As we made our way up the mountain to the temple, the cab driver in Gyeongju explained that we were running on LPG. All commercial and transit vehicles in Korea run on LPG, and not on regular gasoline. We had been wondering why cab fares weren't too expensive, and the notorious Seoul pollution was mysteriously reduced. LPG is reported to burn more cleanly. A quick internet search reveals that a smattering of folks around the planet are itching to convert their cars to run on LPG. Investment and government support seem to be key factors for the the use of LPG.
This is the problem in the US-- the petroleum corporations and government must change the domestic energy market and policy to promote alternative fuels. The pursuit of profits eclipse alternative energy initiatives-- and keeps the profits in the hands of a few corporations.
I've been a link in the supply chain for a major petroleum company, and it's never been sustainable. Shortly after I graduated from college, the job I had working in a school with a special education student was only part time, so in the afternoons, I worked in the Purchasing Department of a major petroleum company. Everyone was still buying SUV's like hotcakes in the mid 90's and gas had yet to break $2. The company was building new gas stations at breakneck speed. I spent the next year ordering endless numbers of pumps, sumps, hoses, nozzles, displays, giant tanks, trash cans, dispensers, and towards the end of my tenure, a whole lot of plastic "2"'s so that all the franchisees could be ready when the price of gas broke 2 dollars. No one realized the financial or environmental consequences of this consumption. I was just a temp, and my workers and I were grateful to have our low paying jobs and were dissociated from our actual work. We sat in cubicles all day. Some folks circulated pyramid schemes involving vitamins. The strategists were busy co-branding with McDonald's so people could pick up a Big Mac while filling up their giant SUV's at every corner.
The economy of gasoline is very strange to me. Gas is something many people spend huge amounts of money on; it's up there with housing and food. We know that the profits do not go to the people or even the economies of the countries where we extract and produce gas. Most of this money goes to a very small number of people, and almost none goes to the communities where gas is sold. From years of working in corporate Los Angeles, I know this is where the money goes: to second homes in Malibu and Santa Barbara, prep school and college tuition, plastic surgery, luxury items.
The money also passes through the hands of many immigrant families. My family immigrated to the US in the 1970's during the gas crisis. My father got a job pumping gas and eventually we franchised a station on Exposition Blvd. in South Central Los Angeles. This station was rationed a lot of gas, and my family made enough money to buy off the neighborhood kids prone to vandalism and to save up for a down payment on a house. After a year or two, we handed the station over to another family and moved out of Koreatown into Orange County. The work is profitable, but, again, not sustainable. It's a dangerous, dirty effort that requires long hours.
Eventually, I quit the Purchasing Department and took a gig teaching in Compton to address educational and social inequities. The district was bankrupt in every way and run by the state. I spent a lot of money on gas commuting from the Westside. The two things I learned to rely on in Compton: the Korean gas station operators and a slim, middle aged African American gentleman who jogged every morning up Central Avenue bearing a tall white cross on his shoulder.
