Former CIA Director Talks In OK About Benefits Of Natural Gas

There is a lot of talk nowadays about a solution to those high gas prices and it's one a lot of Oklahomans will like.

The former CIA director was in town recently talking about natural gas, and how it could help solve a lot of our problems including terrorism.

"Today we borrow right at a billion dollars a day just to import oil," said James Woolsey, who served as CIA director during the Clinton Administration. "That is a tax on every American family of four of four thousand dollars a year."

Woolsey told Oklahomans recently that's more than just a problem for our pocketbook. He argues every time we pull into the pump we are funding terrorism.

"Stop for a second and turn the rearview mirror for a couple seconds and look at your own eyes," he said to the packed crowd. "Now you know who's paying for those little boys to be taught they really, really want to be suicide bombers."

So instead of using oil to fuel our vehicles, he would like to see natural gas as a choice.

"I think it's one big part of the solution."

He says cars could easily be converted to use natural gas based Methanol in addition to other fuels.

"The software programming and the 41 cent o-ring basically make it possible for you to pull into the filling station and say ‘do I want gasoline? Do I want ethanol? Do I want methanol? I think I'll pick methanol."

Dean Steve Agee with the Mieders school of business at Oklahoma City University, however, says the problem right now is infrastructure.

"The problem is this chicken and egg problem," he says. 

There are very few natural gas stations and relatively none that offer methanol.

But with the low price of natural gas he sees that changing along with the way we fuel our cars.

"I think it's just a function of time before it happens," he says "But it will happen, it will happen in my lifetime."

Agee says it will likely be up to the market if vehicles burn compressed natural gas or methanol.