Film makes case for new fuel choices
As a child, Josh Tickell saw his mother suffer from lupus, an illness thought to have been caused by living near petroleum refineries in Port Allen, Louisiana.
As an adult, Tickell the filmmaker has become a champion for alternative fuels for cars and trucks. His latest movie is “Pump.”
“She had nine miscarriages,” he said. “All the physical pollution, the suffering of the people who I loved, prompted me to ask a simple question: ‘Isn’t there something else we can put in the tanks of our cars?’ ”
Tickell’s advocacy began in 1997, when he bought a van, converted it to run on biodiesel fuel made from old fry-vat oil and drove it across the country on a trip that came to be called the “Veggie Van Voyage.”
A year later, he wrote “From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank,” a book about the experience and about running engines on biodiesel fuels.
In 2008, his first movie, “Fuel,” detailed the trip as it also explored American dependence on fossil fuels. The work premiered at the Sundance Film Festival that year, where it won the Audience Award for documentaries.
The next three films, including “Pump,” were co-directed by Tickell and his wife, Rebecca Harrell Tickell, a former actress.
“Pump” claims that the world needs to find cheaper, cleaner alternative fuels with more dependable sources.
Among the ticking time bombs outlined in the movie:
• Global demand: The demand for automobiles has exploded in China. In 2013, as the world’s top auto buyer, the Chinese bought 15.5 million cars. In 2000, fewer than 1 million were sold in China.
“We’re going to see the world run out of oil before we run out of Chinese people ready to buy their next car,” Michael Dunne, president of General Motors in Indonesia, says in the movie.
• Supply: Each day, the United States produces 8 million barrels of oil and consumes 18 million barrels, a fraction of the global demand of 88 million barrels a day, John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Co., says in the movie.
Although well-drilling has increased rapidly in the United States, output has increased only slightly.
“In 15 years, how many more ISIS attacks will we have to deal with?” Tickell said. “How many more disruptions in the Middle East will we have to deal with?”
• Military cost: In 2013, the government passed a military spending bill of $630 billion. The movie cites a statistic that $507 billion of that is spent in the Persian Gulf.
“Of course, we have other interests in the region. It’s not all about oil,” Amory Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which researches sustainable resources, says in the movie. “But it’s hard to believe we would have fought a couple of wars there and sent lots of troops there if Kuwait just grew broccoli.”
A solution, Tickell said, lies in the development of transportation powered by fuels made from U.S. resources that will provide consumers more choices.
Until electric cars become commercially viable during the next several decades, “Flex Fuel” cars – which run on a mix of alcohol such as ethanol or methanol with gasoline – can provide a domestic-made source of fuel.
Tickell points to Brazil as an example. From 2002 to 2011, under the leadership of President Lula Da Silva, the nation ended its dependence on foreign fuels by building Flex Fuel cars and installing pumps for alcohol-based fuel made from sugar cane.
He also cites examples in the United States of 100 years ago, when electric trolley cars were common, automakers offered electric cars and the Model T could run on gasoline or alcohol.
“In the beginning, the great minds of our transportation industry had a different vision for how transportation was supposed to work,” Tickell said, “and now it’s come full circle.”