Autonomous Vehicle Consultant

In a recent article entitled, “Drill here, sell there, pay more,” Representative Ed Markey, wrote, “For the first time in 62 years, since Harry Truman was president, the United States was a net exporter of oil products. An estimated $88 billion worth of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products was sent to overseas markets last year.”

A reader of my blog post on exporting gasoline commented,  “Remember when I said a few weeks ago that, unfortunately, no amount of conservation, nor of drilling, here in the United States will get us out of the energy crunch? Any demand we can eliminate by conservation will be more than made up for by the overwhelming demand from other countries, thus keeping the price high no matter what. We may end up pumping out the bulk of our own crude, only for it to be refined here (with the profit going to big oil) and then sold overseas (profit going to big oil again), while we the people lose out. And for THAT the oil companies receive subsidies, probably because they can claim they are helping our overall exports (i.e. improving the balance of payments). How badly do we want to export the very thing of which we are in most need ourselves? This could easily capsize our fragile economic recovery.” (Ro Pinto, Acton, Massachusetts.)

Representative Markey concluded, “An energy agenda that places oil above all is not helping Americans find work or achieve energy security. As we build America’s clean-energy future, we must also ensure that our domestic oil and natural-gas resources stay here in America.”

Note: There are 11 government agencies that support the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Solicitations from these agencies are published several times during the year and contain dozens of problem topics. For example, many topics from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) have a keen interest in energy efficiency and renewable energy, some of which may overlap the issues raised in this post. Small businesses, sometimes teamed with universities, may submit proposals in response to these topics and possibly receive awards for technology/process development.