by J. B. Griffin III.

Methanol?

All of the sudden everyone is on the methanol bandwagon. With oil

over $75 per barrel and talk of gasoline prices pushing $4 per gallon it sure looks like we Americans have found the way to beat the Arabs at their own game, right? Right, Mr. Bush? Mr. Cheney? Right? RIGHT? No answer. Could it be that there is more to it than we understand?

Now I am not about to go conspiratorial in my analysis, so don't skip over to Pettus Read just yet. All I want to cover here are some basic facts about energy and the American economy. First of all, the reason oil companies exist is not to deliver gasoline or diesel fuel to the market. They do make a hefty profit from it, but once upon a time in the late 1940's, after World War II, fuel and lubricants were an over-abundant by-product of the real reason oil is refined, which is, of course, for the plastics those oh-so-long-chain polymers produce.

Back then cars weren't used as they are today. Remember your grandfather's car? Fifteen years old and 30,000 miles on the odometer? He probably bought $2 worth of gas every week and had the oil changed twice a year. So John D. Rockefeller had a problem. What to do with all this excess fluid called gasoline? So, the oil

companies came up with a strategy. They bought all four corner lots at every major intersection in every town, built service stations and recruited small businessmen to operate them. Rent was usually free if the proprietor of the station would just man the pumps and sell gas. That meant he could be in the garage business at a busy location for very little overhead.

The oil companies gave away maps, drinking glasses, S & H Green Stamps and just about anything else to get the

American public out on the roads to consume more gas. It worked. Eisenhower built the interstate system and Americans discovered a new phrase - vacation! By the early 1970's it had all worked so well that the demand for fuel finally outpaced production...oops. Slowly, gas stations began to be closed by the oil companies since they no longer had a need to provide such advantageous arrangements for the station operators.

Gas prices began to ratchet upwards and pumps had to be replaced with new ones which would be able to display and calculate fuel cost of over one dollar per gallon. America entered the convenience store era - pump your own fuel and save 3 cents per gallon. Most of the population in any metropolitan city lived in the suburbs and beyond, so daily car travel was and is today a necessity. Unwilling to accept or even face the reality that it never works, to counter this demand for fuel the government stepped in. A multi-headed Frankenstein created by the Nixon administration named the EPA introduced fuel efficiency mandates, called CAFE, which tried to force the American public to drive smaller fuel efficient cars by forcing American automakers to produce smaller cars.

In reality, all it really did was ring in the era of such legendary nameplates as the Ford Festiva, Dodge Omni and Chevy Chevette (also available equipped with a diesel engine). The second reality was that the public, not to be outwitted by dimwits, quickly discovered pickup trucks and SUV's as comfortable modes of transportation which placed an even greater demand on the gas pumps.

So how does Methanol fit in this picture? Or perhaps the hydrogen fuel cell? Neither of them would address the problem of oil, since, as we know, oil's real value is in the plastics made from it. I submit to you, the reader, that no alternative is a viable alternative at present. If you want to cut your fuel expenditure and "send the oil companies a message," for whatever good that would do, then you will have to buy less fuel.

JB Griffin owns and operates JB's Auto Sales and Service in Evensville, Tennessee. You may see him weekly on the WDEF-TV News 12 Morning Show every Tuesday at 7:10 a.m. where he will answer your car care questions live and on air. Visit him on the web at:  www.500overcost.com
.