'Freedom' From Oil by Embracing Ethanol

The ethanol and solar-powered bus filmmakers Rebecca and Josh Tickell drove around with on their 40-city 'Freedom' film tour that culminated last Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Husband and wife filmmaking team Rebecca and Josh Tickell are winning over skeptical audiences across the country and sending a powerful message to decision makers in Washington about the urgent need to end America's destructive addiction to imported oil by embracing homegrown biofuels, especially ethanol.

Of course, it helps to have a retired four star general and former NATO commander on your side.

Last Wednesday the Sundance Award-winning producers of the movie "Fuel" rolled into Washington, D.C. on the final stop of their 40-city bus tour to promote their new film, "Freedom," about an American biofuels revolution to replace oil with ethanol. General Wesley Clark joined the filmmakers at an afternoon press conference in Georgetown and later that night at a post-screening discussion held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The bus is powered by an E85 ethanol fuel blend (85% ethanol) and solar panels.

"I'm a big believer in ethanol," said Clark. "Biofuels are our technology. It keeps money and jobs inside of America, reduces greenhouse gases and reduces gas prices."

Left to right: Biomass Coordinating Council Chairman Bill Holmberg, 'Freedom' filmmakers Rebecca and Josh Tickell and retired Four Star General and former NATO Commander Wesley Clark.

Clark said he "can't help but become a missionary" for investing in and producing American-made biofuels. He said he will do everything in his power to raise public appreciation of this issue and inject it into the 2012 presidential campaign because "it's absolutely vital to the future of America."  

And Clark backs up his assertions with astounding statistics about the catastrophic consequences of our addiction to oil.

$300 billion: The amount of money we pay annually to import oil. That's $1,000 per every man, woman and child in America that is subtracted right from our GDP. That's in addition to the $150 billion a year we pay to secure foreign oil resources. In a decade that $300 billion adds up to $3 trillion and $1 trillion in tax revenue if it was instead invested domestically.

8 million: The American jobs that would be created every year if we stopped paying $300 billion to import oil and instead re-circulated that money into the American economy.

6,000: The estimated number of U.S. combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

35,000: The estimated number of wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

$1.5 trillion: The amount of money spent and committed to fighting these two wars.

$2 trillion: VA expenses we will pay for these wounded soldiers for the rest of their lives.

For the Tickells, ending our oil addiction and embracing biofuels is not just about number crunching, it is personal. While filming another movie called "The Big Fix" about the Gulf Coast Oil Disaster, oil got into Rebecca's skin and made her seriously sick. She now must avoid direct sunlight for the rest of her life thanks to her exposure to oil. And yet, she and her husband remain hopeful despite the seemingly insurmountable odds against the largest industry in the world.

"I don't think I've ever had a more clear delineation of the two futures that we have before us as Americans," said Josh Tickell in his closing remarks. "One of those futures is the future in which because we are a country that has so far passed peak oil, we are so desperate for liquid energy, that we are willing to sacrifice the sanctity of the future of our country. It will leave this nation scarred and forever altered. 

The other future has to do with using processes that mimic nature. What we found in making this movie is that the ethanol industry is imperfect. But it's here now and it's a start. And if we follow that climb forward into the future what we will eventually see is hemp and algae (and other second generation biofuels). 

But if we do nothing, which is largely what we are doing now as a nation, largely what Washington, D.C. is doing right now, we can expect a future that is a nightmare. So we can't do the same thing and expect different results. We are going to have to change our behavior. We are going to have to change our laws. And it is uncomfortable to some degree because we are going to have to give way on some of the environmental purism that we've had and that's a big challenge. But the challenge and the choice is yours, and when you have true choice you have freedom."

Here is video of Clark speaking about the urgent need to replace oil with alternative energy sources such as ethanol.

Green Traveler: London, England

July 14-16, 2011 -- Commercial aviation burns massive amounts of jet fuel, which of course releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere, accelerating global warming. That's why I was glad to fly Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow.

In 2008, Branson's airline became the first to use biofuels in a demonstration flight on a Boeing 747 flight from London to Amsterdam, using a 20% biofuel blend in one of its four engines. Environmental organizations called it greenwashing because the biofuel was feedstock from coconut and babassu oil. But that doesn't take into account the next-generation biofuels that are being developed such as algae oil that are clean burning and don't compete with the food supply. What Branson did was steer the conversation towards the carbon footprint of air travel and get the discussion going about alternative fuels.

So I was glad to be flying an environmentally friendly airline like Virgin Atlantic that is doing its part to combat climate change. Hopefully soon every airplane will be powered by clean burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels.

At Heathrow Airport there is an Underground subway station so you can easily choose the green option for getting around London by hopping on the Tube.

Besides the extensive and efficient Underground subway station, London has a huge bus fleet that runs every five minutes or so and takes you anywhere you need to go in the city. From my starting point at Swiss Cottage there were loads of buses traveling to Central London. And most of the buses are double deckers, which alleviates some of the crowding issues common on the Underground.

But the greenest way to get around is by using foot and pedal power. I rented a bicycle through the popular Barclays Cycle Hire biking sharing system and was able to cover a lot of ground in a short amount time. The bike sharing system in London is similar to the Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C. The stations look similar and the bikes are a similar frame and design. It is a healthy, green way to see London and I really recommend Barclays Cycle Hire the next time you find yourself there.

London is a bike friendly city and a pleasure to ride around once you get used to that whole driving on the left side of the road thing. There are enormous green spaces, part of the Royal Parks system. Hyde Park is a good example. Although you are not allowed to bicycle in the main grassy area, there is a wide two-lane bike path that winds around the perimeter. But are bikes supposed to ride on the left side like autos? The answer is yes so don't say you weren't warned!

There was an electric vehicle charging up next to the bike station, which was a pleasant surprise. The EV is called G-Wiz and it touts itself as the most popular electric vehicle in the UK. The website claims the G-Wiz is capable of 50 miles to a charge. That is ten more miles than the Chevy Volt gets.

Besides the environmental benefits of not burning gasoline, there are financial benefits to owning a G-Wiz in the UK, including not having to pay Road Tax and being exempt from London's eight pounds per day Congestion Charge.

Another pollution-free way of getting around is the Solar Shuttle, which ferries passengers across The Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park.

London is also a pedestrian friendly city, with lots of visible warning signs for motorists and raised pedestrian crossings like this one.

If you are from Washington, D.C. and use the Metro subway system like me, then you are not used to escalators that actually work. The Washington Metro has a chronic problem with broken escalators across the system. It is an embarrassment for the most powerful city in the world. That's why it was such a pleasure riding the European public transit systems. I did not find a single broken escalator in every city I visited. And they were all running much faster than even the few working escalators in the Metro system. And the Underground is the oldest subway system in the world while Metro was built in the 1970s! In Europe the escalators and trains work because of dedicated funding and proper maintenance -- two simple solutions we have neglected to address for too long. Metro does have an ambitious plan to finally renovate its aging escalator system, but many weary Washington commuters will have to see it to believe it. Here is an example of a London Underground escalator speeding passengers to the platform.



The redeveloped terminus of St. Pancras Railway Station, where I took a Eurostar high-speed train to Brussels, has been described by the travel writer Simon Calder as "the world's most wonderful railway station". I concur. It is breathtaking, even more so now that the Olympic Rings hang from the roof in anticipation of London hosting the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Passengers wait in modern, spacious waiting areas for Eurostar high-speed trains that will zip them to Paris or Brussels at speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour (300 kilometers per hour). As I sat and read a book in the comfortable waiting area, I thought back to the many times I've waited for an Amtrak train at New York City's Penn Station. It is an awful experience standing with your luggage in the cramped and busy main terminal while waiting to find out what gate the slow train is departing from (there are plans to build a new Penn Station at the Farley Post Office Building across the street from the current train station, an idea first proposed by the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Even the Acela Express train, which is America's pathetic excuse for a high speed rail train, shares the tracks with conventional rail so it only gets 60 mph (109 kph) most of the route and only briefly gets full speed at 150 mph (240 kph). But this will hopefully be changing, as Amtrak recently released a concept report which envisions 220 mph trains from Washington, D.C. to Boston on a dedicated high speed line. It would reduce travel time between D.C. and NYC to 96 minutes. I hope this happens soon.

But Amtrak is only as good as the amount of federal aid it is given, which over the years has not been nearly enough to allow for growth or even basic operations. On the contrary, European railways (with the exception of Great Britain) are heavily subsidized by central governments. High gasoline excise taxes drives up the price of fuel making driving very expensive, and land-use patterns in Europe favor density. Public transportation and intercity rail need density to thrive.

So the blame is not with Amtrak, but the federal government which developed the interstate highway system in the 1950s which made rail unprofitable. It also (unintentionally) crippled public transportation because those same interstates led to urban sprawl as people could flee the cities on freeways to cheaper houses in the suburbs and eventually to the exurbs.

Here are links, photos and videos from London.

Josh's Travel Blog London Story Links:

Summer 2011: London, England

Riding the Rails: London to Brussels

More photos from London. Click here to see the set on Flickr.



Here is video of an Underground train arriving at Heathrow station:



And here is video of me biking through Hyde Park on Barclays Cycle Hire: