A Serious Plan for Oil Independence

(Posted by John.)

In my last post, I mentioned that the recent "find" by Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico seems better timed to influence Washington politics, and that I expected some Congressperson to start (continue?) talking about drilling our way to oil independence.  The idea that we can drill our way to independence, or even keep America's oil production from further declines for any serious period of time, is hallucinatory.  Any serious plan for oil independence has to have, at it's foundation, a plan for using less oil.  Period.

Fortunately, the journal Science has recently published such a plan, and it's one that should be treated very, very seriously.

I haven't read the study, sadly, because my University cut off my access to online journals due to some silly technicality about me "not attending this institution anymore."  However, James Fraser at The Energy Blog has a basic rundown of the plan, which involves much more than just oil - it's a comprehensive plan to de-carbonize the entire US economy.  Some details:

• By far the largest share of oil (and CO2) savings would come from electrifying transport wherever possible.  Trains would be electrified (as is near-universal in Europe) and cars would be plug-in hybrids or fully electric cars.  This would eliminate approximately 2/3 of transportation-related oil consumption in the US.  The biggest untouched slice of the pie would presumably be air travel, for which there is no electric substitute.  (Yet.)


• This switch (from petroleum to electrons) requires a major investment in electrical generation and transmission.  New generation would be either renewables (hydro, solar, wind) or nuclear.  Much as I am loath to admit it (being pretty anti-nuclear) powering light-duty cars and trucks is an excellent role for nuclear.


• Where electrical substitution is impossible, petroleum would be replaced with synthetic fuels using Fisher-Tropsch chemistry, a more efficient (though currently uneconomical) process than current fermentation methods.


• The total price tag is estimated to be $170-$200 billion a year for 30 years.

Now, before you balk at that price tag, the lower estimate is about what Bush has raised US defense spending above Clinton-era levels.  For those extra billions, the US has lost the aura of invincibility it had after the Kosovo War.  If you accept Joe Stiglitz' estimates for the total costs of the Iraq war, they come to about half of this plan - and this plan promises something the Iraq War was supposed to deliver, namely cheaper gas prices.

While it's an impressive long-term plan, what's most important is that the biggest, fastest, and cheapest savings (the low-hanging fruit, as it were) comes from plug-in hybrids.  The authors state that this alone would replace 80% of gasoline use.  If my math is right, and if I'm reading Jim's summary right (two possible sources of error) that could be as much as a 40% chunk of US total petroleum consumption substituted away for electricity.  Much, though not most, of that can be had without building any new power plants.

This is the most important thing to take away from this and any other plan:  any pundit, politician, or other author who talks about reducing oil use without mentioning some form of electrification is just wasting your time.  If they're a public servant, they're wasting your money, too.  Even people who don't drive plug-ins will benefit from the lowered demand in the market, though that's admittedly speculative.  Chinese and Indian demand has grown so quickly lately that it would probably pay for everyone to get a plug-in soon.

Now we just need somebody to make the bloody things.