Getting America less dependent on foreign oil has great security implications because dollars we spend on Middle Eastern oil are going to fund radical Islamic terroristic activity, largely targeting America. Because this is relevant beyond our mere personal budgets, activists, liberal and conservative, have called for a “Manhattan Project” (as in the project used to develop the atom bomb in WWII) funded by the government to get us off oil.

High prices have succeeded in creating demand for alternative fuels and the vehicles that use them. Our local Ford dealer stays sold out of its hybrid vehicles, and they are becoming more popular. If you go to http://www.chevy.com/ you will see pending technology using ethanol, electric and fuel cell technology. We have a Manhattan Project, it is the free market and American ingenuity.

And in Israel “a team of scientists at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, led by Prof. Stuart Licht, has been working for several years on producing hydrogen by so-called solar water splitting systems. If the hydrogen production method could be made efficient enough hydrogen fuel cells could be used to power electric cars using energy that would be constantly renewable, overcoming problems with recharging, weight, pollution and short battery life that plague today’s electric vehicles.” From Facts of Israel.org.

Oil prices are up because of a general trend in commodity prices; aluminum, steel, gold, copper and other commodities are also up. Demand is driven by a growing economy and the upcoming of huge demand in China and India.

But this demand has also driven the R&D needed to improve technology for alternate vehicles and this will not reverse.

While I cheer the ability tell the Middle Eastern oil mongers to pound sound, there is a down side; Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern oil exporters have nothing to fall back on when their oil revenue dries up. This may lead to further political instability. It may also get them to wake up and get into the twentieth century.

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