By MATTHEW JEREMY
Formerly of Los Alamos
This is a response to Mr. Peter LaDelfe’s comments on alternative fuel vehicles (link). I would say I’m not strongly for or against alternative fuel vehicles. However, I do disagree that alternative fuel vehicles such as electric cars or hydrogen-powered vehicles will not be our “salvation.”
This isn’t in regards to the technology because I think it is intriguing. However, what Mr LaDelfe’s comments fail to account for is one thing: greed. Let’s take two case studies from history.
Case study 1
The first car Henry Ford designed was built to run ethanol. When the liquor tax was repealed in 1906, Henry Ford declared ethanol the fuel of the future. So what happened? By 1920, the ethanol industry was obliterated by Standard Oil’s founder John D. Rockefeller who successfully lobbied to have the manufacture of alcohol banned for any reason aka Prohibition. Well, it was back to the drawing board for Henry Ford. It seems gasoline would be the fuel of the future. The oil industry wasn’t going to sit back and let their profits evaporate.
Case study 2
The year is 1937. Imperial Japan has great ambitions but now finds itself bogged down in a full-scale war with China. The problem the Japanese faced was that they lacked the natural resources needed to forge their empire. At this point, Japan imported 94 percent of its oil. (source, Imperial War Museum) In 1941, Japan occupied French Indochina. Awakening from isolationism, America retaliated to this aggression by freezing all of Japan’s assets in the states, effectively preventing them from purchasing the oil they desperately needed. Unwilling to submit to US demands, Japan planned to take the oil they needed by force. However, attacking available resources controlled by the British or Dutch in the Pacific would certainly provoke a military response from the US. To blunt this, the Japanese planned a swift and devastating attack in hopes it would hamstring the US and force them to negotiate. So on December 7th, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The rest, as they say, is history. It stands to reason that a series of events related to oil is the only reason Los Alamos even exists.
What do we learn from these two case studies? When a seismic event threatens the oil market, either in supply or demand, catastrophic things can happen.
Fast forward to today. In 2022, for example, oil companies made approximately $200 billion in profit (source, cnbc.com). With electric cars making up only 0.2 percent of vehicles on the road today, that number is expected to grow to 10 percent by 2030. (source, green-technology.org) So, the $200 billion question is this: what would oil companies and the governments that tax them be willing to do to protect their profits? One thing history is clear on, where oil is spilled blood is sure to follow.
