HOW TO GET OFF OIL

How to End America's Addiction to Oil; By using more electricity, natural gas and biofuels in our transportation fleet, we can quickly reduce our dependence on OPEC
R. James Woolsey (former CIA Director), April 15, 2010 (Wall Street Journal)

"At the end of March, oil posted its fifth consecutive quarterly price increase…If it reaches $125 a barrel again, as it did in 2008, then approximately half the wealth in the world—above and below ground—will be controlled by OPEC nations.

"…[T]hree-quarters of the world's reserves of conventional oil are in OPEC nations. But OPEC is pumping less than it did in the 1970s…OPEC sets oil's price at a level that exploits our addiction…Oil profits enhance the ability of dictators and autocrats to dominate their people…Saudi Arabia's oil wealth enables it to control around 90% of the world's Islamic institutions even though it has less than 2% of the world's Muslims. So the teaching in most Islamic schools is not the tolerant form of Islam…The effect is that we now are financing both sides in our war with radical Islam."

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"Yet so far every national policy we've tried to end our oil addiction has failed…It was too easy for OPEC to drive prices down and crush such costly competition…Supporters of cap-and-trade legislation have argued that putting a price on carbon would help us get off oil. But the effect of this would be negligible. Twenty dollars a ton of CO2 equates to about 20 cents a gallon at the gasoline pump…[But] OPEC has very large reserves and cheap extraction costs, while domestic drilling costs for new oil will be many times that of the Saudis. We can't drill our way out of the cartel's control…

"Shifting the way we produce electricity also has essentially nothing to do with oil dependence; less than 2% of U.S. electricity comes from burning oil…We urgently need to reduce oil dependence in the short term. This means lowering demand and utilizing substitutes as cheaply and quickly as possible. Here are four strategies…"

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"First, we should take advantage of electronic modifications that are being developed for internal combustion engines in existing vehicles…Second, we should pay attention to T. Boone Pickens's recommendations to switch to natural gas for fleet vehicles such as buses, and for interstate trucking…Third, we should force petroleum products to compete with other fuels…[by deploying] "drop-in" fuels produced from waste and algae…[and] require all new gasoline-using vehicles to be "flexible fuel, open standard."

"…Fourth, we should move to electrify automotive transportation. Plug-in hybrids are on the road now (I drive one), and production models such as the Chevy Volt, due out this autumn, can drive electrically for roughly 40 miles before needing to plug in or to use on-board liquid fuel…All-electric vehicles now exist and their range will improve as battery technology does…We can move quickly to strike a major blow at oil and OPEC's dominance if we'll adopt a portfolio approach and stop allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good…[We] need Theodore Roosevelt's attitude. He decided to improve competition by taking on Standard Oil's cartel…President Obama, meet your cartel. It's called OPEC."