Oil: Not Just for Cars

Think the oil crisis only affects how far you drive or where you drive your car/truck/SUV? Think again. The price of oil affects everything.

For Kevin Brown, an economist with the American Chemistry Council, the iconic product is a plastic bottle of shampoo. Aside from the water, 100 percent of the value of the ingredients comes from oil- or natural-gas-based products.

"That bottle is made of high-density polycarbonate. The cap is made from another plastic. The label is a composite of plastic resin and paper. The ink on that paper is petroleum-derived. The glue on the back is petroleum-derived. Now let's look inside the bottle, at the surfactants, emulsifiers and fragrances," he said.

"It's all petrochemistry."

He has calculated the value of the petro-ingredients of a variety of products: Tires, 62 percent (from the artificial rubber to carbon blacking); a vacuum cleaner, 30 percent (many plastic parts); lipstick, 100 percent (from the paraffin wax to the dyes and fragrances).

Even paper, which mostly grows on trees, owes about a quarter of the cost of its materials to petro-products needed to convert pulp into pages, he said.

That's not to mention the Ziploc bags and plastic containers you use to store food, any plastic utensils (such as spatulas or forks and spoons), many of the non-wooden toys used by children, or the outer shell of any of your home electronics. The vast majority of products we all take for granted and use on a daily basis are petroleum-based products.

As the price of oil continues to rise, perhaps it's time to think differently.

Honda rolled out its first zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell car today. And American car manufacturers laughed when Japanese automakers started rolling out hybrids ten years ago. And look where GM and Ford are today.

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.

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A breakthrough in the design of the fuel cell stack, which is the unit that powers the car's motor, allowed engineers to lighten the body, expand the interior and increase efficiency, Honda said.

The fuel cell draws on energy synthesized through a chemical reaction between hydrogen gas and oxygen in the air, and a lithium-ion battery pack provides supplemental power. The FCX Clarity has a range of about 270-miles per tank with hydrogen consumption equivalent to 74 miles per gallon, according to the carmaker.

The 3,600-pound vehicle can reach speeds up to 100 miles per hour.

Indeed, it is time to think differently, which is why Sound Transit thinking about taking a shot at expanding light rail is a prudent course of action.