Posted on 03/29/2005 6:09:49 PM PST by NutCrackerBoy
The explosion of a BP oil refinery not far from Houston last week left at least 15 dead and over 100 wounded. It also served as the latest, vivid reminder of a truth we have for too long chosen to ignore: This nation is dangerously vulnerable to severe economic dislocation and possibly dire national-security threats as a result of its excessive reliance on imported oil and the infrastructure that transforms most of that oil into fuel for our transportation sector.
Of course, the limited number of aging and, in some cases at least, increasingly dangerous refineries is but one aspect of this vulnerability. It is not a trivial one, however. Even before this mishap in Texas, domestic demand for gasoline was so high and the capacity to meet it so constrained that refineries had to coordinate scheduled maintenance lest supply fall short, resulting in lines at gas stations across the country. We will be very lucky if this as-yet-unexplained incident does not produce such an outcome, as well as still-higher prices at the pump.
Terrorists have certainly figured out that such impacts can be achieved — and possibly much worse — with attacks on other parts of the international infrastructure upon which the United States currently relies for more than 50 percent of its oil needs. Under present circumstances, pipelines blown in Iraq and Saudi Arabia have a ripple effect that can extend to America. Ports and loading facilities can be attacked and taken offline for months or years at a time. Oil-laden tankers can be sunk at sea, with both devastating ecological and perhaps strategic consequences.
Even in the absence of our enemies exploiting the vulnerabilities associated with our dependence on foreign oil, we confront another unsavory reality: Many of those benefiting from the West's purchase of such imported energy are regimes that are unstable or hostile, or both. As a result, the tens of billions of petrodollars flowing to terrorist-sponsoring states each year translate into income that is available, in part, to people trying to kill us — clearly, an untenable situation if we are serious about prevailing in this War on Terror.
Finally, there is the matter of China. As the prospects for sustaining the kind of economic growth necessary to assure the Communist party's future hold on power become more and more dependent upon imports of energy from abroad, the PRC's aggressiveness in securing these resources is likely to grow concomitantly. Dreadful wars have been precipitated by concerns over access to such resources. If our demand or theirs grows even faster than expected, or supply proves to be less — or less reliable — than expected, a casus belli could quickly develop between a rapidly arming China and an over-extended United States.
The good news is that there are things we can do now to begin dramatically reducing our reliance on imported oil. A blueprint for energy security has been developed (it can be found at SetAmericaFree.org) to respond to the national security emergency arising from that dependency. It would take advantage of available technologies to make widely available vehicles that can utilize indigenously produced alternative fuels.
Vehicles: Stunning reductions in the consumption of imported oil can be achieved by exploiting the following, existing techniques: "Flexible Fuel Vehicles" that can run on gasoline or alcohol-based fuels, either exclusively or in combination; "hybrid" vehicles which can be powered by either an internal combustion engine or a battery, and "plug-in hybrids," a further refinement that enables the vehicle's battery to be recharged at a standard electrical outlet when not in use. Vehicles utilizing all three can achieve the fuel efficiency equivalent of 500 miles per gallon of gasoline.
Fuel Diversification: We currently have the ability to produce alcohol-based fuels (ethanol and methanol) from biomass, dedicated energy crops, waste products and "clean coal." Moreover, diesel fuels can be created from soybean and other vegetable oils, tires and animal byproducts, as well as coal. Such diversity of supply would greatly reduce the danger associated with more of our existing refineries suffering catastrophic failures, either accidentally or by design.
Since scarcely any electricity in this country is generated from oil, utilizing the grid to power the transportation sector can begin to be accomplished at once — without increasing demand for imported energy. In fact, thanks to the existing grid's excess capacity at night, it should be possible to support up to 30 percent of the nation's vehicles equipped with plug-in batteries of 20-mile range and not have to expand electricity-generation.
Integrating ultralight materials and fuel additives (some of which can enhance combustion efficiency by up to 25 percent) can also materially help diminish our present reliance on foreign oil and our attendant vulnerability, without compromising safety, performance, or cost-effectiveness.
In short, we have a problem at the moment, Houston, arising from our most ill-advised reliance on imported oil. The cost of the blueprint that can help "Set America Free" is estimated to be about $12 billion over four years. This is but a fraction of what other, ambitious national undertakings have cost. For example, the Manhattan Project in today's dollars would have had a price tag of $20 billion; the Apollo program, $100 billion. The return on investment of such a new, visionary endeavor — both in terms of enhancing our national security and safeguarding our economic well-being — promise to be immense. And the truth of the matter is, we cannot afford to remain vulnerable to problems that could well make yesterday's refinery explosion pale by comparison.
— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a contributing editor to NRO.
Why does the government need to get involved?
Article 1 Section 8 does describe roles for government in encouraging innovation and creating infrastructure.
The legislative overhead of an energy policy, and the manpower to carry it out, is nothing compared to the existing mountains of rules and regs and litigations and detritus of a dozen social engineering snafus.
bump for later
Allright. Boy, I sure missed Ariana Huffington! But now, we have neocon nutjob Gaffney spouting the same stuff.
I don't know the value of Gaffney's ideas, but they are worth kicking around. Transportation beginning to feed off the grid could be a win.
Gaffney (along with former CIA director Woolsey) have, in my view, correctly identified not only a major national security issue (and its attendant associations with terrorism, dealing with unstable regimes, and the long list of vulnerabilities that naturally follow), but have also identified a solution.
What is puzzling to me as a frequent reader (but shy poster) on FR is the apparent resistance to the Gaffney solution from thoughful conservatives. Instead, it seems (and I could be wrong here), most readers find any solution other than "give me gasoline at $1 a gallon and natural gas at (pick your price)" unacceptable. This is odd, given the general (and, in my view, correct) bias to market-based solutions which, jawboning the oil-producers aside, will almost certainly mean much more expensive oil and natural gas as time goes on (note that the US is no longer self-sufficient even in natural gas).
While we can get a benefit from more drilling, given the massive demand (and massively INCREASING demand, especially from rapidly growing economies in Asia), the inevitable result will be increased cost. In America, much of this will be indirect and NOT seen by the marketplace, thus distorting market forces. Examples include, but are not limited to, the costs of keeping the sea-lanes open (especially in very dangerous places in the world such as in and around Indonesia where much of the super-tanker traffic to the US flows), occasional military interventions that are explictly taken to keep oil flowing, and perhaps (emphasis; "PERHAPS") unknown environmental impacts.
Gaffney and Woolsey have picked up on a solution that others (and I am among them) have been trying to promote for sometime (see, for example, a recent FR posting by woofie at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1395958/posts?page=1). What is puzzling is how little response this particular posting (or woofie's posting) seem to get from thoughtful conservatives. Trying to put aside the banal explanation that some people believe their lifestyles are threatened when any alternative to oil burning is proffered, I wonder if we can gather together some cogent observations on why the Gaffney solution seems to have to little traction.
As a scientist -- and purely from the scientific perspective -- the calculations, efficiencies, and even performance characteristics of partially electric-powered cars (for the deeper readers: including 10 kw-hrs or more of on board storage, power rates well in excess of 200 horsepower and driving ranges on electricity alone of 50+ miles per overnight charge at less than 1 cent per mile and REDUCED maintenance costs) are very compelling.
So, at the risk of seeming to ask a rhetorical question: why aren't we as a society (or government) implenting this technology now? What am I and other solutions-oriented scientists missing? Professor Andy Frank of UC has proven it, and battery prices are ALREADY coming down (and will drop precipitously with large scale implementation). One recent article that patient readers may want to review is:
http://www.calcars.org/kudos.html
Or, we can just rant and get little done.
Respectfully submitted in the hopes of advancing the discussion. AL Z.
bump
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