About the history of oil prices and the future of alternative fuels.About the history of oil prices and the future of alternative fuels.About the history of oil prices and the future of alternative fuels.
- Awards
- 1 win
Photos
- Directors
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCo-Directors Jeremy Wagener and 'Scott D. Roberts' first met on the set of Chicks, Man (2000), in which Scott D. Roberts was cast as the lead roll of "Rod" in the first feature directing effort of Jeremy Wagener.
- Quotes
Scott Roberts: There isn't a Republican pump or a pump for Democrats - we all use the same gas pumps.
Featured review
Main thrust of the film is untrue
The first half hour of the film is wasted on a persistent urban legend - that backyard inventors developed a 100-mile-per-gallon carburetor 50 years ago that was bought up and suppressed by the multinational oil companies. If such an invention really worked, the auto industry would have developed and commercialized it to increase the market appeal of their vehicles and reduce tailpipe pollution. There would have been no way the oil industry could have prevented it. Conclusion: the 100-mpg carburetor (installed on a heavy old clunker of a vehicle) is a hoax. More believable documentation than the reminiscences and speculations of some old tinkerers is absent from the film because such documentation - independent successful test results, substantive assessments by real experts on engine efficiency, etc. - does not exist.
From that inauspicious beginning, the film goes on to prove that the oil industry is ruthless, profit-maximizing, and indifferent to the interests of consumers. All granted. The same is true of huge corporations in general. Belaboring the point is simply boring. The lengthy scenes of Congressional hearings were predictable, uninformative, irrelevant, and tedious.
The worst fault of the film is that its main thrust is untrue: that solving America's oil addiction is mainly a matter of overcoming political opposition and will be relatively cheap and easy once we get the evil oil corporations under control. The film omitted the critical fact that for biofuels to replace fossil petroleum would require all of the arable land in the US and more. We would have to shift our agricultural economy entirely from food to fuel, and even that wouldn't come close to doing the job. Hydrogen was given a fleeting mention, but the film omitted the fact that producing H2 requires a large amount of energy. Germany did not use hydrogen in vehicles in WW2, as one non-expert spokesperson said in the film; it used liquid fuels synthesized from coal at great economic and environmental cost. It would have been easy for the filmmakers to check this fact and omit the hydrogen enthusiast's misstatement from the film, but they didn't bother to do so. There is a solid reason fossil petroleum has dominated our transportation economy for a century. It is cheap, energy-dense, transportable, and convenient. When it runs out, there will be massive economic dislocation and worsening international conflicts. Worldwide energy use will have to decline precipitously, and fanciful carburetors installed in SUVs will not comprise any part of the solution.
Do not waste your time watching this film; "The End of Suburbia" is much more informative and scientifically well-documented.
From that inauspicious beginning, the film goes on to prove that the oil industry is ruthless, profit-maximizing, and indifferent to the interests of consumers. All granted. The same is true of huge corporations in general. Belaboring the point is simply boring. The lengthy scenes of Congressional hearings were predictable, uninformative, irrelevant, and tedious.
The worst fault of the film is that its main thrust is untrue: that solving America's oil addiction is mainly a matter of overcoming political opposition and will be relatively cheap and easy once we get the evil oil corporations under control. The film omitted the critical fact that for biofuels to replace fossil petroleum would require all of the arable land in the US and more. We would have to shift our agricultural economy entirely from food to fuel, and even that wouldn't come close to doing the job. Hydrogen was given a fleeting mention, but the film omitted the fact that producing H2 requires a large amount of energy. Germany did not use hydrogen in vehicles in WW2, as one non-expert spokesperson said in the film; it used liquid fuels synthesized from coal at great economic and environmental cost. It would have been easy for the filmmakers to check this fact and omit the hydrogen enthusiast's misstatement from the film, but they didn't bother to do so. There is a solid reason fossil petroleum has dominated our transportation economy for a century. It is cheap, energy-dense, transportable, and convenient. When it runs out, there will be massive economic dislocation and worsening international conflicts. Worldwide energy use will have to decline precipitously, and fanciful carburetors installed in SUVs will not comprise any part of the solution.
Do not waste your time watching this film; "The End of Suburbia" is much more informative and scientifically well-documented.
helpful•64
- energetic-698-409395
- May 29, 2013
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $495,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content