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 world-wide. 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. This book 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 world-wide 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.
Robert Zubrin (Indian Hills, CO) is president of Pioneer Astronautics and also president of the Mars Society. For many years he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. In addition, he is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction books The Case for Mars, Entering Space, Mars on Earth; the science fiction novels The Holy Land and First Landing; and articles in Scientific American, The New Atlantis, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mechanical Engineering, and The American Enterprise. He has appeared on major media including CNN, CSPAN, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, NBC, ABC, and NPR.
"Energy Victory is one of the best books written on our oil dependence problem. The solutions it offers are economically, technologically, and politically feasible. They should be heeded as an insurance policy against the next energy crisis that is already looming on the horizon." -- Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009
