Energy Independence - Part One
Improved vehicle fuel efficiency is one of those topics that appeals to both “doves” and “hawks” - and is a rare piece of common ground where both side can make progress together, even if their reasons for making progress are very different.
While the “doves” are fearful that humans are causing global warming and have other enviromental-impact driven concerns, the “hawks” are generally interested in reducing the leverage foreign oil-producing countries can apply to our economy and foreign policy.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting on the topic of energy independence from the perspective of those who seek to limit America’s exposure to coersion-by-oil.
We’ll start with a great editorial by James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence from 2002:
Spiking the Oil Weapon
How to end America’s dependence on Mideast despots.BY R. JAMES WOOLSEY
Sunday, September 22, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDTOver the past quarter century much of the world has come to believe that our dependence on the Middle East for oil has cast a spell over our conduct there. The point is well taken. From the 1979 seizure of our hostages in Tehran until last autumn, we generally responded to attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists, states or both by temporizing, retreating or, at most, prosecuting a few individuals or launching a few cruise missiles or air strikes from a safe distance.
One exception was our laudable conduct of the 1991 Gulf War. But even that was marred by the terms of the cease-fire, which–once our access to Kuwaiti and Saudi oil was secure–permitted Saddam Hussein’s forces to massacre the Kurdish and Shiite rebels we had encouraged.
The wealth produced by oil underlies the power of the three totalitarian movements in the Middle East that have chosen to make war on us: the ruling Iraqi Baathists and Iranian mullahs, and al Qaeda, which was spawned by Saudi money.
In light of these circumstances it is time to set aside our endless wrangling about energy policy. To this point the discussion has been characterized by advocacy, on the one hand, of futuristic ideal visions of the hydrogen economy and, on the other hand, of marginal steps producing more political hyperbole than fuel. Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, for example, will increase our share of the world’s reserves, in a decade or so, from 3% to all of 3.3%, while we consume 25% of the world’s oil.
We are at war. We should start by asking what we can do, as soon as possible, to undercut our enemies’ power. Other considerations should now follow, not lead. There are four strategic steps we can take starting now.
The Middle East, including the Caspian basin, is the home not only of nearly three-quarters of the world’s proven oil reserves, but about the same share of the world’s “swing” production capacity. The former establishes our long-term dependence, but the latter is what creates tactical leverage over us. That leverage is largely in the hands of Saudi Arabia: almost three million barrels a day. When a crisis creates a spike in the oil spot market, the only way to increase supply quickly and keep prices (and many nations’ economies) stable is for the Saudis to activate this spare capacity. As Edward Morse and James Richard put it in Foreign Affairs, this Saudi leverage is “the energy equivalent of nuclear weapons.”
We could substantially free ourselves from this threat if, in a crisis, we had the ability to sell steadily from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We should add substantially to our reserve–at a level of one billion barrels we would have about a year’s worth of Saudi swing capacity–and try to persuade other oil-consuming countries to do the same.
Second, within the oil market we should do our best to lead the world away from depending on production from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. We could help Russia substantially improve its share of the world’s market. Jeffrey Garten of the Yale School of Management has estimated that its current output of 6.9 million barrels could be expanded by at least 50%. Western investment could help surmount the main obstacle to this increase–the deplorable state of the country’s pipelines and ports.
Third, we must make major improvements in vehicle efficiency. In the six years after the 1979 oil shock, Americans improved gas mileage in new vehicles by seven miles per gallon, helping to cut oil use by 15% and Persian Gulf imports by 87%. Our economy grew by 16%. In recent years we have instead used technological progress to add size and power. But we needn’t all be forced into tiny cars–the point is fuel efficiency, not smaller vehicles per se. We should be able readily to devise Detroit-friendly incentives such as tax credits and rebates to encourage the scrapping of older, less efficient vehicles and promote a rapid increase of those with hybrid gas-electric engines.
Finally, we should take advantage of the fact that waste-to-transportation-fuel technologies are now entering commercial application. These hold early promise for large-volume, inexpensive production of fuels that can be used in existing vehicles and require no new oil production. Genetically modified biocatalysts can now produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass (a.k.a., plant material). A process called thermal depolymerization is also highly efficient and fully consumes such wastes as animal carcasses, manure or used tires in producing high-grade diesel.
Most of today’s cars can use ethanol, whatever its source, only in mixtures up to 10% with gasoline. But there are at least two million flexible-fuel vehicles on the road that can burn gasoline or any gasoline-ethanol mixture up to 85% ethanol. It would be a simple and cheap matter to require this feature in all new cars–essentially just a differently programmed computer chip and a different kind of plastic in the fuel line. But corn-derived ethanol requires substantial energy to produce and will never cover more than a tiny share of our needs.
Whatever our strategy’s exact components, if we do not act now, we will leave major levers over our fate in the hands of regimes that have attacked us or have fallen under the sway of fanatics who spread hatred of the U.S., and indeed of freedom itself. Some of these enemies try to kill Americans directly or pay others to do so; others sponsor the hatred that fires and sustains those who make war on us. For all of them, their power derives from their oil. It is time to break their sword.
Mr. Woolsey was director of central intelligence, 1993-95. A longer version of this article appears as a chapter in “The Next American Century” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and in the September issue of Commentary.
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