Energy of all types is the life blood of our economy.  Without sufficient supplies of energy at an affordable price the economic engine of the US will struggle.  What is the energy policy of the United States?  From my perspective we don't have anything worthy of the name.  Do we believe that we must have energy security as part of our national security?  I have no desire to sit in gas lines like I did in  the early 1970's during the OPEC oil embargo. 

President Bush outlined some research and development projects in his 2006 State of the Union address that will not have any meaningful economic impact in the energy markets in the foreseeable future.  I am sure that the Department of Energy has a bunch of pet projects that they are funding.  The big oil companies appear to be moving ahead with their business plans because their business in many respects transcends the policies of national governments.

There are lots of problems with obtaining, processing, distributing and consuming all types of energy.  Every step of the process for every kind of energy creates a problem for somebody.  Some types of energy sources are cleaner than others.  Some types of energy are cheaper than others.  Some types of energy are more efficient than others.  No type of energy is both cheap and clean and available in large volumes for consumers to use.

There are three fundamental types of energy required to drive our economy.  The first is the energy required for mobility, i.e. cars, trucks, planes, railroads, buses, subways, barges, and boats.  The second type of energy is required for general electrical power requirements and HVAC for fixed applications, i.e. homes, offices, factories and buildings of all types,  The third is the energy used during the industrial product creation process, i.e. chemicals, plastics, and other manufactured products.

The potential sources of energy are wide ranging and include, crude oil, natural gas, oil shale/sands, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, ocean waves, river water flow, wood and grains/grasses.  The single most important energy source today is crude oil.  Crude oil is processed into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil and other products.  More than half of our crude oil is imported and a significant percentage of our imports are from the Middle East.  We send our dollars to the Middle East in exchange for crude oil.  A portion of those dollars are then used to finance international terrorists and the conflict in the Middle East.  Our thirst for crude oil is a direct threat to our own national security and our national financial health as well.

This is a vast subject area and one cannot discuss the totality of our energy issues in one essay.  But there are reasonable actions that can be taken to reduce our dependency on foreign crude oil.  However, compromises must be made by everyone in order for our energy industry to be restructured in a reasonable time frame. 

The single most important element of the energy policy is that we must have an absolute reduction in the annual consumption of all crude oil combined with an increase in the production of domestically produced crude oil and domestically produced fuels that can directly substitute for crude oil.  This combination will force a reduction in the importation of crude oil and foreign refined crude oil products such as gasoline. 

We must conduct our lives with a higher level of energy efficiency.   We need to make buying decisions on all vehicles with energy efficiency an important consideration.  We need to get a good handle on when new engine technologies (hydrogen, fuel cells) can be brought to market cost effectively.  At the same time it makes no sense to pay thousands of dollars more for a vehicle that is more energy efficient when you can't recover the extra cost of the vehicle through reduced fuel costs over its life.  We need to conserve energy by being smarter about how we use energy in our daily lives.  We need to think more intelligently about how we consume all types of energy. 

The second step in reducing demand is to mandate an increase in the price of foreign crude oil and refined products in the US market.  This can be done by establishing a significant tax on foreign imports from outside of North America.  Imports from Canada and Mexico would be treated the same as domestic US production.  All tax receipts would be offset by reductions in other federal taxes or used to help eliminate the budget deficit.  The second step is to eliminate production restrictions on federal lands in Alaska and areas off the east and west coasts of the US.  In the past few decades we have deliberately restricted growth in production of crude oil on US territory.  In doing so we have increased the risk to our national security and financial well being as a nation. 

At the same time we must encourage the full development of ethanol and ethanol like products from a wide variety of grains and grasses in a manner which is actually energy efficient.  We need to answer fundamental questions about the life cycle energy efficiency of these types of fuels.  We also need to determine if coal conversion into liquid fuels can be competitive with other fuels.  We have to make sure that new vehicles sold in the US are manufactured with the ability operate on gasoline or diesel and substitute fuels.

Another area that we must fully exploit is solar energy.  We have been experimenting with solar energy for about 30 years without a major commitment to making it a significant part of the power grid.  Why are we not building massive solar power fields in the southern California desert, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and tying them to the national power grid to displace fossil fuel based power sources.  Our forefathers built Hoover Dam in the middle of nowhere in the desert southwest why can't we build the twenty-first century solar powered Hoover Dam.  Why are cities like Yuma, Arizona or Barstow, California not 90 percent supplied by solar power.

We must recommit to building nuclear power plants for base electrical power generation throughout the nation.  We must address all of the issues that nuclear power brings to the table.  Massive amounts of cheap power can be made available to all if proper planning for the life-cycle of nuclear plants is managed properly.

If there are niche opportunities to use new clean technologies to produce electrical power for the national grid we must make sure those opportunities are allowed to proceed at a reasonable pace.  We need a process for quick approval of these projects.

These are just a few specific ideas that need to be incorporated into our national energy policy.  We must take action soon or we will continue put the life blood of our nation at risk in the hands of foreign sources of energy.


Copyright 2006 by TPM