I missed your testimony--thought it would be on CNBC. Did you get the email I sent to your company regarding US patent # 5015798, held by Exxon Mobil, which pertains to a "simple" process to convert methane directly to liquid hydrocarbons suitable for motor fuel? If it works, it would present a more practical way to use natural gas for transportation fuel. Sincerely, Peter Schneider (630-369-0117) (Illinois)

I saw the senate testimony and it was pointed out that we have 50 years worth of oil left in the world. But we don’t actually have that much time because you know these oil exporting countries are not going to export every drop of oil they have. They will stop exporting long before they run out because just like every other country in the world they will need energy to run their countries and grow their economies. I noticed the Pickens Plan will reduce our energy imports by 38% this still leaves us importing 62% of our oil. I would like to make the suggestion of let’s take the Pickens Plan to the next level and get off using hydrocarbons for fuel. We could do this by using electricity to split water from the ocean into hydrogen and oxygen. It would take approximately 3 terawatts of electricity to replace all the gasoline and natural gas we use in this country. Up until now it was cheaper to use natural gas to produce hydrogen. Using electricity was simply far too expensive and this is why it hasn’t been developed. But I have a solution to break the electric economic barrier that has prevented us from producing hydrogen from the ocean. Let’s have the taxpayers and government give the oil companies all the electricity they need to produce enough hydrogen to replace all gasoline and natural gas for free. With free electricity and free water could have an equivalent gallon of gasoline at the pumps for around a $1.00 to $1.50 with all current gasoline taxes in place. We could pay for the electricity two ways the first would be an Energy Tax of around 3% to 5% on earnings for both individuals and businesses. The second would be a National Sales Tax of 0.25% to 0.50%. No one likes taxes but these taxes might be the first taxes in history that actually saved people money. Any tax that is paid is going to small when compared to how much money people save on the gasoline and natural gas bills. The government would have to issue Energy Bonds which would be like War Bonds or Savings Bonds to raise capital to build all the electrical facilities necessary to generate 3 terawatts of energy from the wind. Wind is the preferred method for generating the required electricity because we don’t have to spend money of fuel to generate electricity which will save tons of money. The reason we want to replace all the natural gas we use is because natural gas is getting expensive and by replacing it with hydrogen we can use the natural gas distribution network to distribute the hydrogen. This will also save us tons of money on building hydrogen infrastructure. By switch to hydrogen produce from the ocean and wind energy we have unlimited raw materials to produce as much fuel as we need. This energy system could last us hundreds or thousands of years if necessary until a better energy solution comes along. The ocean isn’t going to run out of water and the wind isn’t going to stop blowing. Of course the oil companies would have to build all the electrolysis tanks required for hydrogen production. And they would have would have to run pipelines from the ocean to these hydrogen production facilities and still more pipelines to connect to the natural gas distribution network. And they would also have to place hydrogen dispensing equipment in all the gas stations and all of this is going to be very expensive. So I think we should give oil companies who fully participate in the switch to hydrogen tax except status for 20 or 30 years. And even have the government help them raise capital if they need it be issuing some Energy Bonds on their behalf. Let’s switch to hydrogen and export what oil we don’t need along with natural gas and use these funds to pay for the hydrogen infrastructure. The price of oil and natural gas will continue to climb so let’s get ahead of this game and have those increases work for us instead of financially bleeding the country to death. We have to get off hydrocarbon fuels sooner or later let’s do it now and use the oil and natural gas that we have help pay for it. Because if we wait we won’t have these resources to sell when we do switch to hydrogen. We have to go to hydrogen because out of all the alternatives hydrogen is the most flexible. We can eventually use hydrogen to power cars, trucks, boats, ships, planes, jets, trains, motorcycles, snowmobiles jet skis, etc… And we can also use hydrogen to heat our homes and factories and use it as a heat source for industrial applications. Hydrogen can meet our summer driving demand and then that same hydrogen can be switched over to take care of the winter heating demand all while maintaining a relatively constant hydrogen production output. This is something we simply can’t do with other alternative fuels. Detroit has already built dual fuel vehicles that can burn both gasoline and hydrogen for fuel. This will be important as the country switches over to hydrogen so people don’t get stranded looking for fuel. The way I see it is I don’t care if the government has to go into debt to make the switch to hydrogen and I don’t care if it takes the government 20, 30 or even 60 years to pay off that debt because we will be energy independent for hundreds of years if not longer. With cheap fuel prices of around $1.00 or so the country will have explosive economic growth. People will have more money to buy goods and services and jobs will be created to fill that demand. And as jobs increase so does the governments tax revenues and this increase in revenues will pay off the Energy Bonds. And if the government doesn’t have enough money to completely pay off the Energy Bonds when they mature then simply issues new Energy Bonds to pay off the old ones and refinance the debt. We use a vast amount of energy in this country and it’s not going to be cheap to replace it but if we make the investment we can get cheap energy and raise the standard of living in this country in the process.