Flex Fuel

 

 

Changing the World One Gallon at a Time

By Anne Korin & R. James Woolsey

Turning Oil into Salt

We must become independent—not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.

 

A determined pack has begun to race its engines and to try to shoulder us off the road toward energy independence. It’s time for those determined to stay on the track to drive aggressively.

The energy-independence question is about oil—the rest of U.S. energy use presents important issues, but not the danger of our being subject to the control of nations that “do not particularly like us,” as the president put it.  Some engine racers have an economic interest in keeping our transportation system 97% oil-dependent.  Less understandable are the authors of a recent Council on Foreign Relations report accusing those working for such independence of “doing the nation a disservice.”

Authors and followers of that report define “independence” contrary to both Webster’s dictionary and common sense, as essentially “autarky”—i.e. complete self-sufficiency—not importing oil even though we remain dependent on it.  This Pickwickian definition captures none of the thinking of serious advocates to reduce our oil dependence:  The point of independence is not to be an economic hermit, but rather be a free agent.  It’s true that some promoting oil independence spice their remarks by implying that we might substitute oil from domestic sources, or from our near neighbors for cheap Middle Eastern imports, and then somehow manage to insulate ourselves from the world oil market. 

But speechwriters’ tropes shouldn’t be taken as serious policy proposals.  Geology will not cooperate in any such fantasy.  There is no reasonable way we can leave oil in place as the near-exclusive fuel for the world’s transportation systems and simultaneously wall ourselves off from the world oil market.  If we want to end dependence on the whims of OPEC’s despots, the substantial instabilities of the Middle East, and indignity of paying for both sides in the War on Terror, we must define oil independence sensibly, as doing whatever is necessary to avoid oil’s being the instrument of despotic leverage and foreign chaos.  Those who won our independence as a nation did not just fling imported tea into Boston harbor, they did what was necessary to wrest themselves from British control.  We need not call out the Minutemen, but to avoid consequences of dependence we must become independent not just of imported oil, but of oil itself.  Does this mean we can’t use oil or import any?  No.  Oil is a useful commodity that can readily transport energy long distances.  It already has competition from natural gas in industry and from gas and electricity for heating.  But in transportation brooks no competition— 

it is thus not just a commodity but a strategic commodity.  Oil’s monopoly on transportation gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production and the  monopoly must be broken.  To tell us that in following this path we are doing a “disservice to the nation” and should resign ourselves to oil dependence is like us not urging an alcoholic to stop drinking, but rather impress upon him the health advantages of red wine. 

Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the 19 Century salt had such a position because it was the only means to preserve meat.  Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were fought to control them.  Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines.  Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes.  We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not salt independent.  But to most there is no salt dependence problem at all.  Electricity and refrigeration ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance.

We can and must do the same with oil.  By utilizing the batteries developed for modern electronics we can soon have plug-in hybrids that travel 20-40 miles on an inexpensive charge of nighttime off-peak electricity at a small fraction of gasoline’s cost.  (After that distance plug-ins work as ordinary hybrids.)  Dozens of ordinary hybrids converted to plug-ins now on the road are getting in the range of 100 mpg of gasoline.  And millions of flexible-fuel vehicles are also in the fleet.  Producing them adds costs well under $100 and they can use up to 85% ethanol (before long to be made from biomass rather than corn)—methanol, butanol, and other alternative fuels produced from grasses and even waste.

A flex-fuel plug in hybrid that combines a 100 mpg of gasoline plug in hybrid with liquid fuel flexibility, is approaching a utility of 500 miles per gallon of gasoline (each gallon of gasoline is stretched by electricity and alternative liquid fuels). And other oil-breaking technologies are on the way.  

When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the newly-independent Americans asked their band to play, “The World Turned Upside Down.”  

Get ready for a reprise.