Energy Independence: Just Do It

On the issue of attaining U.S. energy independence, at least one presidential contender doesn’t mince words — just do it, he says, and the sooner, the better.

As far he is concerned, the time for energy independence was yesterday — actually some three decades ago — not some distant time in the future.

In an op-ed piece that appeared today in Real Clear Politics, a Web-based journal of political news and opinion, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says Americans should have started the move toward energy independence way back in the 1970s, “when oil prices spiked and there were long lines at gas stations.”

Unfortunately, he says, Presidents Nixon and Carter talked a lot about attaining energy efficiency, though little of substance was accomplished.

Now is the time to follow through with this vision, says Guiliani says, adding that “it will require setting goals, sticking to them and energizing the American people to achieve them.”

Giuliani considers it an embarrassment that a developing country such as Brazil is so far ahead of the world’s leading economy in terms of energy efficiency.

“It should be the other way around,” Giuliani writes. “Seventy percent of the new cars sold in Brazil can use ethanol. In the United States, there’s only a very small percentage.”

Ethanol also is readily available at most gas stations in Brazil — not the case in the United States.

As far as Giuliani is concerned, the solution is a no-brainer — “more growth in ethanol,” because the more we use of this alternative fuel the less reliant we are on other parts of the globe, especially the volatile Middle East.

Likewise, Giuliani believes the path to energy independence will be diverse and may even involve making greater use of resources viewed with suspicion if not outright dread by some groups. He lauds France for the strides it has made in nuclear power — efforts that have placed it way ahead of the United States, which, ironically, “invented the peaceful use of nuclear power.”

Currently, almost 80 percent electricity in France is supplied by nuclear power. By comparison, the United States, which hasn’t licensed a new nuclear plant in some three decades, derives only about 20 percent of its electricity from this source — a share that is expected to dwindle sometime in the future to 15 percent barring a change of attitude, Giuliani contends.

America also has more coal than Saudi Arabia has energy — a source that could pay rich dividends in terms of energy independence, providing some cost-effective way were found to capitalize on clean coal, he says.

Giuliani’s views closely parallel those of Mark Hall, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s renewable energy specialist, who not only is not running for president but has every intention of sticking with his current day job.

Nevertheless, with the same zeal as Giuliani and other politicians on both sides of the political divide, Hall has frequently expressed loudly and passionately the need for American policymakers to map out a blueprint for energy independence and stick with it — through thick and thin, as he likes to say. Likewise, he agrees with Giuliani that the path to energy independence will be broad rather than straight and narrow.

“Policymakers and Americans in general also should bear in mind that renewable fuels make up a very big picture and complicated picture,” says Hall, writing in an opinion-editorial featured in the Birmingham News in October 2006.

Indeed, Hall believes that the current crop of biofuels may comprise only the first step in what undoubtedly will amount to a long path toward energy independence. He has even described these alternative energy sources as “bridge technologies” — approaches “that will help us gain a measure of self-sufficiency until more lucrative technologies can be developed.”

Like the former New York City mayor, Hall believes the biggest initial impetus necessarily must come from government. Government incentives, he believes, are essential for putting the national squarely on the path toward energy self-sufficiency.

For his part, Giuliani likens his vision of energy independence to President Eisenhower’s goal of America becoming the first nation to explore the moon. Ike’s vision succeeded, Giuliani believes, because it was shared by his immediate successors: Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

“That’s two Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents — not thinking about partisan interests, but thinking about the national interest,” he writes. That is the way America achieves great goals.”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at July 26, 2007 04:54 PM