Prologue

      When I first posted this article in June 2008, the price of oil was well over $120 per barrel and the prices of gasoline and diesel over $4.00 per gallon at the pumps.  In the span of only a month, those prices have risen to over $145 per barrel and over $4.50 per gallon respectively.  The "urgency of now" has never been more apropos in describing our situation.  As a result, I have reworked my original article; reprioritizing a few recommendations; adding some new ones with the goal of addressing immediate needs before long-term directions.  I have retained the original article as posted in June, should you wish to compare it with this revision.

      In her book "Anne Frank Remembered", Miep Gies describes how the sturdy Dutch bicycles were as much a part of the Dutch cultural identity as any flag.  When the Nazis occupied Holland in WW-II, they made a point of forbidding Jews from owning bicycles as much to isolate them from Dutch society as to hinder any escape.  To BE Dutch is to ride your bike.

      Americans are like that with our cars.  We are a mobile nation.  It's in our genetic makeup.  Ultimately, all of us came from somewhere else; all immigrants who traveled vast distances and endured many hardships along the way; asking nothing more than a fair shot at the American Dream.  For Americans to feel truly American, a private vehicle on the open road is not just a preference; it is an essential part of who we are.

      Ironic, then, that this very symbol of American freedom, our beloved automobile, should also be the iron shackle that enslaves us to the oiligarchy and the vehicle, if you will, of our own economic downfall.  We are the nation which put footprints on the Moon!  Certainly we can solve this crisis.  But where to start?


      A Look at American Oil Consumption

      The first step in any journey is to have a good map showing where you are and where you want to go.  Here, then, is a map of American oil consumption...

-- Approximately 7% of America's total annual oil consumption is used to heat and cool residential & business properties.
-- About 1.75% of America's annual consumption is used for rail freight and rail transport fuel.
-- A little over .75% is used for public transport and short-range official vehicles fuels.
-- About 4.5% is used for construction and farm equipment fuels.
-- Ships and aircraft account for about 9% and 16% respectively, while the petrochemical industry accounts for roughly 12%.

I will address the approximately 4% of our total annual oil consumption to produce electrical power in a later section entitled "A New Kind of Powerplant^*1".  For now, if we tally all the above uses of oil (55%), we are left with 45% - close to half - of our total annual consumption going to private and commercial vehicle fuels.  Now, here's the $64,000 question...

What percentage of America's total annual oil consumption is imported?

Answer: about 65%

      Shocking, isn't it?  Combine the 45% consumed by private and commercial road vehicles with the rail, public vehicle, and farm/construction consumption and nearly ALL our imported oil - 52% of our total annual consumption - is accounted for by ground vehicles of one form or another!  Obviously, then, transport fuels are our most pressing problem.  So, what is the solution to that problem?


      Solving the Short Term Problem

      There is no ONE short-term solution.  Neither is there an immediate one.  As pained as I am to say this, it took the Oiligarchy nearly a century to get us into this mess and even with emergency national programs on a scale with the Manhattan Project or Apollo Program, it's going to take at least a year or two to provide some relief.  Here, then are some short-term solutions. 

      Currently, there are approximately 250 Million registered vehicles on America's roads today.  Of those 250 Million vehicles, up to 8% are capable of using E85 Flex Fuel or BioDiesel just as they are.  Another 36% are capable of being retrofitted to use E85 or BioDiesel.  That means around 110 Million vehicles on the road RIGHT NOW either can use - or can be converted to use - fuels based substantially on biomass.

      Thus, for our immediate gasoline crisis, it seems logical for our Congress to provide major subsidies and tax incentives to build vertical biomass farms immediately adjacent to a nationwide network of Ethanol and BioDiesel plants; all built as close to demand as possible to cut transport costs.  It also seems logical for our Congress to provide the same sort of legislative stimulus given to Hummer owners, to assist car and truck owners to retrofit existing vehicles for E85 FlexFuel and BioDiesel, or to purchase new FlexFuel and BioDiesel vehicles over the next two years.  I'll explain the need for that two year sunset provision shortly.

      As much as I loathe agreeing with T. Boone Pickens - a kingpin of the energy cartel - on anything, I have to acknowledge that the natural gas elements of his "Pickens Plan" can contribute to easing our short-term fuel needs (if predominantly for fleet vehicles and long-haul trucking).  Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and to a lesser extent Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) conversions should also be covered in legislative incentives to individuals or organizations; again only during the next two years.  Again, why the two year sunset?


      Part One of the Long-Term Solution: A New Kind of Car

      Two years from now, a truly 21^st Century, mass production car will be rolling off the General Motors assembly lines and into showrooms across America.  The Chevy "Volt" will be fast, clean, quiet, and (if our government does things right), priced to move.  I'm not making a sales pitch for GM here.  GM is, after all, the company which brought us the Hummer and has consistently demonstrated an almost pathological resistance to innovation.  Which only makes the Volt that much more amazing.  The car is pure innovation.

      Compiling ideas for this article half a year ago, I knew nothing about the Volt.  I knew only that a totally different kind of vehicle would be needed to break us free of foreign oil.  I knew it would be primarily electric with possibly a small E85 engine for times and places where recharging would be impossible.  I even started working on some preliminary design sketches; did some research on variable speed AC drive motors; looked into control electronics, ultracaps, etc.  The car I was trying to design was the Volt.

      What makes GM's car unique is that unlike most current gas/electric hybrids, the Volt's gas engine is not directly connected to the powertrain (transmission, drive-shaft, axles, wheels).  The small, flex-fuel (E85) engine is little more than a generator to replenish the batteries when driving beyond the base 40 mile range of a full charge.  This engine gives the car a total range of a little over 400 miles on a full battery charge and a full fuel tank of about 6-7 gallons.  GM engineers are also looking at an equally small bio-diesel engine as an option.

      The Volt and similar plug-in hybrids won't allow us to break completely free of oil as a transport fuel, but over a five to ten year period, we could see a reduction of that 45% of total annual consumption to something more like 18%.  With E85 Flex Fuel and bio-diesel becoming more prevalent, that figure might fall even further to around 11-13% of total consumption.

      You may now begin to understand the need for a major rebuild of our aging electrical grid.  Over time, plug-in hybrids and pure plug-in electric vehicles from GM and other automakers will place ever increasing demands on that grid.  It makes financial as well as practical sense to prepare for that demand now.


      Part Two of the Long-Term Solution: A New Kind of Power Grid

      Converting our nation's transportation from internal combustion to electricity is going to require a LOT of electricity.  If we hope to cut our oil imports even further by converting heating ventilation and cooling (HVAC) systems, public vehicles, rail, and farm/construction equipment to electricity, we will need many TeraWatts of electricity.

      Our existing power grid is already groaning under current demand.  I think we all remember the rolling blackouts in the West and the BIG blackout along the entire East Coast.  We need a system that can readily handle a 30% increase in load within five years, with a flexible enough architecture to handle a 60-70% increase within 15 years.  Our current hodge-podge of interconnected carriers cannot possibly service those demands.

      As a nation, we have learned (often the hard way), that some ventures are best left to private enterprise while some are of a scale and a strategic importance so great that only our national government can be entrusted with the task.  In light of the Enron scandal and other energy sector misdeeds, I firmly believe we need a comprehensive PUBLIC program, on a scale with our Interstate Highway System, to rebuild our decrepid electrical grid into an advanced power transmission infrastructure.

      One of the major shortcomings of electricity as a power source is its transient nature.  Fossil fuels and radioactive materials can be stored for long periods of time and lose little of their potential energy.  Electricity, once generated, must be used immediately, or just go to waste.  The most sophisticated batteries available today can only be used in small-scale applications and begin losing energy even as they're being charged.  Long-haul transmission lines claim even more of electricity's potential energy.  Key elements, therefore, of an advanced electrical grid would be a means of STORING large amounts of energy during off-peak periods and improvements in reducing transmission line losses.

      Recent advances in SuperCapacitor technology have yielded capacities tens of thousands of times greater than regular capacitors.  UltraCapacitor prototypes currently in development promise capacities a hundredfold greater still.  Building UltraCapacitor "farms" at locations throughout the nation close to high-demand centers such as industrial parks, steel mills, etc., would solve much of the energy storage issue.  Unlike batteries, "SuperCaps" and "UltraCaps" pose significantly less threat to our environment than batteries, last longer, and can actually provide much higher energy densities.  Thus, while my point in mentioning them relates to large-scale energy consumers, they are equally applicable to much smaller energy storage applications such as electric vehicles.

      Long-Haul transmission line losses in conventional High Voltage Alternating Current systems are nothing new.  Great strides have been made over the last century to minimize those losses, but basic physics and economics impose limits which we've been stuck with ever since Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla had their falling out during the DC vs. AC "War of the Currents".  From their feud in the late 1890's up to the late 1930's, AC remained dominant as the most efficient means of transmitting large quantities of electricity over distance.

      In the late 1930's, new High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) electronics started to make their appearance and countries such as Sweden began using long-haul HVDC to a significant degree starting in 1958.  With modern, solid state electronics, HVDC may prove to be a cost effective and energy efficient addition to any advanced American transmission infrastructure; especially for segments longer than 372 miles (600 KM).

      Even if large sections of our existing electrical grid are refurbished and incorporated into such a rebuilt advanced grid, a national program of this scale could cost taxpayers many tens of billions over a ten to fifteen year period.  Part of that cost might be offset by thinking of the new grid as an electric road and by the federal government charging the energy equivalent of the federal gasoline tax (originally dedicated to maintenance of our Interstate Highway system).  Still, we're probably looking at a pretty hefty electric bill.  Are such expenditures defensible?

      Consider that Exxon ALONE reported $11.7 Billion in profits just for the 4th Quarter of 2007.  Consider also the devastating costs to our economy of $140+ per barrel foreign oil and the obscene costs in lives and treasure in Iraq to keep those profits rolling in.  Through their lobbyists, the major oil companies have managed to get YOU and I to pay for those profits in more ways than just at the pumps or with our children's lives.

      As recently as April of this year, top executives appeared before Congress to defend roughly $18 Billion in ANNUAL tax breaks.  Some legislators (especially those up for reelection), have been questioning whether those tens of billions might be better spent making gas pumps obsolete.  As the preceding article links point out, however, we need a President and Congress who are not "addicted" to oil money for their political careers to make such legislation a reality.  Finally, bear in mind that such a massive DOMESTIC program translates directly into DOMESTIC JOBS (as long as our legislators insist on DOMESTIC contractors for such a program).

      Efficient and intelligent delivery of huge amounts of electricity is one thing... generating it is another.  Windmills and solar arrays are rapidly evolving as viable sources of energy, but our nation would literally need to be carpeted from coast to coast with windmills and solar arrays to generate the TeraWatts of power needed by a 21^st Century Nation.  And we're going to need that real estate for growing biomass for flex fuels and bio-diesel, not to mention FOOD.


      Short-Term Solutions to Our Electrical Energy Needs

      So, where do we currently get our industrial levels of electrical energy from?  2005 data from the Edison Electric Institute tells us:

-- 49.7% of our nation's electricity was generated from coal.
-- Nuclear FISSION reactors (I'll clarify that distinction shortly) produced 19.3%.
-- Natural gas supplied 18.7%.
-- Hydropower provided 6.5% of the supply.
-- Fuel Oil accounted for 3.0% of our electrical power.
-- Biomass produced 1.6% while other renewable resources, such as geothermal, solar, and wind, provided the remaining 1.2% of the supply.

      As a short-term solution to both a growing electricity demand and reduction of that fuel oil consumption from 3% to 0%, I see little choice but to expand both coal-fired and nuclear fission production.  For the long haul, however, these are not solutions.  They are suicide.

      Coal, while relatively abundant, is an environmental nightmare; regardless of the spin energy lobbyists put on "the clean coal initiative".  It's extraction devastates our land, as its use devastates our air and water.  If global warming has a poster-child, it's coal.

      The "nuclear option", at present, means building new fission reactors at an alarmingly breakneck pace.  Alarming, because such reactors cannot have ANY mistakes.  Even if such plants are built quickly, with zero defects, and in quantities sufficient to match demand, let me just mention the year 9500 AD.  That's 7,500 years from now; a period of time FAR longer than recorded human history.  It is also the amount of time necessary for the TONS of spent fuel rods and other radioactive waste from fission powerplants to cease being LETHALLY radioactive.

      Think for a moment how much has happened in the last 7,500 years and you'll get some sense of the collosal hubris of our government assuring us they can safeguard this stuff at Yucca Flats for that long.  7,500 years ago, simple agriculture was just getting started in the Nile valley and along the Euphrates.  Ancient Sumer had yet to exist and the pyramids were still about 2,400 years in the future!  Now here's the kicker... 7,500 years is a CONSERVATIVE estimate on the deadliness of this stuff.  Depending on storage density and quantity, the real figure could be in excess of 10,000 years!

      So, if coal and nuclear fission are both - quite literally - dead ends for America, what IS the long-term solution?


      Part Three of the Long-Term Solution: A New Kind of Powerplant^*1

      Nuclear FUSION Power harnesses the same sort of reaction that takes place in our sun.  A fusion reaction "fuses" atoms of lighter elements like Hydrogen into atoms of heavier elements like Helium. In the process, a great amount of energy is released.  Fusion reactions can only occur in an environment of unimaginable heat and pressure; a superhot, superdense, stew known as a "plasma".  This plasma can be used to bombard a surrounding jacket of lithium with neutrons to, in turn, heat water to drive steam turbines, or might be passed through a magnetic harness to generate electricity directly.

      Existing nuclear reactors are more like the original atomic bomb.  They rely on the "fission" (or splitting) of extremely heavy elements like uranium with many-layered shells of electrons (much like the layers of an onion).  When placed in close proximity to each other, atoms of such elements bang their outer electron shells together and some of the electrons are knocked free.  These in turn bang into other shells, knocking more electrons free.  With each collision, radiation and heat are generated, making the unstable atoms even more unstable.  This is known as a "chain-reaction".

      Fission reactors use a controlled chain-reaction with fuel rods of such elements just close enough together to sustain a low-level reaction, but not so close as to create a "critical mass" and allow a runaway reaction to take place.  The heat generated by this controlled chain-reaction is absorbed by a surrounding jacket of water and the resulting steam is used to drive turbines to generate electricity.

      Current fission powerplants must employ active measures to cool and keep fuel rods apart to avoid a runaway chain reaction.  Fusion powerplants, by contrast, would need to employ active measures to sustain the dense, hot, fusion plasma.  If controls in a current fission powerplant are accidently (or intentionally) disabled, a meltdown or even explosion could occur.  If controls were disabled in a fusion powerplant, the reaction would simply stop.

      In both types of powerplants, high levels of radiation are produced while in operation, but once the reaction ends in a fusion plant, those high levels rapidly dissipate and the only by-product of that reaction is Helium; a gas we use in party balloons and to make our voices sound like chipmunks.  As detailed earlier, our current fission powerplants produce waste by-products which remain deadly for a time longer than recorded Human history and which have National Security implications beyond simply safeguarding this material for public health reasons.  Those National Security concerns come in the form of transuranics; a class of highly unstable radioactive isotopes which include, among other goodies, Plutonium.

      Considering all the benefits of nuclear fusion power over conventional fission power, you may wonder why we still don't have a viable fusion powerplant?  Certainly, the technological challenges are daunting, but as you can see from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and Lawrence Livermore Lab's National Ignition Facility (NIF), progress is being made.  To understand why we're being told it will take 30 years or more, you need only scroll up to the previous chapter and read off the top three providers of electrical power today.


      Epilogue

      Energy is at the core of every major issue facing America today.  Our economy, our security, our environment, our way of life, ALL depend on the choices we make as a people and our resolve to see those choices through the minefield of vested interests opposing us.  In 1961, our President challenged us to dream the impossible; to put Americans on the Moon and return those daring souls safely back to Earth and to do so within a decade.  Well, we DID it!  In the process, the Lunar Program spawned thousands of new American industries; generating many tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs.  I see a comprehensive national energy program stimulating similar innovation, industry, and meaningful employment.

      Regarding American security, the equation couldn't be simpler:  American dependence on foreign oil = American dollars paying for that oil = those dollars funneled to terrorists = those terrorists buying weapons to kill Americans.  Our greatest security, as well as the solutions to our energy predicament, will NOT be found in "Gas Tax Holiday" sound-bites, nor in the energy cartels propaganda exhorting us to let them drill more holes in America.  As detailed above, our solutions must embrace fundamental shifts in how we generate, transmit, and use energy.  Our greatest energy resource is not what lies beneath our feet, but what lies between our ears and the sooner we apply that resource to wean ourselves off of foreign oil, the safer and more prosperous our nation will be.

      We have the technology and the American ingenuity to start NOW.  All we lack is the political leadership and in this election year, that is TOTALLY up to US. We can let our Senators and Representatives know THEIR lives and their livelihoods are on the line along with ours, or we can just fade into the history books with a whimper in the dark.

      Few of the proposals I've made are wasteful.  Vertical farms can gradually be retasked for urban food production as electric vehicles become more ubiquitous.  Ethanol plants can be profitably employed for a wide variety of alternative applications.  As for BioDiesel plants, who doesn't like fried foods?  Even contemporary oil refineries will continue to be essential to the petrochemicals we rely on in innumerable ways.  The ONLY elements with intrinsic obsolescence are the coal and fission powerplants.

      Fusion powerplants may be a bit further down the road, but when they're available, they will dovetail perfectly into a 21^st Century power infrastructure.  I believe we can make fusion power a reality within a decade, but even if it takes 30 years of lobbyist-sponsored foot dragging, fusion power IS coming.  The European Union, Russia, South Korea, Japan, India, and China are are all aggresively funding fusion research.  If we are to remain a 21^st Century nation, we dare do nothing less.