“Brutally Honest” complains that Christianity is immoral because it does not hate capitalism enough – no of course that is not what he complains. He complains Christianity is immoral, because it teaches that God gave us the world, and commanded us to be fruitful and multiply, to take dominion over the world, to fill it and subdue it. He is worried that we are going to run out of oil, and there will be no oil left for our children.
But Christianity, at least the old fashioned kind, has faith in capitalism, and so long as we have capitalism, we shall have fuel for our cars
Old fashioned, unecumenical, not-in-the-slightest-bit-multicultural Christianity commands private property, and prohibits coveting, let alone stealing other people’s stuff. You are allowed to look at your neighbors house and think
“That is a nice house, I should build a house like that.”
But you are forbidden to look at your neighbors house and think
“That is a nice house, he must have some how cheated me and done me wrong to have a house like that, there is some conspiracy of people like him out to get me, he should be punished and I should have his house.”
The stone age did not end for lack of stones. Oil at present costs about a hundred dollars a barrel. Supply is restricted politically. Most oil companies have been nationalized, and are run by Sheiks or the like, who are incapable of getting the hot water connected to the hot water tap, let along maintaining and upgrading oil rigs. Most remaining oil is located in places where if you find oil, build an oil rig and a pipeline, your rig will be nationalized in violation of the agreement that the government signed when you went looking for oil. Paying off the thieves is, as he points out, not working, irrespective of how much oil remains in the ground, and indeed is funding terror.
But we can make oil substitutes from coal for a cost equivalent to thirty five to forty dollars a barrel – possibly a good deal less, if we were to convert our fuel systems to use methanol, and our fuel distribution system to distribute methanol by the tanker instead of by the drum. China is slowly converting to methanol, and expects to be about ten percent methanol in five years or so.
The main thing slowing the conversion is that businessmen fear that high oil prices are temporary, that the prices are the result of political obstacles to oil extraction which will be politically resolved, which would leave expensive investments in coal to liquid plants high and dry.
The major alternatives to oil based fuels are synfuel, which is good for jets and diesels, not so good for ordinary engines, methanol, which is good for ordinary petrol engines (with radically modified carburettors), but only gives you half the mileage, and dimethyl ether, a good substitute for LPG, good in diesels, no good in regular engines. We should be converting. If oil prices stay high, we eventually will be.
Tags: coal to liquids