphasized there are two "platforms" for producing alcohol fuel from biomass. There is the "Thermochemical" platform and the ""Biochemical" platform. The former produces alcohol by heating the biomass until it breaks down into "syngas" (carbonmonoxide and hydrogen). Syngas can then be condensed into methanol (wood alcohol), or with suitable catalysts and refining it can be made into ethanol. The biochemical platform is what is getting the most publicity today as the preferred way to make "cellulosic" ethanol (ethanol produced from corn stover rather than from corn starch). Zubrin really favors the other thermochemical platform because we know it works with any kind of biomass, and because it can be used to make alcohol fuel from coal as well as from biomass. This shows that he is much more interested in energy independence as a way to defeat "Islamofascism," than he is in cutting carbon-dioxide emissions to mitigate global warming.

Zubrin claims the technical breakthrough which made his alcohol liquid fuel program possible was the "flex-fuel" technology first developed by an inventive woman engineer at Ford named Roberta Nichols. Her invention enabled an engine to run on any mixture of alcohol or gasoline. (It could not, however, tolerate mixing different amounts of methanol and ethanol. Later developments first used in Brazil allowed an engine to run equally well on any mixture of gasoline, methanol and of ethanol.) Flex-fuel vehicles provide the key to the Zubrin's alcohol revolution. All that is required is an additional $100 per new car for the flex fuel technology. Initially most cars will run on straight gasoline or on E-10 (10% ethanol). But as the price of oil rises, alcohol alternatives will become ever more cost competitive, and drivers will choose to "fill up" on various mixtures of cheaper alcohol as they become available. This transition has already happened in Brazil, and Brazil has now become energy independent. Zubrin is proposing that we do the same.

The oil lobby is still trying to prevent this transition from occurring here in the U.S. Zubrin is grateful to the farm lobby for having provided a countervailing political force to the oil lobby (even though the farm lobby is no more virtuous than the oil lobby). The selfishness of corn growers might just free the world from dependence on Mideastern oil, the malevolent influence of "Islamofascism," and lift third world farmers out of their abject poverty. (The limitless market for bio-fuels will improve the economic viability of farmers world-wide.)

Meanwhile, Congress must pass the energy bill to get this ball rolling. I can only hope Zubrin's book helps bring about the optimistic energy future he foresees.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last-An Author Who Understands Both the Problem and the Technology, November 27, 2007

By 

Paul S. Minor "Paul" (Round Hill, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil (Hardcover)

As a chemical engineer, the unqualified cabal of lawyers, economists, and journalist who seem to be directing the nation's energy policy continually shocks me. With no understanding of engineering problem solving or the path of progress of technology, they are not able to visualize a prioritized path of solvable steps. Zubrin accomplishes this for them and creates a clear path of action.

Our energy problems break down into three areas
1. The disastrous effects of the bleeding of our economy and strategic positioning due to the reliance upon petroleum from unstable sources for transportation fuels
2. The adverse environmental effects of a coal based electrical system
3. A longer-term possibility of severe global climate change.

A massive disinformation campaign against any solution that would reduce the power of the global petroleum industry has added to the confusion. Zubrin also clearly addresses this problem.

Zubrin breaks these issues into a prioritized plan directed at all three areas in order of urgency and our ability to solve. It is essential that (1) be immediately solved to establish the strength to attack (2) and (3). He states that this can be largely accomplished by shifting a significant portion of our transportation fuels to an alcohol mix of methanol and ethanol, using existing technology. One simple but far reaching requirement for this is to mandate that all new vehicles sold in the US immediately be flex fuel capable. Add in some price protection for biofuels in the case that OPEC would drop prices drastically to try to kill the industry and US enterprise and competition will take over. The mandate would resemble that for safety belts and emission standards and would not be expensive or amount to massive interference in the "free market" by the government.

The book is filled with historical and technical backup for immediate action along this line. If you want to discuss these urgent issues intelligently, you must read this book.