Solving energy crisis requires smart thinking
The American energy crisis really began back in 1973 when OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) imposed an oil embargo on the United States. Oil prices literally rose over night from $3 per barrel to $12, a fourfold increase! By 1980, petroleum was $40 per barrel, equal to $100 in 2008. This crisis is still with us but it’s been hidden by our unrealistic policies and wishful thinking.
If we examine the circumstance surrounding the situation back in the 1970s oil crisis and compare them with today, there are startling similarities but troubling differences. Back then our nation was very aware and concerned about our dependency on foreign oil. Many of us also had the notion that we could and should do something about it! When petroleum prices skyrocketed and there were gasoline shortages, the federal government and the automotive industry became committed to developing nonpetroleum options in the transportation sector.
Jerry Mader
These ambitious efforts were eventually “moth balled”! Our energy scare was followed by a period in the 1980s where government policy makers made “guns for oil deals” with Arab countries. The oil kept flowing and petroleum substitution was forgotten. Today, we still rely heavily on imported petroleum. In 1973, we only imported about 35 percent of our petroleum and now and now it’s almost 70 percent. Petroleum use has risen from 15 million barrels/day to more than 20 million in this decade. Worldwide demand for oil has risen dramatically and this has pushed prices even higher.
In the past, America’s energy policy was focused on substituting for oil and reducing oil use because imports threatened our economy. Today, we take this threat for granted although our nation is more vulnerable because of terrorism that is being exported from the Middle East. If oil import fears are not the reason for today's energy initiatives, what is? It's climate change or global warming that has captured the agenda for changing our energy future. It is not my intention, to debate the scientific merits of climate change. But I know, less fuel burned means less pollution and a better environment! The same argument works for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which many believe is the solution to global warming, including our federal government. The government regulates the fuel efficiency of light duty cars and trucks through the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ). It was first enacted in 1975 to reduce gasoline consumption and today, the CAFÉ standard is 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) for cars. Advances in the internal combustion engine (ICE) will not dramatically improve fuel economy. Nevertheless, future ICE efficiency could be as much as 20 percent better. However, the hybrid car that combines ICE with battery power could provide an improvement of 30 percent or more. Hybrids are relatively new on the scene; of the 10 million plus cars sold in the United States in 2008, Toyota sold about 280,000 hybrids. The hybrid market will not make great strides until battery cost and battery life issues are solved.
What makes battery powered cars so unique is that can be connected to the electric utility grid. This plug in feature makes them very attractive to the utility company. Recharging car batteries not only provides revenue to the utility but it also helps balance electricity demand between daytime and nighttime. This load-leveling feature could reduce the cost of electricity to everyone when plug in hybrids reach high volumes. Another benefit could be reducing the sales price of the car (possibly by several thousands of dollars) because the utility could take ownership of the battery rather than the automaker. The utility could recovery the cost of the battery by including a lease rate when the customer is billed for battery charging.
Most Americans have been led to believe that climate change is our most disturbing energy problem and that the automotive industry will have a major impact on this problem. Battery powered vehicles will be an important contributor but they will not solve the petroleum import problem. Basically, if all cars and light duty trucks were hybrids, only about a 30 percent reduction in imported oil would be realized. America will still import more than 10 millions barrels of oil a day!
Sound and sustainable U.S. energy policy needs to refocus on the real problem rather than casting about to solve a problem like climate change that is further out in the future and much more speculative. If a comprehensive approach were taken to petroleum substitution, many of the alternatives to imported oil would also improve the environmental quality.
But our policy makers must become more open minded and less ideological. They need to consider a full range of options such as: improved nuclear power where nuclear waste is recycled; synthetic liquid fuel derived from coal incorporating environmentally friendly concepts; cellulosic biomass and bio waste that utilize small scale distributive approaches, and waste energy that captures rejected heat and stranded fuels. Taken together, these alternatives can dramatically reduce America’s dependence on imported oil and drastically reduce the $500 billion a year leaving our economy and going overseas.
Energy policy that focuses on becoming energy independent will simplify U.S. foreign policy, improve homeland security, reduce our defense budget and pay a high dividend to our balance of payment trade deficit.
Jerry Mader is energy research director of the Transportation Energy Center (TEC) at the University of Michigan, as well as chief executive officer of Energy Technology Components, LLC, of Ann Arbor.
Comments
shepard145
Fri, Jan 1, 2010 : 12:39 p.m.
Im confused when reading pieces like this. I dont know whether the writers are attempting to manipulate the American public or a UM Energy Research Director, a 60s era industrial engineering graduate, is so insulated in his academic brick tower that he is ignorant of the real world. Like the global warming fanatics, we know that political agendas are routinely used to trample scientific truth. Like Jerry, many people fundamentally misunderstand the economics of oil, as well as the possible solutions available to us. Fact is, the only way to achieve "oil independence" is by removing oil form our economy. So long as we consume oil, we're subject costs and burdens of the GLOBAL COMMODITY MARKET for oil. It doesn't matter whether we produce the oil ourselves, import it, or import it only from friendly regimes. So long as we consume oil, quibbling about imports or trade partners is superficial and ultimately doesn't address the "independence" issue at all. The entire notion of "oil independence" is a lie. If you want to address the US trade deficit, thats another story. The trade deficit problem seems to move in and out of these confused babblings as though it is the same issuebut of course its not. Should Exxon and others be allowed to continue their business and drill for more oil (by our emerging socialist government), their profits will increase as our trade deficit is reduced..but we know how democrats feel about shareholder owned companies making a profit since obama was elected its a big problem for them even when building wealth is the only way to create jobs. ALTERNATE FUELS If you want to see how folks like Jerry are at dictating fuels to the US Market with central government control, look around the nation at the half built and abandoned ethanol plants that we all paid for. Your representatives ignored the market and cast our tax dollars to the chosen politically connected few who hungrily took our money and built plants for a fuel with 60% of the energy of gasoline, more expensive to make, absorbs water, cant be piped and caused a massive increase in food costs. So much for government bureaucrats (lawyers and career government lackeys) telling the market what to do. Stay tuned to the same treatment for the auto industry as obama and his socialist government central planning stooges force companies their government now controls to make cars Americans do not want and will not buy. Why? Because obama uses all the power of his legal education to determine that if you drive the a small enough car the earth's climate will get cooler! LOL and check out where hybrids get their power - breaking? Do you really think most commuters do enough breaking to save 30%?! LOL Heres a splash of reality Jerry - depending on the model, at $2.91 per gallon, hybrids take between 4.5 and 143 years just to recover the extra money those poor buyers paid with gas savings! ANSWER The answer is that there are no easy answers. As long as the government is engaged in central planning, prosperity taxes and blocking private businesses from creating wealth: jobs will be killed, homes will foreclose and poverty will spread like a plague across the United States as our economy is strangled under the democrat party boot. Unfortunately, academics like Jerry here seem divorced from the real world and have become a big part of the problem.
DonBee
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : 12:48 p.m.
Simple measures may be the best answers. 1) Use of Vertical Heating towers on the south wall of the home (most homes can reduce heating costs by 50 to 70 percent). Towers are easy to build, paint and install - there is a set of articles in Mother Earth News. 2) Use of glycol filled solar thermal heaters on the roof - they are a big update from the 1960/70s stuff that leaked and was hard to maintain - Hot water and space heating will little additional energy 3) Caulk, insulation, and vent zoning - keeping the heat or cooling where you want it. 4) Upgrading furnaces and hot water heaters, same for windows and air conditioners - more efficiency means less energy input for the same effect. 5) Changing light bulbs and putting them on timers - again more efficiency. All of this can be done with small amounts of money that pays back quickly. The right thing to do is to think when you buy a new appliance or have time to do some fix up around the house, or shop for light bulbs. With a little planning over the course of a couple of years, you can cut your utilities bills by 20 or 30 percent.
packman
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : noon
The French are laughing at us.
Top Cat
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : 9:47 a.m.
Diagenes is right on the mark. To the extent there is an "energy crisis" in this country, it is because we have restricted drilling for oil and gas. As well, we have not used nuclear power to the extent that the French and many other countries have. Becoming energy self sufficient is possible and it would create a lot or real jobs.
pseudo
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : 9:42 a.m.
I agree we need to become more energy independent but I don't agree with his logic leaps from there and battery powered cars are not an answer. I would rather we look at the generation/capture of energy, the distribution (a diminished role for the grid)and how we consume energy. Battery cars that attach to the grid do NOTHING in the larger picture. Further burdening a shaky grid is not in our best interests. Why not put such money into smaller local clean generation facilities in a more de-centralized and less energy/utility company dependent and lower cost infrastructure? We spend so much money building these huge pollutant producing facilities with large accident risks and larger liabilities for huge companies that are mostly administration instead of production. Break that model and we'll really be getting somewhere.
Diagenes
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : 9:38 a.m.
What can you put in a tea cup that will lift 1000 lbs. 1000 feet high? Oil. It is still the most dense energy source we have and there is a lot of it in the U.S. Oil and natural gas production in this country would create alot of jobs and produce badly needed tax revenues to the states and federal government.
Ignatz
Mon, Dec 28, 2009 : 8:36 a.m.
...or we can stop buying low MPG vehicles, not drive so much and invest in more efficient mass transit.