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Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil |  | Author: Robert Zubrin
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  57 reviews
Sales Rank: 337253
Media: Hardcover
Edition: illustrated edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1591025915
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.790973
EAN: 9781591025917
ASIN: 1591025915
Publication Date: November 10, 2007
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Product Description
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 worldwide. 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. Energy Victory 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 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 go a long way toward safeguarding homeland security in the future and provide solutions for global warming and Third World development.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
 Way Off Base - October 6, 2009
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
America is losing the 'War on Terror.' Saudi Arabia is the primary global financier of the Islamic terror cult - in 1972 its foreign exchange earnings were $2.7 billion, in 2006 they topped $200 billion. Over the same period our annual oil import bill grew from less than $4 billion to over $260 billion. Zubrin concludes we're being looted to finance a war against ourselves. Victory requires mandating all new cars in the U.S. be flex-fueled. Instead of buying arms for our enemies we could be selling tractors to Africa, etc.
Hydrogen is not the answer. When made by electrolysis, the process yields 85 units of hydrogen energy for every 100 units of electrical energy used. (There are also problems transporting hydrogen and establishing dispensing locations.) Zubrin also points out that a car that runs on compressed methane will be able to travel 3X as far as the same car on hydrogen stored in the same space. In addition, the methane would be cheaper.
'Conservation through gasoline efficiency is a losing strategy' for achieving energy independence. (However, it certainly would help.) The 'key issue in energy independence concerns the availability of liquid fuels' to power transportation. (Those focused on battery-assisted cars would take20issue with this.) Zubin proposes to take the world off the petroleum standard and put it on the alcohol standard.
However, there's a major problem with Zubin's recommendation, probably best put forward by Michael Rupert in his "A Presidential Energy Policy." Rupert tells us that it takes almost as much energy, if not more, to produce fuel from plant matter. (Confirmed by a college associate with a PhD. in Chemistry.) Meanwhile food prices and world hunger are rising as a result of biofuel programs. Further, the U.S. has no remaining grain reserves. Our biofuel goals are propped up by a federal 51 cent subsidy/gallon and a 54 cent/gallon tariff on ethanol imports. Bush II's goal of 15% gasoline replaced by biofuels would require the entire U.S. corn crop (40% of the world's supply). Further, about as much energy is used to create fertilizer as used to operate machines in the field and transport the product.
As for sugar cane, American farmers receive a subsidy for that crop, most successfully grown in Brazil. Substantially increasing its growth would require massive rainforest destruction.
Oops!
 I'm a Brazilian unemployed agronomist September 18, 2009
Dalton C. Rocha (Fortaleza, CE, Brazil.)
I read this very good book, here in Brazil. I'm a Brazilian agronomist unemployed and I like to read books, about energy and biofuels.
This author of this book, Robert Zubrin, is an American NASA's aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of manned Mars exploration.
I'll show a dozen of excellents parts of this book:
1-Page 8: "OPEC has made their future clear; it will consist of repeated cyclic binges of vicious looting followed by recession, with each raid transferring further large increments of wealth and power to the cartel, and the reactionary Islamits and other totalitarians that stand behind it."
2-Page 9: "Since the time of the 1973 oil embargo, when OPEC first demonstrated its malevolence, America's leaders have repeatedly declared their commitment to achieve energy security but have accomplished nothing. There is not that much time left. We do not have another three decades to waste. Each looting cycle makes the enemy stronger and ever positioned to confound our efforts to scape."
3-Page 23:"As a method of achieving energy indepence, conservation throught gasoline efficiency is a losing stategy. It is like trying to use buckets to bail out a ship whose bottom has been rippen open."
4-Page 31:"If we are to win the critical energy battle, there's only way to do it. We must take ourselves - and the rest of the world - off the petroleum standard. Only by doing this can we destroy the economic power of our enenies at its very foundations. Only in this way can we transfer control of the future from those who take their wealth, premade, from the ground, to those who make their wealth through hard work, skill, and creativity (and thus must build free societies that maximize the human potential of every citizen)."
5-Page 34:"In point of fact, the Saudi ruling family has direct responsibility for promoting terrorism against the United States and many other nations."
6-Page 47:"The Taliban movement was a Saudi project."
7-Page 65:"The most egregious piece of pro-Sudi fecklessness of the American political class, however, has been its failure to enact a competent energy policy to stop the Arabian looting of our nation."
8-Page 188:"A thousand years ago, oat and barley were grown in Iceland."
9-Page 194:"Studies done at Oak Ridge National Lab on forest trees have shown that increasing the carbon dixide level 50 percent higher, to the 550 ppm level projected to prevail at the end of the twenty-first century will likely increase photosynthetic productivity a further 24 percent."
10-Page 246:"The issue at stake in energy security is not a matter of whether the price of gasoline will be $2 per gallon or $3 per gallon; it is who will determine the human future."
11-Page 254:"For Christians, human are children of God. for Islamits, as for the Marduk-Baal cult, they are slaves of God. As such, they are also slaves of the master that Allah has chosen to place above them. This view makes democracy and human rights impossible. It also makes social progress impossible, because it denies the legitimacy of any reasoned critique of traditional arragements. It also makes peaceful coexistence with free non-Muslins impossible, because it denies their right to exist."
12-Page 269:"However, according to the Merril Lynch data, the price of oil would be about 15 higher were it not for biofuels, which comes to a savings of about $18 per barrel at current oil prices."
This book was writen by a NASA's aerospace engineer. He did a very good work, but as an agronomist, I must tell somemistakes of this book:
1-On page 25, the tells that USA has the biggest potential for ethanol and methanol. In fact, Brazil has more than the doble of the American potential for ethanol and methanol.
2-On page 98, the author tells that cellulose has the formula C4H6O3. In fact, the cellulose's formula is C6H12O6.
3-On page 53, the author tells that water hyacinth would be a good source for methanol. Nonsense. Water hyacinth is about 95% water and is a good source of biogas, not ethanol.
4-On page 162, the author tells that Brazil since XVII is the world's leader in sugarcane production. In fact, in 1955, Cuba was producing more sugarcane than Brazil and also India was ahead of Brazil in sugarcane production. Since 1970 decade Brazilian production of sugarcane is bigger than Cuban and Indian production combined, but this is about 30 years old, not since XVII Century.
5-On page 205, the author gives an absurd and low number for the deaths in Chernobyl disaster.
Even with these mistakes above, I must give 5 stars for this book, because it is the best book I ever read about American energy future. If I gave four stars for the book "The End of Oil" by Paul Roberts, I have to be just and give five stars for this book.
Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil September 10, 2009
C. W. Covington
Everyone should read this book. The United States is indeed engaged in an international war with millions of radical Islamic jihadists who want to kill everyone who doesn't either a)think the way they do or b) submit to their authority. This may be the most unique war in history, however, because the United States is funding both sides. Low-cost biofuels are within our reach in the near term. Everything is in place to make this happen except the political will. "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
Required Reading for All Americans December 28, 2008
C. Surdak (Huntington Beach, CA)
I'm a big fan of Zubrin for his non-fiction work. It's technically astute, accurate in its use of facts and figures and blends well with his dry sense of humor. All in all a good read.
As for the subject matter and the message, this book should be read by all Americans and should be the basis of an energy policy for the incoming administration. Alas, they are likely as much in the pocket of Big Oil and OPEC as the outgoing administration. Money talks...
 Worth serious consideration, but very antagonistic. September 30, 2008
George D. Smith (Clovis, CA.)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Dr. Zubrin is a visionary, and his case against the US dependence on foreign oil, particularly Saudi oil, is a strong one. His mission is to mandate flex-fueling the American automobile so that alcohols may be burned in the car, and OPEC can be busted. Unfortunately he goes out of his way to antagonize some natural allies in this mission: environmentalists, climate change alarmists (particularly Al Gore), green technology advocates, anti-nuclear activists, and others will bristle at some of Zubrin's opinions. Nonetheless the basic technology of converting to flex fuels is sound and deserves serious consideration. Methanol seems more promising than ethanol to me as a future fuel, and interested readers will want to look at the work of Dr. George Olah regarding this fuel option (See his book "Beyond Oil and Gas"). Olah has invented a process that can convert carbon dioxide into methanol that is very promising: It can sequester the greenhouse gas and produce a fuel with essentially a zero net carbon footprint. This technology is not covered in Zubrin's book. In fact, Zubrin needs to explain more about the underlying technology of producing these alcohols. While skeptical of environmentalists, he is not critical of some other cherished energy options: he advocates fission, but his solution to nuclear waste (petrify it into glass, put it into barrels, and drop it into mid-Pacific Ocean seabeds) will unnerve many. His rosy depiction of fusion may be unrealistic. Flex-fueling is much more attainable for the near future. I have little doubt that Americans need to work a lot harder at getting off oil. Both liberals and conservatives, skeptics and environmentalists, can probably agree with that goal.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 57
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