Reducing Foreign Oil Dependencies

On the Same Page With ISRAEL

Today, the Israeli Infrastructure Minister UZI LANDAU (who went to MIT) spoke at the Hudson Institute to discuss the joint need with the US to reduce dependency on foreign oil. There was an increased urgency in his presentation and the clear intent to get serious, at the highest governmental levels, on finding competitive alternatives to the fossil fuels that create dependencies on oil produced and sold by countries who have contingents that hate us and who inspire radical violent elements to do us harm.
This is a clear Joint-US-Israeli objective and something that should be at the core and root of our Foreign Policy. Energy policy has misguidedly led us into ill advised wars and one way to correct the problem is to get serious about dramatically reducing foreign oil dependencies. John Kerry made this a platform of his campaign in 2004. The urgency is all the more great now.

This Israeli Minister discussed that he believes that a flex-fuel switch that they are developing in cars will help, as will bio-fuel development of ethanol from agriculture developed in Africa.
He noted that there is one Israeli scientist, now working in Arizona who has developed a system whereby CO2 is recaptured and funnelled into algae to turn it into energy that can be plugged into a grid, turned into real power. There are issues of economy to scale production questions and economic feasibility from an investment perspective, but all this is something that needs to be intently studied with real funding behind.

The door is wide open in this international "green revolution" and so far the hot air supersedes the real progress. We need to develop tie-ins, international development infrastructure funds that link the Israeli efforts with African infrastructure development funds.
The Israelis are willing to invest and match US funds-something that this Minister freely discusses.

The meeting was kindly hosted by the Hudson CEO, uber-intelligent Ken Weinstein (who is a Francophone from what I gather so we love him)-

Anyone wishing to learn more about this is encouraged to get in touch with Ken Weinstein at the Hudson Institute (http://www.hudson.org/) who can put you easily in touch with the Israeli Infrastructure Minister.