Adam Li Khan: August 2020

Negative Emotions Are Bad For Your Brain

According to a research team in Chicago: "People who often feel negative emotions may be more likely to develop memory problems as they age." The study focused on worry, but of course thought-mistakes of all kinds cause negative emotions. Thought-mistakes make you worry more than is necessary, make you frustrated more often than is fitting to the circumstances, make you feel disheartened by a setback that really won't be as difficult to overcome as you think it will, etc.

If you'd like to reduce the amount of negative emotion you feel, if you'd like to feel good more often, the most effective technique, according to over 600 studies, is to make fewer thought-mistakes in your usual way of thinking. I'm talking about mistakes like overgeneralizing or black-or-white thinking.

And the easiest, quickest way to make fewer thought-mistakes is to use the method outlined in Undemoralize Yourself. Start today cleaning up your thinking. You'll feel better, it'll be good for your relationships and good for your health, and you just might prevent memory problems down the road.

Fuel Competition Will Change the World

Fuel competition will move the United States closer to fuel independence, limit money going to dangerous women-oppressing regimes, lower the amount of lobbying and influence the oil industry enjoys today, revitalize the American economy, drastically improve our national security, help solve our garbage and landfill problem, help people in developing nations rise out of poverty, help prevent mental illness, put fewer military personnel in harm's way, and reduce the amount of pollution and greenhouse gases that are sent into the atmosphere, into the ocean, and into the ground.

The Gift of Life

The American military protects oil shipping lanes, protects many oil-producing countries, and fights to defend the U.S. and its allies from terrorist groups funded by oil money. Why? Because oil has a monopoly on transportation fuel, so it is vital to America's interests.

But fuel competition would change that. And it would put fewer servicemen and servicewomen in harm's way.

The Joy of Gouging

Unlike other commodities (that compete in the marketplace) the world price OPEC sets for oil has no relation to what it costs to produce the oil. Oil companies could make a handsome profit at 20 or 30 dollars a barrel. In 1999, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi publicly admitted that the all-inclusive cost of producing a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia — which has the easiest-to-produce oil in the world — is $1.50. That is not a typo. A buck fifty. The world price is over $100 a barrel, and the country that has the most influence on that price is Saudi Arabia.

Worldwide, it costs most oil producers about $5 to produce a barrel of oil.

The oil industry is shamelessly gouging.

The above is excerpted from the book, Fill Your Tank With Freedom.

Ethanol For $1 a Gallon Using Unfarmable Land and Undrinkable Water

Corn can produce 350-400 gallons of ethanol per acre per year. Cellulosic fuels such as grass and wood chips can produce 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, but so far, not cheaply enough to compete with gasoline.

But Algenol, a company in Florida, has successfully achieved 9,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year using algae grown in salt water — at one dollar a gallon! Another company, Joule Energy, is producing 15,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year at $1.23 per gallon using undrinkable water! And they are confident they will eventually be able to achieve 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year!

How are they able to achieve this? They genetically modified algae to produce ethanol. Let me be clear: These companies are not harvesting the algae and then fermenting it. The algae itself excretes ethanol continuously, which is why the yields are so remarkable — the production is continuous year round. Corn is a crop grown and harvested only once a year.

The algae are grown inside tubes, so evaporation is minimal. It can be done in on harsh desert land — in fact that might be the best place to do it since there is so much sunlight.

To accelerate the algae's growth, waste CO2 is pumped into it, turning a burdensome waste into a valuable resource.

What Joule Energy is doing is so remarkable, they won a very prestigious award this year by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. They said, "Every year, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneers program identifies 10 companies from around the world that are changing the energy landscape as we know it. An independent panel of industry experts from banking, academia, corporations, utilities and technology providers choose the honourees by assessing them against three criteria: potential to scale, innovation and momentum." In April, 2013, Joule was given this award.

Joule has also genetically modified algae to make diesel fuel and jet fuel.

The Only Country in the World With True Fuel Competition

I met a businessman from Brazil the other day. For years I've been reading about what Brazil has accomplished, but this is the first time I've met someone from Brazil and could talk to them about it. "Yes," he said, "we have the choice of ethanol and gasoline at every filling station in the country. Yes, almost all the cars on the road are flex fuel vehicles."

What struck me most was his nonchalance, especially as contrasted with my obvious envy. He lives in a country where a liquid fuel is in constant competition with gasoline. Brazil has done something amazing. And they are the only country on earth doing it. Their economy is thriving. They recently passed Britain to become the sixth largest economy in the world (behind the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, and France). They won the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. They've arrived on the world stage as a major economic power.

When I commented on his lack of excitement about his country's fuel competition, my new Brazilian friend said, "Well, this all started way back in the 1980s." It is no big deal to him that every time he fills his tank, he chooses what he wants to put in it. It's been that way for a long time. He said sometimes ethanol is a better deal and sometimes gasoline is. But, he said (not yet realizing I know a lot about this topic) "you can't go as many miles on a gallon of ethanol as you can on a gallon of gasoline. We just do a quick calculation, multiplying by point seven. So if the price of ethanol is 70 percent of the price of gasoline or lower, most people buy ethanol. If it's above that, we buy gasoline."

On sale in Brazil are 80 different flex fuel vehicle models, made by 12 major automakers, and four flex fuel motorcycle models. The automakers are GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Peugeot, Renault, Mitsubishi, Citroën, Fiat, and Kia Motors.

In Brazil, the gasoline is E20 or E25. That is, their gasoline is 20 to 25 percent ethanol. And the ethanol for sale at the pump is 100 percent ethanol (rather than E85, as it is in the U.S.). Pure ethanol is very popular in Brazil — 65 percent of the people with flex fuel vehicles regularly use ethanol.

Although Brazil made ethanol available for ethanol-only cars at every filling station starting back in the 1980s, flex fuel cars didn't come onto the Brazilian auto market until 2003. The next year, 22 percent of new car sales were FFVs. It climbed until by 2009, 94 percent of new car sales were FFVs. Not many people choose to not have any choice in fuels.

We could do in America what they've done in Brazil. In fact, we could go one better. We could add methanol. The mechanical tweaks necessary to enable a gasoline-only engine to also burn methanol and ethanol are almost nil. Then we would have three good fuels all competing with each other for our fuel dollars. What do you think that might do for our economy?

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

A Free Market For Fuel

Fuel is not sold in a free market. In the last hundred years, the oil industry has shut down, smeared, discredited, and blocked competing fuels. Right now, methanol could be sold for half the price of gasoline. But because of a pointless EPA regulation, it’s not sold as a fuel in the United States. Normal gasoline-only cars can efficiently burn methanol, which can be made inexpensively from three resources America has in abundance: coal, natural gas, and municipal waste (among many other resources).

Ethanol is another example. Oil companies have blocked ethanol from being sold at most gas stations. Petroleum interests have also been trying to discredit ethanol as a fuel for literally a hundred years.

Petroleum has a monopoly, and OPEC has been exploiting it. OPEC was created to raise world oil prices, which they’ve successfully done since 1973. The OPEC nations produce 40 percent of the world’s annual oil supply, which is enough of a percentage that they can (and they do) regularly decide to lower their production to raise the world price of oil.

OPEC is an illegal price-fixing cartel, and if they were operating within our borders, they would be prosecuted for it. What they are doing is also illegal internationally, but nobody is likely to prosecute them because OPEC could, and probably would, retaliate by stopping their production, which would cause a worldwide depression.

Free trade and the economy as we know it completely depend on transporting goods from place to place. When the price of transportation fuel rises, the price of everything rises. Every time oil prices have spiked since World War II, we’ve had a recession in America.

It is our complete reliance on oil that creates our economic vulnerability. What can we do about it?

The solution to a monopoly is competition.

But how can we create free trade in the fuel market when the problem is outside our borders? The Open Fuel Standard is the solution. The bill, which has been introduced in Congress several times, says half the cars sold in America must allow fuel competition — if the car can burn gasoline, it must also be able to burn gasoline, ethanol and methanol in any proportion. This is technically simple and surprisingly inexpensive to do. Ethanol and methanol burn in similar ways, and they work very well in ordinary gasoline-only engines. The main thing automakers would need to do is install the flex fuel software in the onboard computer.

This small change brings into being real fuel competition. Drivers filling their tanks could choose on the spot which fuel they want to buy that day. So those fuels would have to compete with each other on price. And if there was an oil price spike, it would hardly make a dent in our economy. People would simply buy one of the other available fuels.

Methanol and ethanol can both be made right here in America, producing American jobs and pouring money into the American economy. Please help us make this a reality.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

The Sordid History of Low Grain Prices

In the 1970s, after decades of grain prices so low farmers were permanently struggling to scratch a living, farmers began to rebel out of desperation and anger. They staged "tractorcade protests" on interstate highways. They even encircled the U.S. Capitol with their tractors, trying to get some attention, trying to awaken their elected officials to their plight.

The problem was, American farmers were too good at what they did. Every year they produced surplus grain, which glutted the market and drove down prices. For farmers to make ends meet, they had to grow as much grain as possible, which only added more surplus.

During this time, with the first oil embargo and then the Iranian revolution, oil prices shot up and American farmers saw an opportunity to help their country and make a living at the same time by turning some of their surplus grain into something America desperately needed: Fuel.

Their efforts succeeded somewhat. Grain prices have risen. Farmers are better able to make a living. And the fuel they're making is allowing the United States to import significantly less foreign oil.

Gasoline is the Junk Food of the Fuel Market

Gasoline needs additives* to make it palatable to an engine (which will knock or fail to run without the additives). And many of those additives are carcinogenic. And even with the additives, gasoline burns dirty, creating smoke and grime. Gasoline is potentially cheap, and once other fuels can compete with it, its cheapness will be its only advantage.

Pure methanol or ethanol can be used by an engine without any additives. They are both naturally high in octane and burn clean with high performance.

* Benzene, toluene and xylene are added to gasoline, among other additives.

Alcohol's "Gasoline Gallon Equivalent" Measurement is Higher Than Predicted

The oil industry has done its best to discredit alcohol fuel for over a hundred years, and one of the criticisms they've leveled most consistently against ethanol is that it has less energy per gallon than gasoline, as measured in BTUs (British Thermal Units — a measure of heat). But people who frequently use ethanol to fuel their cars, such as drivers in Brazil, have long noted that the mileage they get from ethanol is better than what is predicted by BTU measurements.

The Fuel Freedom Foundation decided to find a definitive answer this question for both ethanol and methanol. In the introduction to their white paper entitled, Is the Gasoline Gallon Equivalent an Accurate Measure of Mileage for Ethanol and Methanol Fuel Blends?, Eyal Aronoff and Nathan Taft wrote:

A presentation composed by Henry Joseph Jr. — the Product Technology Emissions Laboratory & Engine Test manager of Volkswagen Brazil — for the Brazilian Vehicles Manufacturers Association claims that ethanol performance in Brazilian vehicles is nine percent higher than predicted by energy content. Meanwhile, a study conducted by the University of Riverside claims despite a lower energy content, higher efficiency is obtained from ethanol in optimized engines.

Alcohol gets better mileage than we have been led to believe. This is an important point for many reasons. On the other hand, it may be less important for individual drivers because proponents of fuel competition are not suggesting we do away with gasoline. Once the U.S. has achieved fuel competition, whenever a driver wants to buy a fuel with greater energy density (for a longer trip or fewer refuelings, or for whatever reason), the driver will be able to put gasoline in the car (or butanol, when that becomes available).

This is one of the biggest advantages of cars that allow true fuel competition: They allow the driver to choose. If you would like to see fuel choice and competition in America, there are many things you can do to help.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Top Seven Myths About the Open Fuel Standard

MYTH #1: The bill favors one fuel over others. The Open Fuel Standard allows fuels to compete with each other by enabling regular gasoline-only cars to burn not only gasoline, but methanol and ethanol too. It would allow us choice at the pump. It is an inexpensive improvement to the car, and methanol and ethanol can be made from a huge variety of feedstocks. The bill doesn't favor any of them.

MYTH #2: It will make food more expensive and lead to food shortages. The largest influence on rising food prices for the last fifty years has been rising oil prices. Ethanol production has had a miniscule effect on food prices. And the Open Fuel Standard would make cars capable of burning methanol as well, which can be made inexpensively from municipal waste, natural gas, coal, etc. These, of course, would not raise food prices — they would lower prices as transportation fuel becomes less expensive.

MYTH #3: The bill will cost taxpayers. The bill itself will cost taxpayers nothing, and it subsidizes nothing. Flex fuel cars are sold at the same price as gasoline-only cars. By allowing other fuels to compete with gasoline, the price for fuel will come down, saving drivers money. Right now, both ethanol and methanol could be sold for far less than gasoline, and that is in the absence of a large market and the economy of scale. And both can both be made from material abundant within the United States, creating millions of jobs, strengthening the American economy and reducing our trade deficit.

MYTH #4: It will interfere with a free market. Just the opposite is true. The fuel market is not free today. The Open Fuel Standard would create a free market. Oil enjoys a virtual monopoly over the transportation fuel market, held in place with political contributions, influence over automakers (because oil interests invest in car manufacturing companies), blocking access to alternatives at fuel stations, funding propaganda against competitive fuels, and lobbying. Saudi Arabia alone has a hundred full-time lobbyists in Washington, D.C. OPEC’s price-fixing cartel is illegal, but international bodies are outside the reach of our judicial system. The Open Fuel Standard is a way to get around these barriers to a free market.

MYTH #5: We can solve our problems by drilling more American oil. We cannot end oil’s monopoly by drilling more oil. We cannot end OPEC’s ability to manipulate world oil prices by drilling more oil. American oil companies sell their oil at the world’s going oil price, which is set by OPEC. Many new sources of oil have been discovered over the years. OPEC responds by cutting their production to keep oil prices high. They collectively produce over 40 percent of the world’s annual oil production, which is enough to make a small drop in their output significantly raise the price per barrel of oil worldwide. One country alone cannot control world oil prices. That’s why Saudi Arabia joined together with the eleven other oil producing nations of OPEC.

MYTH #6: We can solve our problems by using less oil. When we use less oil, there should theoretically be more oil available on the world market, which should lower world oil prices, right? Unfortunately, when this has happened, OPEC responded by cutting its production to keep oil prices high. The demand for oil is so high (and continually growing) that OPEC doesn’t have to cut their production very much to raise prices.

MYTH #7: Alcohol fuels are bad for car engines. Alcohol dries out rubber, and cars used to have rubber fuel lines. Without additives, gasoline is low in octane, so lead was added for seventy years. In 1987 lead was made illegal, and ethanol replaced it as an octane booster, so automakers began using ethanol-compatible fuel lines. Brazil has been using ethanol in their cars for decades (cars made by Ford, GM, Toyota, etc.), and they’ve found that car engines burning ethanol typically last as much as three times longer, for two reasons. First, ethanol burns much cleaner and leaves no carbon deposits when it burns. Alcohol also burns cooler. Engines heat up and cool down thousands of times, and an engine that doesn’t get as hot creates less stress on the engine's components over time. Alcohol fuels are good for car engines.

Oil’s monopoly of fuel leaves America’s economy vulnerable to oil price hikes. Every time oil prices have spiked since World War II, America experienced a recession. OPEC’s exploitation of oil's monopoly has generated vast funds, some of which is used to fund terrorism around the world. The two most important members of OPEC are Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of whom are spending their oil money on terrorism and the expansion of fundamentalism. Iran funds its nuclear program and supports the terrorist army, Hezbollah. Saudi oil financially supports the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the building of mosques and madrassas all over the world that promote fundamentalist, intolerant, militant Wahhabi Islam.

As OPEC’s income has risen over the years, so has the scale and pervasiveness of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The Open Fuel Standard would make America economically stronger and physically safer. Let’s make it happen.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

The Chinese Want to Eat More Pork

Many criticize the ethanol industry in America. We shouldn't be turning corn into fuel, they say, because there are hungry people in the world. It is an admirable sentiment, but it doesn't take into account how the market works. When American farmers grow corn, they sell it to somebody. One of the markets they sell it to is growing: China.

As more people in China have more money to spend, one of the things they want to spend it on is pork. So the demand for pork is rising. And with it, the demand for feed is rising. Specifically, the demand for corn. I keep coming across news stories with titles like these:

China’s Corn Imports May Top 10 Million Tons
China’s Hunger for Pork to Boost Corn Demand

To quote from the second article: “Rather than becoming more dependent on imported meat, Mr. Urlich expects China will favour purchasing more feed grains. This should lead to a greater reliance on imported corn for the growing livestock and poultry sector.

“In fact, both the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and China’s state-affiliated agricultural in-formation service provider, estimate that corn imports will reach 5 million tons in 2011/2012 from 1.5 million tons in the previous year.”

Those who say we should not use “food” to make fuel may not mean to say it, but what they’re unwittingly proposing is something like this: “We should forget about energy independence, national security, and economic vitality so people in China can eat more pork.”

In other words, the “food versus fuel” argument means we should not use our land to grow feedstocks to make fuel, but instead we should use it to grow corn and export it to China because they really like pork.

I think if most Americans were given the choice, we would choose to give up our addiction to oil, and leave it to China to work out their pork addiction problem themselves.

I’d like to clarify that. We are not addicted to oil. We are the victims of an illegal transportation fuel monopoly. The moment we have access to a better fuel, we will drop oil like a hot rock. The oil companies want us to stick with oil, but American drivers would love to be free of oil’s fuel monopoly and the high prices, high pollution, and high level of terrorist threat it causes.

Given how small the yield is for corn, especially compared to using algae, the criticism about corn is now moot. But many people bring it up, and the facts about China's pork feed should be added to the discussion.

- Excerpted from the book, Fill Your Tank With Freedom

Should Cars be Made to Run on Any Fuel so the Best Fuel Wins?

It takes almost nothing at all to make a gasoline-only car capable of also burning methanol and ethanol. If that was done to all cars, when you went to a fuel station, those fuels would be in constant daily competition, which would be really good for the consumer.

Not only would we have three fuels competing, but ethanol and methanol can both be made from many things, so their feedstocks could also compete. Which would you buy? Ethanol made from corn, ethanol made from local municipal waste, or ethanol made from algae using undrinkable water and unfarmable land? Or maybe methanol made from natural gas? Methanol made from coal? Methanol made from agricultural waste? Wouldn't you like to have a choice? Wouldn't you like to see those fuels have a chance to compete with petroleum?

The best fuel would only win for the day. Tomorrow, who knows what new, better, cheaper, cleaner fuel would hit the market and set the bar even higher? In other words, fuels would compete the way apps for your phone compete: Fiercely. Daily. Creatively.

All that needs to happen is to break the monopoly. In the case of phones, the monopoly was AT&T's on long distance calling. When that monopoly was broken in 1984, the phone industry exploded with new services, cheaper services, new ways of making phone calls, and now phones and phone services and apps are all competing for our dollars fiercely. It has been great for the consumer.

In the case of fuels, the only thing holding us back from a similar competitive environment is the one-fuel car. That's what keeps petroleum's monopoly in place. Break that and you change the world.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Massive Benefits With a Minuscule Change

Robert Zubrin, the author of the book, Energy Victory, published an article in The American Oil and Gas Reporter. In the article, Zubrin makes many excellent points, a few of which I highlight below.

Zubrin points out that the U.S. is experiencing a boom in oil and natural gas production, but it's not translating into lower prices for fuel. When drilling for oil, natural gas comes up too, but the price for oil is so high compared to natural gas that the gas is often flared — that is, simply burned on site just to get rid of it.

If we had vehicles warranted to burn methanol, gasoline would have to compete with methanol fuel at the pump, which would bring the price of gasoline down to compete, making natural gas more valuable and worth capturing and selling (rather than wasting it by simply flaring it).

With fuel prices lower, the price of almost everything else would be lower (transportation costs are factored into the price of almost everything). Most Americans would have significantly more spending money. The economic consequences would be tremendous.

And the consequences to Americans' health might be equally tremendous. Zubrin writes, "Methanol burns cleaner than gasoline with much lower particulate pollution." In Zubrin's famous methanol experiment, he measured the difference between gasoline and methanol. "The Cobalt (a non-flex-fuel car) running on methanol was super clean, outperforming by orders of magnitude both the strict Colorado emissions standards and the national EPA averages. Carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 35 percent." Carbon monoxide emissions were eliminated altogether when using methanol.

What did Zubrin have to do to his non-flex-fuel car to make it capable of burning methanol? He had to enable the flex fuel software already installed on his car's computer (it was installed but disabled) and he had to replace a fuel pump seal. That's it. The new seal cost him 41 cents.

This all sounds almost too good to be true, and it almost is. Because of outdated EPA regulations, methanol cannot compete with gasoline in a fair and open market — yet. But this could be changed very quickly, says Zubrin, by passing the Open Fuel Standard in Congress.

Robert Zubrin has immense credentials. He's the president of Pioneer Energy, a fellow with the Center for Security Policy, and a former engineer with Lockheed. He holds Master's degrees in aeronautics and astronautics and a PhD in nuclear engineering. He's done the experiments and the verdict is undeniable: Robust fuel competition in America is now a very real possibility. And you can help make it happen. If enough people knew about it, things could change very quickly. Let's get the word out. Let's get people fired up on this imminently achievable possibility that could literally change the world.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

How Important Are Fuel Prices?

Material used in manufacturing is often created using fuel: Mining, logging, farming, etc. The material is then SHIPPED (using transportation fuel) to a manufacturing plant. The finished product is then SHIPPED (using transportation fuel) to a distribution center, where it is then SHIPPED (using transportation fuel) to a store, where you DRIVE (using transportation fuel) to the store to get it, or you order it online, in which case it is SHIPPED (using transportation fuel) to you.

Someone has to pay for all this fuel. Guess who?

Without transportation fuel, the world as we know it stops functioning. With expensive fuel, more of the economy's resources have to be spent on shipping rather than the material or products themselves.

With inexpensive fuel, more economic activity can happen, more goods are created, more goods are delivered, and it is all less expensive. The result: Everyone has a higher standard of living all over the world.

What will make fuel less expensive? Competition.

Adam Khan is the co-author with Klassy Evans of Fill Your Tank With Freedom and the author of Slotralogy and Self-Reliance, Translated. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.