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Outside View: Energy independence is vital
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 @ 21:37:28 UTC by vlad
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By Alon Ben-Meir
Outside View Commentator
New York, United States, Apr. 20 (UPI) -- For the United States not to urgently adopt a sound energy-independence policy would be tantamount to a national travesty. The increasing dependence on oil does not simply undermine America's economic health, it also could seriously threaten national security...
...(U.S. oil consumption grows by nearly 2 percent annually; in 2004, it increased by 2.7 million barrels a day.) In fact, some energy experts speculate that prices for a barrel of oil may sooner than later reach $100! The increasing importation of oil (currently, the United States imports 60 percent of the oil it consumes) has widened the trade gap by tens of billions of dollars a year, and the increase due to oil importation is rising.
In addition to this escalation in costs, the United States spends billions more on many military installations in the Middle East for the express purpose of protecting the flow of oil. However we slice it, America is falling deeper into an economic black hole, with the national debt hitting a record high. And there is no exit from this hole unless the addiction to fossil energy dependence is contained.
Read article at: http://washingtontimes.com
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New energy vital: Ex-CIA chief (Score: 1) by vlad on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 @ 21:52:36 UTC (User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | National Post
Tue 19 Apr 2005
Page: FP3
Section: Financial Post
Byline: Peter Morton
Column: FP Questions & Answers
Source: Financial Post
The construction of the massive US$20-billion Alaska natural gas pipeline will do little to wean the United States from its huge reliance on foreign energy supplies, says the former head of the CIA. James Woolsey, now vice-president at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and a key member of the U.S. Energy Future Coalition, says the only truly effective way for the U.S. to cut its ties to Middle East energy is through the development of alternate fuels such as ethanol, hybrid cars and other non-oil based fuels. "I think the pipeline is potentially vulnerable and in 2025 if Alaska works out superbly, we'll go from 68% to 65% imported oil," he said in a wide ranging interview. "It doesn't do much." Mr. Woolsey, who was CIA director from 1993 to 1995 in president Bill Clinton's administration, dismissed exotic technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells as being too far down the road to be economically effective. "Hydrogen fuel cells are not going to have any substantial effect for 20 years," he told the Financial Post. "We're more interested in hybrids and plug-in hybrids or modern diesels and cellulosic ethanol and biomass -- those that are biologically rooted such as animal remains." Hybrid automobiles are in their infancy. The U.S. auto and truck fleet is roughly 220 million and hybrids -- those which use both electricity and gasoline -- number around 130,000. But Mr. Woolsey, dubbed a "neo-con green" by environmentalists, believes their day is coming. This is an edited interview with Mr. Woolsey conducted by Peter Morton, the Post's Washington bureau chief, at his office in northern Virginia just outside Washington.
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Q: Why are hybrids and other alternate fuels so important? How much more could the U.S. be self-sufficient in energy?
A: The point is not to get America away from importing from particular regions. The point is to reduce everyone's dependence on oil because our infrastructure is so locked into it for transportation. We can't switch.
If oil goes through the roof because Osama bin laden blows up, say, the sulphur clearing towers [(in Saudi Arabia] it takes six million barrels a day off the market for a year or so and the roof goes off in respect to oil prices and everyone's economy crashes. We need to have vehicles that don't require special care and feeding.
To turn hybrids, which are already on the market, to "plug-in" hybrids so you can plug them in to top off the batteries for short-term trips, you are going to double your mileage for the cost of an extension cord.
I don't know about gasoline prices in Canada but in the United States, we're at about US$2.50 a gallon. If you compare that to what you get on the electric grid, the average cost of residential electricity is US8.5 cents a kilowatt hour and that equates to US50 cents per gallon gasoline. A lot of places have differential power at nights with costs of US2 cents to US4 cents a kilowatt hour and that equates to US12 cents to US25 cents a gallon.
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Q: In terms of getting there quickly, what kind of time line are you looking at?
A: Well, it depends. Let's suppose you do three things -- you substantially [offer grants to] Detroit [automakers] and importers to move to hybrids. They get tax credits. So let's say the utilities and government co-operate to get maybe US$3,000 in tax credits.
And you can move forward on cellulosic ethanol -- making ethanol out of wheat straw. If this plug-in hybrid is getting say 100 miles a gallon, if it is driving on E85 - 15% gasoline, 85% ethanol - it has become a 400-mile-a-gallon car. You need 15% gasoline in Canada and the U.S. for cold weather starting.
We have bio-diesel that we're making down here in Carthage, Mo. -- perfectly high-grade fine bio-diesel from turkey carcasses. If your using bio-diesel made from dead animals, you are essentially using no oil at all.
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Q: Even from an optimistic perspective, how much of the U.S. fleet can be converted?
A: The only thing that's happening here is that diesels are getting better and soon can meet our emissions standards. If you want a rapid turnover to the hybrid fleet you can offer governments grants and none of this requires any inventing. If you did all these things and you have large-scale production and costs start coming down, I think in five to 10 years we will have import share not far off half of the 65% it is now. Sir Winston Churchill once said that Americans always do the right thing but not before they have exhausted all other possibilities. At some point we are going to figure this out.
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Q: So you are reasonably optimistic about this brave new world of energy technology.
A: This is the thing. We might find this American-invented technology coming back to us from Japan, from Canada, from Ireland. My attitude towards that is fine -- we're all in this together. The more widely it is spread and fast, the less all of us are dependent on the Middle East.
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Q: And on the electrical grid, to produce more, is the U.S. going to have to go towards more coal?
A: No matter how much we use the electrical grid for transportation, and plug-in hybrids, we need to fix the vulnerability of the grid. A year and a half ago we had a tree branch fall in Ohio and we took out Eastern Canada, New York and New England for a week. And terrorists are a lot smarter than tree branches.
You need solid peak power and that is likely to be one of three things, nuclear, gas, or coal. I think the most promising thing coming along is probably cleanly gasified coal done in such a way to capture the CO2. Canada and the U.S. are kind of the Saudi Arabia of coal.
- - -
Q; Do you think the U.S. is still vulnerable to attack?
A: I think there are three things relevant here. One is that I think we did set back Al-Qaida quite a bit in Afghanistan. We killed or captured a lot of them. That's probably slowed them down.
Secondly, as they have shown us in the 1990s when they were coming after us, they like each attack to be bigger and more dramatic than the one before. If they can do something, what they would want to do something bigger than
9/11.
I think there is at least a reasonable chance that a lot of Al-Qaida focus is going to turn to Saudi Arabia. And people say even if the bad guys take over there, they are still going to have to sell their oil. Illustration:
* Colour Photo: Yuri Gripas / James Woolsey says there is a reasonable chance a lot of Al-Qaida focus is going to turn to Saudi Arabia.
Edition: National
Story Type: Business; Interview
Note: pmorton@nationalpost.com |
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