The problem
There are 200 million vehicles in America's passenger motor fleet. Fifty seven percent of all new cars being registered in Europe today are diesel passenger cars. In the US that number is two percent. Why? Ford Motor Company has the answer.
Not only do they have the answer, but they are also marketing a 68 MPG diesel passenger car (the Ford Fiesta Diesel) in the UK and Europe that they refuse to build or sell in America! Their research department has discovered again and again (see comments by Bill Ford to a noted environmental activist and reporter a few months ago) that the American consumer is not able to get past the word diesel. They simply have too many prejudices about the word in order to even consider purchasing a new, modern, clean diesel car.
And because they are not willing to buy diesel cars, they are not able to take advantage of biodiesel fuel, which would cut their carbon emissions between 87 and 97 percent. Ground transportation makes up a full third of the carbon emissions of the United States. Imagine 200 million vehicles behind replaced by cars capable of utilizing biodiesel fuel! We would not only reduce the rate of growth of carbon emissions, we would stop it in its tracks and reduce it by 33%! It could be the single largest contributor to solving the climate change problem!
The solution
A massive education effort to introduce the American market to the concept of certified sustainable fuel made from crops such as jatropha, switchgrass or algae: Soleum.
Where does the word come from? Petroleum is the term we have been using for decades to refer to vegetable oils produced by the great pressures that exist deep inside the earth. Petro, meaning rock, + oleum (oil) is a great name, as it describes oil obtained from drilling into rock.
Where does compression ignition (biodiesel) fuel come from? It originally comes from the Sun. The Sun's energy is used by the photosynthesis process in plants, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposit the carbon, one molecule at a time, into a jatropha seed, into algae, and other feedstock. The chemical bonds created in this process provides a temporary storage unit for the solar energy, which is then released during the combustion process in a vehicle's engine.
So a logical word for this process is Soleum (Sol is the name of our Sun, + oleum, for oil).
How you can help
Please consider joining our Founder's Club for a $50 yearly fee, as well as registering for our Organizing activities, where we educate consumers, help create local Soleum cooperatives, as well as research the available market opportunities for automakers, Soleum producers in the US, Latin America and around the globe, and interact with public officials in order to advance the use of the Soleum concept and the replacement of gasoline as the base fuel for ground transportation in the US.
To join our Founder's Club, please contact us at (202) 683-8626.