INTERVIEW: Warren acts FUELish with filmmaker Joshua Tickell

It’s time for The Rolling Stones to embrace alternative energy and rework the lyrics of Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It’s not a gas, gas, gas. It’s a solar panel, a wind turbine… a gallon of biodiesel!

Surely, single-minded filmmaker Joshua Tickell would support the tone-deaf song-shift, as he has championed biodiesel for more than a decade; first by driving his fryer-oil-fueled Veggie Van cross-country; now, by sharing his self-proclaimed cinematic “gift to America.” FUEL, his slickly-shot personal documentary, tracks his efforts to convince fellow citizens to “change the world” by changing their fuel. Start pumping greener gases; stop emitting greenhouse gases. FUEL makes the compelling (and clear) case that it’s time to shut up and fill up… responsibly. While the converted may know this sermon by heart, for the uninitiated, this a prayer worth hearing and heeding; especially when the likes of Julia Roberts, Sheryl Crow, Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson join the on-screen “choir.”

When I caught up with the charmingly immodest Mr. Tickell at a sneak preview of FUEL in Seattle, he rhapsodized a cappella about the beauty of biofuel and the unsightliness of D.C.’s blind governance.

WARREN: Most experts agree, the energy crisis is a nuisance today, but could prove an unbearable burden for the next generation. However, I get the sense you are motivated as much by your mother as by future offspring. Who inspires you?

JOSH: My inspiration really comes from children. I see the potential for us to actually hand the next generation a world that has value beyond the “stuff” we consume. I am inspired by the idea that we can provide a pathway for future humans to live sustainably.

WARREN: If the Environmental Protection Agency is compromised by a conflict of interest, as FUEL suggests, would you prefer the organization be shut down altogether or continue to serve as a de facto mouthpiece for Big Oil?

JOSH: The EPA is actually part of the Executive Branch of the government, but it is arguably illegal due to the fact that it was created under the Nixon Administration to be administered directly through that branch of the government BUT today, the EPA is effectively managed on a state by state basis. There is little to no federal control. In my opinion, the entire organization should be dismantled and replaced with a set of constitutional mandates that provide that every person in the United States access to clean water, clean food, clean air and clean energy regardless of race or income.

WARREN: Jimmy Carter installed solar panel on the White House. Ronald Reagan tore them down. Do you think Obama will truly go green or just start drilling for oil in the Presidential pool?

JOSH: I was dismayed by both [McCain’s and Obama’s] energy platforms. They were both abysmally short-sighted, neither promoted energy efficiency and conservation and both used oxymoron cliché’s like “clean coal.” I think we need to take [politicians] through a rigorous training program to teach them basic physics and chemistry as they relate to energy, after which they should be escorted to the north and south poles and shown the lack of winter ice. There just seems to be a fundamental disconnect between our elected officials and the real world dynamics of energy and global warming. My answer? Educate them, but do it in a way they get the ticking time bomb we are sitting on top of.

WARREN: Are all bio-diesels created equal? Or, like children, are some better than others?

JOSH: Any diesel car can run on biodiesel with no modifications. Diesel cars come in all shapes and sizes but the best ones are just now coming out. European diesels commonly get over 50 miles per gallon. The new models get 80-100 miles per gallon with 150 and 200 mile per gallon diesels on the horizon.

WARREN: If oil is truly past its peak – much like the career of Ted Stevens -why don’t we just make more dinosaurs? Surely, there is some way out of this fix. After all, there is a small handful of experts who claim we’ll never run out of Texas Tea.

JOSH: I think it goes back once again to basic biology and physics. Oil was created from algae. Why keep drilling for oil when you can make it from algae that take only days to grow, rather than hundreds of millions of years? I think the algae to fuel discoveries are one of the most exciting parts of FUEL and certainly one of the best potentials we have for producing more liquid energy.

WARREN: Another documentary investigated WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? You seem disinterested in its metal corpse? Do you disapprove of the technology? Are you unimpressed with hydrogen-powered vehicles as well?

JOSH: I like electric cars. They are hot – or cool depending on your lingo. Hydrogen cars are just electric cars with an exceptionally expensive and impractical hydrogen to electricity converter. The big question is not whether hydrogen cars are good or bad, but rather are they practical? Since it takes approximately four times more energy to make a gallon equivalent of hydrogen, than that gallon equivalent of hydrogen contains, I assert that hydrogen vehicles are not now, nor will they be within our lifetimes, cost-effective. The whole hydrogen economy idea has been funded by oil companies who want to sell natural gas (99% of hydrogen is made from natural gas and most of the world’s remaining natural gas is in Saudi Arabia).

**For more from Joshua Tickell, listen to The Warren Report’s FREE podcast recorded after The Warren Report’s Seattle screening of FUEL. It can be downloaded now via iTunes or via Libsyn.**