Tulsa World: This time

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This time

By World's Editorial Writers
Published: 11/12/2008 2:15 AM
Last Modified: 11/12/2008 2:15 AM

Grant for fuel research right step

The price of gasoline is at its lowest in almost two years. Normally that would mean a spurt in SUV purchases and a return to our old ways of wasting our natural resources. This time, however, it just might be different.

With a heightened awareness for conservation, thanks to almost $4-a-gallon gasoline, consumers and the government are being more cautious.

Oklahoma has received a $15 million grant from the The National Science Foundation to research the development of alternative fuels from nonfood crops.

That means turning switchgrass into fuel. The study of switchgrass, of which Oklahoma has an abundance, has been ongoing, but this grant will help further that cause.

Such research, of course, should have been seriously undertaken, on a wide scale, in the early 1980s. But gasoline was cheap and there was a small oil boom, so alternative fuel research was not a priority. If it had been, we might not be in such desperate straits now. That, however, is history.

Now, there is a concentrated effort to produce all sorts of alternative fuels, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, hydrogen and nonfood sources such as switchgrass.

Corn-based ethanol has been popular for years and has received money and support from Congress — mainly because Iowa has an early presidential caucus and is a corn-producing state.

But there is a moral dilemma. That is, burning a food source to help meet our selfish fuel

needs while others go hungry. And there remain questions about the fuel economy of ethanol.

This grant to help develop nonfood crops into fuel is another step in the trend toward fuel independence and conservation.

It will be money well-spent. It might not be the final answer to our fuel problems, but at least we're doing something this time. By World's Editorial Writers

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	Report Comment Stick61, Tulsa (11/12/2008 7:46:12 AM) The editorial is on-point. The public needs to remember that the fuel-price pendulum can swing back in the direction of greater expense at the pump rather easily. We should continue to exercise caution and discipline.
	Report Comment Graychin, Eucha (11/12/2008 8:32:55 AM) Good editorial. The price of oil is below $60 per barrel now, largely because of American conservation in reaction to $4.00 gasoline. Let's keep up the good work. Imagine making fuel out of hay. Yes, we can!
	Report Comment psychedelikrelik, Tulsa (11/12/2008 10:00:22 AM) I did go for a drive this weekend. The Talimena Trail was gorgeous. And with gas at a buck-seventy-five, I couldn't afford to stay home! Fuel out of hay? You KNOW we can do it, this is America! Save the corn for cornbread. MMMMMM, cornbread.
	Report Comment OKLA, (11/12/2008 11:59:22 AM) The morning news on Channel 2 said that sales of SUV's are jumping with the lower fuel prices at the pump. We never learn. . . .
	Report Comment Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (11/12/2008 12:54:57 PM) Conservation has played a major role in gas prices. We're on the right track, as long as we keep moving in the right direction. Really? SUV sales are up? I remember when everybody was trying to get rid of their SUVs.
	Report Comment guitchess, (11/12/2008 5:51:51 PM) I disagree. Conservation has very little, if anything, to do with falling fuel prices. According to sales from Exxon, consumer level fuel sales only fell 2% when the price of fuel was at its highest. Commercial fuels(airlines) only fell 15%. The weak world economy has caused the oil speculators to loose confidence in the market causing the price to fall. Add to this the possible failure of the biggest American auto makers and the election of Obama, a pro alternative energy/windfall tax proponent, the price of oil has no choice but fall. America, as a whole, has not curbed is voracious appetite for oil.

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