� Edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer � Vol. 7 No. 5 � May 2005

While the technology for hydrogen is still being developed

A city in Texas startssmart-energy driving

The

o president has really been serious about conservation andrenewable energy, but JimmyCarter at least made a symbolicstatement in the 1970s by hav-ing some solar panels installedon the White House roof. Shortly

afterward, however, Ronald Reagan, backed by theoil boys, defeated Carter, and that was the end of that—one of Ronnie’s first acts in office was to order thatthose damned solar panelsbe taken down and junked.

Since then, every presidenthas made the obligatory EarthDay nod to solar, wind, and otheralternatives as a means of breakingAmerica’s self-destructive oil habit, butthere’s been miserly commitmentbehind their rhetoric. Using itspolitical and lobbying clout, KingOil has been able to maintain itshegemony over energy policy, its strangleholdon the economy, its preeminence over the envi-ronment, and its priority call on military action.

In the quarter century since Carter tried to tellus something important with his solar gesture,every president has been in deliberate denial aboutwhere America is headed if we don’t get off oil. Andnow, we’re there: � America’s oil consumption has increased

25% since 1980—we’re now chug-a-lug-ging 20 million barrels of oil every singleday (up from 16 million in 1980).

� Global consumption is above 83 millionbarrels daily and rising rapidly.

� U.S. gasoline prices are approaching $3a gallon.

� To keep the crude flowing, theU.S. is deploying its military allaround the world at a stagger-ing cost in money and lives.

� The chemical refuse ofour gasoline addiction is

fogging the globe with greenhouse gases that arealtering our planet’s climate,

The world’s supply of recoverable oil is fast running out.An energy policy (or the lack of one) that leaves us

with no alternative but swilling more oil is suicidallystupid. But where’s the leadership? Neither theWhite House nor the Congress, neither theRepublican nor the Democratic party, has a plan forcoping with what is clearly a looming disaster.They’re not even discussing it.

Instead, the Bushites’ babble on blithely about let-ting corporations move their drilling rigs into the pris-tine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is akin tohanding out umbrellas to people standing in the path ofa tornado. Aside from the environmental and spiritualdamage of drilling in ANWR, even the most optimisticassessment says that there would be only enough oilin the entire refuge to supply the U.S. for 800 days—sopaltry that the companies themselves have shown littleinterest in making the investment to drill in such anunpromising field.

Cut the leashIf our leaders are too corrupted, too weak, and

too unimaginative to cut America (and ultimatelythe world) free of our tether to Big Oil, then wemust do it ourselves. A good place to begin is for

us to start buying cars, trucks, and other vehiclesthat get 500 miles per gallon.

Whoa, Hightower, there you go again,breathing some sort of strange fumes and

talking nonsense! 500 mpg? That’sscience-fiction stuff.

No. It’s in the here and now, usingtwo affordable, available tech-

nologies that are alreadyachieving amazing fuel

economy on America’sroads and cutting pollutants to

little or zero. Combined, thetwo technologies create

“plug-in, flexible-fuelhybrid vehicles,” for

which a moremanageable

SUPPORT OURTROOPS, PLEASE

If all those bumper stickerribbons saying “Support OurTroops” really were ribbons,they might actually help thetroops. The reason: TheArmy recently concededthat tens of thousands ofU.S. troops are being sentinto battle without that sim-ple staple of first-aid kits,the tourniquet.

Army spokespeople can’ttell us just how many soldiershave bled to death frominjuries that would not havebeen fatal if tourniquets hadbeen applied, but they cantell us why none were in thekits ordered by Pentagonchiefs. It’s because—getready to barf—the Armyhasn’t yet developed trainingmanuals and a pouch forcarrying the tourniquets!

Here’s another one. Whilehundreds of private compa-nies and state governmentshave stepped up to pay thedifference between the lowmilitary wages thatreservists and NationalGuard members are gettingin Iraq and the higher paythey got in civilian life, this isnot the case for one espe-cially big employer: the fed-eral government. TheBushites have exemptedthemselves from doingwhat’s right for these troopson the grounds that it couldcost too much.

FED BRAINWASHERSWON’T STOP

When he wanted to gutenvironmental rules orauthorize the torture of pris-oners of war, Bush just gothis lawyer to say, hey, it’sfine by me. Now the syco-phantish legal beagles in theJustice Department havetold George he can engagein something that is totallyun-American: propaganda.

At least 20 federal agen-cies under Bush areaggressively pushing gov-ernment-produced-and-dis-tributed “news” segmentson hundreds of local televi-sion stations—segmentsthat (Big Surprise!) laudour Glorious Leader forpolicies ranging from pre-scription drugs to beefexports. These TV news

—continued p. 2

N

bits use actors posing asreal reporters, and theyalmost always air withoutany mention that, by theway, what you just saw as“news” was the product ofthe Bush PR team.

Such practices are “covertpropaganda,” according to theGovernment AccountabilityOffice, the investigative armof Congress. The GAO hasruled that using our tax dol-lars to make prepackagednews segments that prose-lytize, deceive, and distort inorder to influence the publicamounts to government-sponsored propaganda—which is illegal.

Far from being embar-rassed by this, the WhiteHouse got JusticeDepartment lawyers to hackout a legal opinion declaringthat the Bushites’ brain-washing is legitimate newsmaterial. Plus, said Bush’slawyers, GAO legal opinionsaren’t binding on the WhiteHouse, so a memo has nowbeen sent to all agencyheads telling them to ignorethe GAO findings...and mer-rily keep on propagandizing!

If you don’t want to bepropagandized at your ownexpense, call the Center forMedia and Democracy at608-260-9713.

A COALITION OF PATRIOTS

George W is getting apolitical comeuppance froma source he least expected:conservatives.

At issue is his enthusiasmfor the liberty-busting USAPatriot Act, rammed throughCongress under cover of9/11. Several of its mostantidemocratic provisionsexpire this year, and Bushhas made their renewal atop priority. These provisionsinclude no-warrant searchesby the FBI of people’shomes and computers,secret raiding of librariesand medical offices to grabpeople’s records, and a defi-nition of “terrorist” thatincludes citizens who simplyprotest government policy.

Some libertarian-mindedconservatives aren’t buy-ing this autocratic policing

May 2005 The Hightower Lowdown 2

Do something!Information: For solid data and analysis, Austin Energy is a reliable source. A recent 25-page report called“Transportation Convergence” is available from AE, which includes the “Gas Optional” incentive programadopted by the Austin City Council. AE can also provide copies of the “Set America Free” proposal for U.S.energy security, issued by various neocon organizations. Contact Jeff Vice at www.austinenergy.com or512-322-6087.Legislation: Get your own city council to adopt the Austin “Gas Optional” incentive program. Copies availablefrom Austin Energy at www.austinenergy.com or 512-322-6087.Agitation: Get involved with the California Cars Initiative. www.calcars.org

moniker would be “gasoline-optional,” or GO cars.

As you know, hybrids arealready out there. The Toyota Priusand Honda Civic use electric batter-ies to supplement their gasolinemotors. The battery-powered motorprovides acceleration, and thegasoline engine kicks in at cruisespeed, combining to give happyowners an average of about 50miles per gallon of gasoline (60 inthe city). Electric motors are moreefficient, and these hybrids useother new technologies to improvegas mileage. For example, whenyou hit the brakes on conventionalcars, all the forward motion energy

is lost—turned into heat betweenbrake pads and brake drums—while hybrids capture that energyto recharge their batteries. Threeyears ago, these hybrids weremere curiosities, but sales havetaken off, with demand jumping by88% a year. Toyota plans to offer ahybrid version of all of its modelsby 2012, and every American,Japanese, and German automakerwill introduce at least one hybridmodel within the next two years.

PLUG-IN. Hybrids are a step for-ward, but America needs to make ahuge leap forward. We can do thisby shifting from what’s now on themarket to the new plug-in hybrids,

which essentially are consumer-friendly electric cars. Rather thanusing batteries as backup to thegasoline motor, as the Prius andCivic do, plug-ins rely almost entire-ly on batteries, providing a smallgasoline motor for use if and whenyou need a backup power source.In fact, you don’t have to put anygas in it at all. You can if you want,but it’s not necessary.

This is because a new genera-tion of powerful lithium ion batter-ies (the technology that powerslaptop computers) can take you upto 60 miles without recharging.That’s three times the daily com-mute and other driving done by themajority of Americans, so thesevehicles break through the short-range restrictions of the previousgeneration of electric cars.

Better yet, recharging thesebabies is a breeze. Every night, youplug your car into one of the stan-

dard 110-volt wall sockets inyour house, the same wayyou recharge your cellphone and laptop already.

Call it “home fueling.”Also, call it a bargain, for

the price of that electricity isthe equivalent of 56-cent-a-gallon

gasoline!Speaking of gasoline, you only

need it when you drive more than60 miles a day. If the car’s batterypower winds down on a longer daytrip, the gasoline automaticallykicks in, moving the car down theroad and at the same time recharg-ing the batteries so you can switchback to electric. Studies of GO carsshow that most drivers never visita gas station, and those who doaverage only six trips to the pumpa year.

Yeah, you say, but aren’t thesethings the dorky, slow-poke electriccars that have all the zip and styleof a golf cart? Nope. Plug-ins arestandard cars and trucks. DaimlerChrysler, for example, is now pro-ducing a small run of its conven-

—continued from p. 1

—continued on p. 3

The world is running out of oil. You don’t hear politicians talk about this,and it’s a taboo topic among the oil barons, but an increasing numberof geophysicists agree that production either has “peaked” or will

very soon, meaning we humans have already consumed half of the oil thatis feasible for commercial extraction. This is the point of diminishingreturns for the fuel that that the industrial world is almost totally hooked on.We’re going to be sucking up the final half of the underground reservoirs ofoil that it took Mother Nature millions of years to create, and the second halfis much more costly to extract. Oil experts at Goldman Sachs calculate thatcrude prices could spike to as high as $105 a barrel—double today’s price.

At the same time, we’re stuck with an oil-soaked energy policy that hasus using more and more—U.S. oil consumption is expected to grow by 50%in the next 20 years. Meanwhile, look out, because here comes China’s mas-sive population and supercharged economy with a growth in oil consump-tion seven times greater than the US! Ever-rising prices could be the least ofour problems. Since China, the U.S., and other big users will see it in theirnational interest to grab as much oil as possible for themselves, we arelooking at the real possibilityof global oil wars.

Shouldn’t our leaders (cor-porate, political, and media)be planning an alternativepath instead of continuingto consume as though thereis no tomorrow and pretend-ing that there will always bemore oil?

Peak Oil

May 2005 The Hightower Lowdown 3

EDITORS: Jim Hightower, Phillip FrazerCOPY WIZ: Gwenda Blair ARTISTE: Matt WuerkerDESKTOP: Sahu Barron CIRCULATION: John Ernst

RESEARCH: Laura Ehrlich PUBLISHER: Phillip Frazer

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tional Dodge Sprinter with the plug-in technology—and these convert-ed full-size vans, which are to beleased to several government agen-cies and corporations for a nation-wide test, have better accelerationthan conventional Sprinters.

The University of California atDavis has done much of the R&Dfor plug-ins, and they’ve converteda Chevy Suburban, Ford Taurus,and Ford Explorer. The Explorer,with 325 horsepower, is morepowerful than the standard ver-sion. Although it takes off like ashot, says UC engineering profes-sor Andrew Frank, it gets doublethe fuel economy of a regularhybrid. Even with the heavier bat-tery load, UC’s plug-in Explorerweighs no more than the conven-tional version, for the hybrid dis-penses with the generator, fanbelt, water pump, and other com-ponents. It has less than 20% thenumber of moving parts used in astandard Explorer, which makesthe hybrid easier to assemble andmore reliable.

“This isn’t rocket science,”notes one leading proponent ofplug-ins. The technology is avail-able, ready for widespread use,and steadily advancing. A smallentrepreneurial firm in Californiahas already produced a plug-insports car it calls Tzero, which hasbatteries that zoom it from 0 to 60mph in a remarkable 3.3 seconds.It cruises at 70 to 80 mph and hasa battery range of up to 300 milesper charge.

FLEXIBLE-FUEL. These effi-cient, plug-in electric motors domost of the work of powering thevehicle, thus reducing gasoline con-sumption to 100 miles per gallon,twice as good as the Prius andCivic. That’s great, but to take usfrom great to 500 mpg of gasoline

burned, we need to add a secondtechnology: Flexible-fuel vehicles.FFVs can run on either alcohol fuelsor gasoline or any combination ofthe two.

The most common of thesealcohol fuels in America is gaso-hol‹an ethanol made from corn orother grains, then mixed with asmall amount of gasoline. The mix-ture is usually 85% ethanol, thusdramatically dropping the con-sumption of gasoline. But growingcorn consumes a lot of energy,and alcohol fuel can be made moreefficiently by distilling plant wastes(such as stalks left in the fieldsafter harvest, sawdust and treetrimmings, and urban landscapingwaste) to make “cellulosicethanol.” This alcohol createsalmost no greenhouse gases dur-ing its manufacture or when it’sburned as a fuel, which is why cel-lulosic ethanol is getting a greenthumbs-up from enviro groups,and biorefineries in Canada andthe U.S. are gearing up for massproduction.

Existing gas stations can distrib-ute all of these biofuels, and theFFVs that use them are convention-al vehicles with minimal mechanicaladjustments costing under $100per vehicle. Again, no rocket sci-ence involved. An FFV simply has adifferent control chip and fittings inthe fuel line. The technology is onthe shelf, and it’s already beingused—40% of Brazil’s new cars areFFVs.

Combine the two technologies,and you have a flexible-fuel plug-inhybrid that blends electric, alcohol,and (when necessary) gasolinefuels and can take you 500 milesper gallon of gasoline used.

Electrifying transportationA major barrier to freeing our

being promoted byBushites masquerading asconservatives. Bob Barr,Paul Weyerich, and GroverNorquist have joined suchliberal advocates for libertyas the ACLU in an odd-bedfellow coalition calledPatriots to Restore Checksand Balances. The coalition israllying grassroots oppositionto the renewal of the mostoffensive parts of the per-versely named Patriot Act.

The grassroots need littlerallying, however, for they’realready on the move. Montana,for example, is in the fore-front of a “red state rebellion”against Bush’s intrusive policepowers. Montana Republicanand Democratic lawmakerspassed a resolution criticiz-ing Bush’s Patriot Act by avote of 88 to 12.

To find out more, contactthe coalition at 800-583-9122.

OFFSHORE WORK IS “DISTURBING”

The global corporate cul-ture routinely pits one groupof workers against anotherin the pursuit of dirt-cheaplabor.

Take the mass offshoringof U.S. call-center jobs. Ifyou call your phone compa-ny’s toll-free service numberabout an item on your bill,you’re likely to reach some-one in India.

An Indian trade group saysthere are 350,000 peoplethere working in such back-office service jobs for U.S.corporations, and the num-ber is expected to grow by40% this year alone. Thecorporations are tappingIndia’s vast pool of workerswho are English speaking,tech-savvy...and cheap.

But these workers are alsonervous wrecks. Americancallers are angry about theoffshoring of middle-classjobs and often use creativecombinations of four-letterwords to take out their rageon the workers. To deflectthis fury, the Indian call cen-ters try deception. RahailManzoor, for example, is toldto call himself “Jim” on thephone, and he has takenlessons in how to speak“American.” Some call cen-

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—continued from p. 2

Why mess with plug-in carsand biofuels when noneother than George W has

proclaimed that the “hydrogen econ-omy” is our future?

As we know, reality has neverbeen Bush's strong suit and the real-ity of hydrogen includes some majorobstacles: � At present, to extract hydrogen from

water consumes more energythan the captured hydrogen couldproduce.� Using natural gas to extract hydro-

gen, as the Bushites propose (thuspleasing the oil giants that ownmost of the gas deposits), generatescarbon dioxide, so there’s no reduc-tion in greenhouse gas emissions.� Using current technologies, hydro-

gen fuel is four times more costlythan gasoline.� Hydrogen can cause metal to

become brittle, which is not goodin a car.� As an ultralight gas, hydrogen

poses enormous problems in trans-portation, storage, and distribution,requiring an entirely new refuelinginfrastructure that will cost hun-dreds of billions of dollars to build.True, the extraction of green hydro-

gen from water by a process usingrenewable fuels holds long-termpromise and should be pursued. Butthe National Academy of Sciences esti-mates that this future is 50 years away.We can get off our oil addiction andclean up our environment now, withflexible fuel, plug-in hybrids that arealready in production.

Why nothydrogen?

May 2005 The Hightower Lowdown 4

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ters have giant TV screensshowing the weather and thelatest sports scores so work-ers can make small talk andpretend to be in the U.S.

But many callers knowbetter and berate the pooroperators, who are undersuch stress that they sufferall sorts of debilitating ill-nesses. It’s “psychologicallydisturbing,” says Manzoor.

It’s also psychologicallydisturbing for Americans tosee our middle-class futureexported while CEOs calmlycount the billions of dollarsthat they rake in by pitting usagainst the Indians. To helpunite workers here andthere, call the AFL-CIO’sinternational department:202-637-5050.

THE AIR FORCE’SBIG BOONDOGGLE

The C-130J is a massive,new, whiz-bang cargo planefor the Air Force—and amassive boondoggle for itsmaker, the Lockheed MartinCorporation.

Everyone in the knowagrees that the plane hasflaws. It can’t drop heavyequipment (which—hello—is a cargo plane’s purpose);it doesn’t perform in coldweather; it can’t reach manyglobal hot spots; and itsengines tend to stall out ontake-off. Plus—one more lit-tle thing—paratroopers can’tjump out of it because theplane’s design causes themto be pulled back and crashinto the fuselage.

The Pentagon hasalready bought 50 of thesethings for $2.6 billion. Noneare in combat; instead,they’re mostly sitting idle onvarious U.S. military bases.It’s such a boondoggle thateven Pentagon chief DonnyRumsfeld wants to stop pro-duction. Yet Lockheed lob-byists and the Air Forcebrass have glad-handedCongress into giving themanother $5 billion to buymore C-130Js, at more than$66 million apiece.

It’s bad enough thatCongress throws so muchof our money at the warmachine, but shouldn’t weat least be buying planesthat work?

country from its gasoline addictionhas been that it is prohibitivelyexpensive to replace gas stationswith a new refueling infrastruc-ture. That’s not a problem with GOcars, however, since the existingelectric grid is everywhere, mean-ing you’re only a socket away fromgetting the juice you need.Moreover, plug-in hybrids makeefficient use of the grid, sincemost of the refueling will be doneat night, when there is the leastdemand for electricity.

In Austin, Texas, for example,the publicly owned power plant,Austin Energy, has calculated thathaving cars plugged into thousandsof the city’s sockets at night wouldallow greater use of wind power.This is because the West Texaswind that already generates 6% ofAustin’s electricity blows most pro-ductively at night, dropping off tonear nothing during hot summerafternoons, the peak time of poweruse. All those car batteries wouldbecome storage units for nighttimewind energy, and plug-in cars liter-ally would be wind powered.Likewise, solar energy could bestored in automobile batteries, pro-viding solar-powered cars even ondays the sun isn’t shining.

Another possibility is to put sim-ple meters in parking garages, allow-ing employees to hitch their plug-insto the meters while at work. Notonly could they recharge their batter-ies, but they could even have theoption of selling some of the energystored in their batteries back to thegrid. Austin Energy’s Roger Duncansays, “We are having to build powerplants to meet peak energydemands on hot summer days. Ifwe could draw just a little fromthese vehicles during peak times,the savings would be tremendous.”

The rub on the electrification oftransportation comes from theenvironmental front. Obviously, it’sa huge positive to move away fromoil’s deadly contamination of ouratmosphere, water, soil, andecosystems (not to mention ourbodies). But electricity generatedby coal-fired utilities comes with itsown nasties—particularly carbon,sulfur dioxide, and mercury conta-mination, causing everything fromacid rain to birth defects. On bal-ance, such environmental groupsas Natural Resources DefenseCouncil have determined that thegasoline tailpipe does more dam-age than the coal-fired smokestack,so they’ve signed on to the pushfor plug-ins.

But no one is giving electric util-ities a green pass, certainly not forpower plants fueled by coal. Whatplug-ins do is to focus our fight.Instead of battling both the oilgiants and the coal industry, ourconcentration can be on coal. Thebig environmental bang from plug-in hybrids will only come if theelectricity is generated by clean,renewable fuels, which makes ourpush for wind, solar, and other suchsources even more crucial.

The oddest bedfellowsDisplacing oil as America’s car

fuel might seem to be the ultimatein tilting at windmills, but an elec-tric-car future has become a realis-tic political possibility because of anuncommon confluence of forces.For economic, environmental, andnational security reasons, a widearray of interests, ranging fromlocal governments to the neocons,are backing the push for plug-ins.

Yes, such notable national secu-rity hawks as Robert McFarlane,Frank Gaffney, and James Woolsey

have launched a drive they call “SetAmerica Free” to get our countryoff oil. Citing shrinking supplies, ris-ing demand, and higher costs of oilthat mostly comes from regions ofthe world hostile to the U.S., theneocons are hot behind a four-yearcrash program to slash oil con-sumption drastically. The center-piece of their plan is to provide gov-ernmental incentives and mandatesfor the mass marketing of flexible-fuel plug-in vehicles.

Both private utilities and publicpower plants are enthusiastic plug-in hybrid backers (for the obviousreason that transportation would bea massive new market for theirproduct). Add in NRDC and otherenvironmental groups, state andlocal governments, renewable ener-gy advocates, urban planners,entrepreneurs, health groups, andothers—and the impossiblebecomes possible.

The City of Austin has been in theforefront of this burgeoning grass-roots movement. Last September,the council okayed a “Gas OptionalVehicle Incentive Program.” It willoffer $1,000 rebates to the first1,000 Austin buyers of plug-ins, pro-mote such vehicles to local business-es, commit the city to purchasingplug-ins for its fleet, work with othercities with municipally owned utili-ties, and encourage America’s 50largest cities to adopt a similar incen-tive program.

Woodrow Wilson said “If youwant to make enemies, try tochange something.” Shifting frompetroleum to electric power wouldbe a political sea change, and it cer-tainly would generate a horde ofpowerful corporate enemies. Yetthe shift from oil MUST come--andplug-in electric cars should jump-start the debate.

—continued from p. 3

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7:5 May 2005

AUSTIN TEXAS TRIESSMART-ENERGY DRIVING

1 Really supporting troops/ Federal brainwashers

2 A coalition of patriots

3 Offshore work is disturbing

4 US Air Force's boondoggle