So you wanna buy a hybrid?

You should read this first.

The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).

It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.

And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.

So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.

Read it all

The Greens Are Never Happy

Now the Greens have everything they’ve been waiting for. Both houses of congress are controlled by liberal democrats, and the White House has a radical  liberal President who has vowed to destroy America by insisting on “green” power, among various other things. So how could there be a problem? Seems to me, they don’t want green energy, they want no energy at all.  I think this is their plan….

What else could they want? Here’s the latest NIMBY* excuses.

*(not in my back yard)

A key part of President Obama’s energy plan — replacing fossil fuels with green alternatives — is facing increasing opposition from an unlikely source: environmentalists.

Some environmentalists, who have successfully fought a wind farm on the border of Oregon and Washington, are trying to block a massive solar plant in the Mojave desert. And now an Oregon county is considering a ban on wind power in the foothills of the blue mountains.

“We all want to be as green as we can be. But at what cost?” Richard Jolly of the Blue Mountain Alliance. “To take everything from us? This valley could be surrounded by them.”

Jolly says 400-foot wind turbines are a bird-killing eyesore. The developer argues the danger to birds is exaggerated but admits every big energy project has its downside.

“If we hold out for the perfect environmental silver bullet, if you will, it will always be 15 years down the road,” he said. “We have to make incremental progress.”

For decades, environmental groups have talked about “big oil,” painting the petroleum industry as greedy and destructive. Now similar language is being applied to renewables. Instead of eco-friendly green power, increasingly it’s “big wind” and “big solar.”

Large environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, bristle at the idea of dissension in the ranks.

“We are working very aggressively to make a planning process happen with utilities, with industry, with local groups all at the table,” said Rick Duke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Center for Market Innovation.

Obama has set a goal of getting 25 percent of the nation’s power from renewable sources by 2025. The White House contends that will create millions of jobs and has the support of business and environmental leaders.

But many local activists say we need to slow this rush to renewables or risk trading one power problem for another. Source

Maybe they were surprised they got everything they wanted and they didn’t have a plan for that.

More dissent in the Democratic camp. Oh Darn!

New Study: Green Jobs Myths

Steve Milloy of Green Hell Blog has this piece about the non-existent “Green Job Revolution” the Obama administration is shoving down our throats.

President Obama touts “green jobs” and has hired a “green jobs czar.”

But check out the conclusions from this new study published by the University of Illinois College of Law and Economics about “green jobs”:

A rapidly growing literature promises that a massive program of government mandates, subsidies, and forced technological interventions will reward the nation with an economy brimming with green jobs. Not only will these jobs improve the environment, but they will be high paying, interesting, and provide collective rights. This literature is built on mythologies about economics, forecasting, and technology.

Myth: Everyone understands what a green job is.

Reality: No standard definition of a green job exists.

Myth: Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.

Reality: Green jobs estimates include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic, and administrative positions that do not produce goods and services for consumption.

Myth: Green jobs forecasts are reliable.

Reality: The green jobs studies made estimates using poor economic models based on dubious assumptions.

Myth: Green jobs promote employment growth.

Reality: By promoting more jobs instead of more productivity, the green jobs described in the literature encourage low-paying jobs in less desirable conditions. Economic growth cannot be ordered by Congress or by the United Nations. Government interference – such as restricting successful technologies in favor of speculative technologies favored by special interests – will generate stagnation.

Myth: The world economy can be remade by reducing trade and relying on local production and reduced consumption without dramatically decreasing our standard of living.

Reality: History shows that nations cannot produce everything their citizens need or desire. People and firms have talents that allow specialization that make goods and services ever more efficient and lower-cost, thereby enriching society.

Myth: Government mandates are a substitute for free markets.

Reality: Companies react more swiftly and efficiently to the demands of their customers and markets, than to cumbersome government mandates.

Myth: Imposing technological progress by regulation is desirable.

Reality: Some technologies preferred by the green jobs studies are not capable of efficiently reaching the scale necessary to meet today’s demands and could be counterproductive to environmental quality.

In this Article, we survey the green jobs literature, analyze its assumptions, and show how the special interest groups promoting the idea of green jobs have embedded dubious assumptions and techniques within their analyses. Before undertaking efforts to restructure and possibly impoverish our society, careful analysis and informed public debate about these assumptions and prescriptions are necessary.

Monday Quick Bites

What, me worry?

Some Solar Cycle Information. Two pieces from Watts Up With That?

The Double Quiet Sun
Usually, and that means in the past year, when you look at the false color MDI image from SOHO, you can look at the corresponding magnetogram and see some sort of disturbance going on, even it it is not visible as a sunspot, sunspeck, or plage area.
Not today.
Is That a Sunspot?
Yesterday I lamented that the sun was blank, not only on the SOHO MDI, but also the magnetogram. Within a couple of hours, one sunspeck appeared. I cited Murphy’s Law. As one commenter put it: ” I think if you check back for the last six months or so whenever you mention the lack of sunspots on here, one shows up.”.

And a couple from Green Hell Blog

New planetary burden: Meat-eating pets
Paul Greenberg opines today in the New York Times that dogs and cats should go vegan. Writing about his cat, Greenberg says,

California (of course) to limit car color choices More evidence of California Communism
Carbon Control News reported today that California regulators have proposed that car makers use so-called “cool” paints to reduce the interior temperature of cars, thereby reducing air conditioning use and, consequently, improving gas mileage.

And some picks from around the blogasphere.

Skeptics Global Warming
We’ve got an update on the Companies Lobbying to Raise Your Energy Taxes.

HE’S MY PRESIDENT, BUT I DON’T HAVE TO LIKE IT
If I hear one more person point out that Obama is the president and that it’s our duty to support him, I just might run amok. For one thing, I resent being reminded that he actually won the election and that it’s not all a bad dream from which I’ll awaken as soon as the alarm clock rings. For another, there was a very good reason that I voted for John McCain, and it certainly had nothing to do with my having great expectations of the man, and everything to do with my conviction that Obama was a left-wing ideologue.

The Challenge Ahead: More than a Third of Senate Now “Swing” Vote on Climate – A high hurdle: of the 36 Senators identified as swing votes, all but seven must be convinced to vote “Yes” in order to secure passage of any climate policy in the U.S. Senate. (Breakthrough Institute)
Think we should encourage Senators to hold the line? Have your say and register your vote here.

Quick Bites On The Global Warming Scam

Nuclear Power Gaining Popularity

Overall support for nuclear power seems to be growing, with 37% of respondents saying they’ve become more supportive in recent years. And 81% favor using more nuclear power, with only 19% flat-out opposed to nukes. That opposition is due to concerns over plant safety, nuclear waste, terrorism, and cost, in that order.

Visit Beautiful ANWR

We continue to live with a tsunami of lies regarding ANWR and the whole issue of “energy independence”, “dependence on foreign oil”, ad infinitum. The Obama administration so hates the oil and coal industries that, if they are mentioned, staff fall to the floor, spastically flailing about, and foaming at the mouth.

Global Warming Cult Members Stranded By Global Cooling

The severe weather is jeopardizing a journey aimed at projecting when global warming may melt the entire Arctic Ocean cap, a phenomenon that scientists say might trigger further gains in temperature.

Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley are 18 days into their 100-day, 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) journey to the pole, during which they planned to use a custom radar to take as many as 13 million ice-thickness measurements. They aim to help scientists gauge how quickly the Arctic sea ice is thinning.

Time for Some Climate Realism

Global warming alarmists want us to believe that the temperature of Earth would stay the same year after year, century after century, if not for “the human presence.” This is scientifically false. Huge climate changes have occurred before humans could possibly have played a role. More recently, global temperatures rose from 1900 to 1940 (1934 was the century’s warmest year), fell from 1940 to 1975, rose again from 1975 to 1998, and declined from 1998 to 2008. How does “the human presence” account for this variation? It can’t.

T-Boone: Nobody Opposes Me

Well, maybe nobody in the Obama administration. The Texas billionaire just got a free ride to exploit us taxpayers because Obama’s group of green weenies will hand him anthing he wants. But there has been opposition.

T. Boone Pickens said in an interview this morning on CNBC that,

… but know this… we’ve never had a person that stands up and says your plan is not good. Nobody has said that… I don’t know… there’s not many op-ed pieces or any thing…

But Steve Milloy has written six FoxNews.com columns critical of the Pickens Plan — one of which Pickens’ team responded to on FoxNews.com.

The Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor has been critical of the Pickens Plan here and here.

Reece Epstein and David Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research have a lengthy critique here.

Here’s a Wall Street Journal article about Pickens’ critics, who include FedEX CEO Fred Smith and former Kansas governor Bill Graves, who now heads the American Trucking Association.

There are plenty more who have stood up against the Pickens Plan. Yet Pickens denies their existence in his effort to “swiftboat” America into his make-Boone-richer-scheme.

Visit the new Green Hell Blog from JunkScience.com

Ethanol Brought Down Flight 1549

Hey, wasn't me.

What? You say jets don’t burn ethanol? Well, Time Magazine is trying to blame Global Warming,  and they don’t burn that either.  I think there’s a better argument for ethanol.

Did global warming dump U.S. Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River by attracting more geese to New York airports? Time Magazine says yes. Time notes a four-fold increase in airplane bird strikes since 1990, and blames global warming and destruction of wild bird habitat for the increased collisions.

Time reached the wrong conclusion. Research indicates we should blame the prosaic corn harvester-and perhaps our attempt to expand corn production for biofuels. Canada geese numbers have increased five-fold since 1970 for one overwhelming reason -farmers’ expanding use of those big corn picker-shellers. The big bright-colored harvesters now roar across the fields every autumn, picking the ears and shelling the corn kernels. With millions of tons of loose corn, some inevitably trickles to the ground, where the geese cheerfully snack it up.

Canadian researchers found the geese had switched their food supply almost entirely since 1970, from a diet of marsh plant rhizomes in winter and early spring to eating mostly corn and young grass shoots.  The marshes aren’t overgrazed, because the extra geese are feeding in fields and pastures.

Maybe a better word for what brought down flight 1549 is GREED. (follow the money)

Meanwhile, farmers have been planting still more corn, on every possible corner of the eastern seaboard, to get their share of those ethanol subsidies. Corn planting expanded about 50 percent in the mid-Atlantic States from 2002-2006, according to Virginia Tech, with comparable increases in New York and Pennsylvania.

Source

Burning Bodies for Enviro-Friendly Heat

You just can’t make this stuff up. Nobody would believe you. It’s from Gore Lied.

Not even two weeks has passed since GORE LIED linked to a post from The People’s Cube regarding a satirical proposal to burn dead people as an alternative fuel:

Comrades, we all know that the dead workers and peasants of the USSA have voted many times for our socialist fraternal brothers and sisters in government. However, other than voting, these dead comrades do nothing for us. Is there not a way we can reanimate these corpses and put them to work? Perhaps feed them into one of Algore’s new zero emission clean power plants? NecroPower anyone?

Kinda funny. Until today. Cleantechnica.com reports:

If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings.

The plan will both eliminate the crematorium’s heating bill and allow it to save money on cooling smoke before it is released into the air.

Locals in the town of 55,000 approve of the crematorium’s system, so it should be up and running soon. If the plan is successful, the crematorium eventually wants to pipe heat from its facilities to area homes. And while some may protest Halmstad’s plan on moral grounds, I’m sure that the potential monetary savings for the town will ultimately keep them quiet.

This is so far over the top, I have nothing left to say.

Octopus Destroys Wind Turbine (video update)

Damaged wind turbine near Grainsthorpe in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom on 08 January 2009. Locals reported seeing strange lights flying at speed in the sky at 4am in the morning GMT before awaking to the damaged 300ft electricity generator. Credit: Lindsey Parnaby / newsteam. 8/1/2009

Dozens of residents claimed to have seen bright flashing spheres is the skies near Louth, Lincolnshire, where a 290ft turbine was mangled in a mystery collision.

One woman said she saw the an object fly towards the wind farm, while others described the lights as being linked by “tentacles”, leading locals to dub it the octopus UFO.

Dorothy Willows, who lives a mile and a half from the crash site, said: “The lights were moving across the sky towards the wind farm. Then I saw a low flying object. It was skimming across the sky towards the turbines.”

Later on Sunday night, one of a turbine’s 65ft blades was ripped off and another severely damaged.

The Health and Safety Executive described the damage as a “unique incident”, and the energy firm Ecotricity which owns the 20-turbine site say it has no explanation.

“We are struggling to find an answer, yes, and it has been quite interesting to read the reports in the press about what people have seen,” Dale Vince from the company told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme..

“It sounds unbelievable but actually we don’t have any explanation at the moment.

source

!!UPDATE!! Here’s the video.

I have a clue for them.

In the Phoenix case, the UFO became an IFO, an Identified Flying Object. The 2008 Phoenix Lights case was a hoax, created by road flares tied to helium balloons. The hoaxer admitted it, and eyewitnesses reported seeing him do it.

In both cases, all the evidence points to a hoax: The lights moved independently like floating objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft; they moved together in the same direction as the wind; they did not show up on radar; and the lights extinguished in exactly the pattern we would expect from flares, going out one by one.

source

Freezing Temperatures, Ice, Wind and some Pranksters with a bit of technology. The “Octopus” just got in the wrong wind stream and….

There you go. Case closed. You’re welcome.

Hatchet Ridge Wind Project Gets Boost From PG&E

In a bit of belated news, our local wind project has entered into a long term contract with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for electricity generated from it’s wind turbines.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced today it has entered into a long-term agreement with Hatchet Ridge Wind, LLC, a subsidiary of Babcock & Brown, to purchase up to 103 megawatts (MW) of renewable wind energy. The project will generate up to 303 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually. This would be equivalent to the amount of energy needed to serve nearly 44,000 residential homes on an annual basis.

“This wind energy project will provide our northern and central California customers with clean, emission-free power,” said Fong Wan, senior vice president of energy procurement for PG&E. “Our agreement with Hatchet Ridge Wind is another important step to increasing our diverse renewable energy portfolio.”

The Hatchet Ridge Wind project will be located on a portion of Hatchet Mountain in Burney, Calif. Deliveries are expected to begin by December 31, 2009.

Computer Generated Image. Click to Enlarge

“We look forward to working together with PG&E to create a new, homegrown and sustainable source of carbon-free energy in Northern California,” said Hunter Armistead, head of Babcock & Brown’s North American Renewable Energy Group.

Since 2002, PG&E has entered into contracts for more than 24 percent of its future deliveries from renewable sources. On average, more than 50 percent of the energy PG&E delivers to its customers comes from generating sources that emit no carbon dioxide, making the company’s energy among the cleanest in the nation.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG – News), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy to 15 million people in northern and central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com.

Source

This is the right way to utilize wind power. Private funding and selling the power into the grid. Plus the county receives the tax dollars, without anyone being forced to create “Green Energy”.

Background on the Hatchet Ridge Project

Supervisors Approve Hatchet Ridge Project 5-0

Obama, Zip It Up Man, Your Ignorance Is Showing

A rebuttal to Barry’s address to the Global Warming Cult in Beverly Hills. As usual, he just reads a teleprompter with someone else’s words on it, and don’t have a clue.

Conservative Cavalry.

Your Tax $ To Study Pond Scum

More of your tax dollars are going to the Greens to study the feasibility of pond scum becoming an energy source.

On Greenish Pond

The federal government is starting to throw money into it. The Department of Energy has invested $2.3 million in algae-to-fuel grants so far this year. It invested $2.2 million in algae research in 2006 and 2007, though it wasn’t specific to fuel production.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research arm of the Defense Department, is launching a new program to study algal feedstock material, said Jan Walker, an agency spokesman.

Not all that much money you say? Take a look at this.

“We can grow algae. It’s been demonstrated,” said Al Darzins, a manager at the National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo.

But it costs anywhere from $10 to $100 a gallon now, and “obviously that’s not cost-effective,” he said.

The Colorado lab led a $25 million study of algae from 1978 to 1996, before money dried up and government research shifted to ethanol.

Still no big deal?

“I’m convinced algae will work, but it’ll take a different, out-of-the-box approach,” said Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla, delivering the keynote address at the Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle last month.
The potential for algae to compete with fossil fuels is there, but it will take scientific breakthroughs to bring down costs and solve climate change, said Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, whose Khosla Ventures has invested in renewable energy, though not algae.

There is the problem I have with alternative energy. I don’t want to pay for the research. Look at this Khosla person for instance. He’s a billionaire. He has more money than the government (trillions in debt) yet he doesn’t want to put his own money into the research. Either the idea is not really that good, or he’s just another Algore. These people get up and preach about what a great idea they have but do you see anyone actually spending their own money or living the lifestyle they want you to live? No. They don’t do it. They want the government (you and me) to pay for it, and for everyone but them to sacrifice their lifestyle so they can buy some carbon credits and live guilt free. And some even buy their carbon credits from a company they own. Imagine that!

Source

Hatchet Ridge Wind Project Approved

Enhanced Photo Showing Turbines on Hatchet Ridge (click to enlarge)

After you read this post, please see the update.

!UPDATE! 12-1-08 PG&E Buys Into Hatchet Ridge Project

First the good news.

BURNEY – Shasta County officials Thursday night unanimously approved plans for a 6 1/2-mile-long string of wind turbines along a ridge overlooking Burney.

County planning commissioners voted in favor of the 100-megawatt project atop Hatchet Ridge after listening to three hours of testimony during a public hearing that drew about 200 people to the Mt. Burney Theatre. Commissioners approved the electricity-generating project on a 5-0 vote.

“Overall we believe it is a good project,” said David Rutledge, the commission’s chairman.

The project’s developers were happy with the vote and will move forward in building the 43 turbines, said George Hardie, senior developer for Babcock and Brown, the project’s lead financier.

“We hope to start next spring,” Hardie said.

And of course the NIMBY’s must have their say.

But the project likely isn’t finished being reviewed by county officials just yet.

Opponents of the project, whose combined turbines and towers would reach 418 feet skyward, said just after the vote that they will appeal the decision to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors.

Ken Archuleta, a Burney man and project critic, said the commissioners’ quick vote after a short amount of discussion once the public microphone was turned off Thursday shows commissioners didn’t completely weigh the arguments against the project.

“They didn’t listen to a thing they heard,” Archuleta said.

The deadline for an appeal is Tuesday.

During his time before the commission, Archuleta questioned why the developers didn’t look at nearby ridges that aren’t visible from downtown Burney.

Other critics said the turbines would destroy land sacred to American Indians, wound and kill birds and simply be an industrial eyesore complete with red, blinking lights.

Among the critics of the project Thursday night were several members of the Pit River Tribe, who said the turbines would be put on ground they consider a “church.”

The tribe will look for a way to stop the project, possibly by filing suit in federal court, said Jessica Jim, the tribe’s former chairwoman.

“We already have an attorney,” she said.

Here’s the rebuttal.

The project’s developers want to build on Hatchet Ridge because it has the most wind energy in the area, Hardie said. They studied shifting the location to a spot on Hatchet Ridge not visible from town, but the amount of energy that the turbines would produce dropped 30 percent to 40 percent, he said.

“We cannot move the project down the hill,” he said.

Supporters of the project said the project would help the country address its need for renewable power, provide jobs in Burney and draw interested onlookers to the Intermountain area.

“I find the units fascinating to watch,” said Terry Hufft, who lives between Montgomery Creek and Burney with a view of Hatchet Ridge.

The turbines would be built on land owned by a pair of timber companies, Sierra Pacific Industries and Fruit Growers Supply Co., and would be most visible from Main Street, or Highway 299, through downtown Burney.

“I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives,” Planning Commissioner Shirley Easley said after her vote.

So here’s my take: The project is on private land, being built by private investors with their own money. It will bring jobs and money to town. That alone is enough to approve the project. Also, it is supplying extra electricity using already existing powerlines, not being used as a primary source of power. Burney needs the revenue and jobs. It’s a good deal. Oh, and did I mention, It’s on Private Land being built by Private Investors? No tax payer dollars will be harmed by this project. On the contrary, it will bring in much needed tax dollars.

And just in case you wanted to know, yes, it is virtually in my backyard. Hatchet Ridge was burned bare during the Fountain Fire in ’92. It aint much to look at anyway, the turbines won’t harm the view very much. (see photo at top)

Get the facts. Hatchet Ridge Wind

Offshore Oil Still Years Away?

From those optimists at Associated Press.

A quarter-century ban on offshore exploration expires in this coming week, but don’t expect to see a chain of drilling platforms from the beaches anytime soon.

It will take a couple of years, at least, before any oil or natural gas leases are issued, years more before any oil is found and perhaps a decade before any of it begins to flow to refineries.

And what if Congress, after completing a bill Saturday that removes the freeze, changes its mind next year and again puts some of the coastal waters off-limits?

Who wins the Nov. 4 presidential election is the biggest factor.

It’s the government’s oil and gas. The Interior Department, directed by the White House, will have wide discretion over where leases will be made available and how soon.

If McCain is President:

“We will drill offshore and we will drill them now,” Republican nominee John McCain proclaimed at the GOP convention. He probably would direct the department to accelerate its leasing schedule to include the newly opened regions.

If Obama is President:

Democratic Barack Obama is certain to take a more measured approach if elected. While Obama has said he favors limited expansion into areas that have been off-limits, he has given no specifics, and insists it should be done only as part of a broader agenda that promotes alternative energy and conservation.

The oil isn’t 10 years away as they like to say. I’ve heard it said that oil can be flowing in as little as 3-4 years. It’s no time to be a wimp. Drill It Now! Drop the regulations, issue the permits, and let’s get on with it. We need to get out of this mess now, and fix it for good. With the current economic trouble, this could save us in two ways, more jobs and less dependence on countries that would like to think they can bloody our nose while we are weak. We can still develop alternative power while we drill our own oil. In my opinion, everything needs to be fast tracked like we did during WW2. And that also means a President that has determination and a mind of his own. Not one that waits to see what Soros and the daily kos wants him to do.

Source

T-boone At It Again

So just why is it that T-boone is backing so many alternative energy plans? In a word, Money. He has made billions in oil and claims he wants to drill, drill, drill. In the mean time he says we should run the country broke developing pie in the sky wind and solar power. Now his latest ad is about natural gas. It’s not new, it was in his original plan, but now he’s using some scare tactics about Iran to persuade us. Basically, he has bought up all the right of ways for the transmission lines for his new power sources, and despite his words to the contrary, the government will pay for most of the developement. That means You and Me through our taxes. He stands to make billions more and that begs the question, Why? He’s 80 years old and can’t take it with him, and I don’t see any great charities he’s backing. More background info Here, Here, and Here.

Steve Milloy has more on T-boone.

“Get this one,” says billionaire T. Boone Pickens in his latest TV ad, “Iran is changing its cars to natural gas and we’re not doing a thing here. They’re doing this to use less oil and sell it for $120 a barrel. We can switch our cars to natural gas and stop sending our dollars to foreign countries.”

Readers of this column know better than to take at face value the marketing of the so-called “Pickens Plan.”

So what’s the full story behind Iran’s move, and what would be the impact of switching our cars to natural gas?

Although Iran is a major oil and gas producer, it lacks oil-refining capacity and must import about 50 percent of its gasoline. To be less vulnerable to international pressure concerning its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to reduce Iran’s reliance on imported gasoline.

He started with rationing in May 2007. But that quickly led to violent social unrest.

Ahmadinejad then decided to convert Iran’s new car fleet to natural gas. So 60 percent of Iran’s car production this year — about 429,000 vehicles — will be dual-fuel-ready, capable of running on both gasoline and natural gas.

But contrary to Pickens assertion, Iran isn’t trying to use less oil:; It’s trying to use less imported gasoline — and only to thwart a possible international gasoline embargo.

So should we use Iran as a role model? Think about that. IRAN…. as a role model.

Read the rest.