To Break Our Addiction To Oil

Photo by Arne Hückelheim, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I was recently looking through my old tweets and came across a thread that is still relevant today, with recent revelations of the U.S. government massing troops for yet—in my opinion—another conflict we should not be anywhere near. We should remember that we are not energy independent, and all the world has to do is shut off the oil taps to us—yes, trade embargoes can be used against the U.S. too. So I am now here to bore you with my thoughts—note they are thoughts, not always facts. The thoughts have been well thought out but not heavily researched, and may or may not be encumbered by much of a thought process, advance at your own risk.

Beyond the obvious reduction of the U.S. carbon footprint, limiting greenhouse, blah, blah, blah. We as a nation should be converting to a mix of solar, wind, and nuclear power—yes, nuclear has to be part of this mix because our mega-cities use mega-watts of power and for the foreseeable future there is no way around this. By temporarily renewing our own oil industry enough to supply the U.S. alone, and simultaneously converting to a mix of renewable and nuclear we could be energy independent rather quickly and off of drilled oil in, say, ten to twenty years. To do this requires fast tracking nuclear power plant construction, but removes the shackles foreign nations have on us by freeing our energy systems to local supply.

The first obvious problem most people will point to are cars and trucks. The average personal vehicle is designed to last 15 to 20 years—yep that’s it. So if we began focusing on electric cars and getting a charging infrastructure in place we could be all electric in twenty years. We already have a standardized plug for electric vehicles much as we have a standard nozzle for fuel. The issue is we don’t have recharging stations, but we do have the infrastructure already. I’ve heard argued that we don’t have the infrastructure but that is because people think fueling stations are infrastructure, but those are just retail delivery points. The infrastructure I am referencing is our electric utility grid.

Now we have the grid in place, so why don’t we have charging stations as convenient as the corner gas station? Well, up until recently there just hasn’t been the demand for it. Some will argue that with electric cars and trucks we won’t have motor fuel taxes to fund the roads. (A brief aside, most of your states do not spend all of your motor fuel tax on the roads. Unless you are in Missouri the taxes go into general revenue and are lost in the budget—there is a reason our roads are in such sad shape. Now back on topic.) We don’t pay motor fuel tax after we pump fuel; instead it is added to the cost per gallon so we could easily add an equivalent to the cost per kilowatt at open to the public and fleet charging stations—let’s leave home chargers out as that just gets messy to deal with, and most charging will be in stations rather than upgrading the power feed into a home.

Heavy duty trucks will take a while to phase through but Walmart and Peterbuilt have created a viable truck already (see this video) that would fill a gap for now. Yes, the turbine runs on natural gas but I’d wager it could be altered to run on bio-diesel readily enough.

Air planes. As much as major airlines will hate me saying this, we need to eliminate short haul flights—things like St. Louis to Kansas City. This will cut emissions and honestly a lot of fuel use. There is a bio-jet fuel but it is not yet in production at the volumes we need—also it may help to know a lot more about chemistry than I do to understand that paper. How do people get between those spots? Road (be it their car or bus) or rail.

We do need to invest in our rail system; we do NOT need a government intervention for this. Is high speed rail something we should be looking toward? Maybe. Do we need an all in big government spending spree to do it? No. We have an excellent system of rail managers already in place, i.e., Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, etc. They already have rail right of ways & connections to equipment makers. All they lack is the right incentives to do passenger service and upgrade to high speed. Most will point to Amtrak as an abysmal failure but Amtrak is still highly regulated and is constantly poked and prodded by the federal government. Not to mention Amtrak does not own its rails and instead rents space from the major carriers. We give tax breaks to so many industries it is absurd, so why not incentivize the rail industry to move people? They have the equipment, they have the thoroughfares, heck they even have the right of way at grade crossings. By having the major players pick this up you also eliminate congress critters who want a stop in every district—what’s the point of a train that can travel at 200mph/320Kph if it has to stop for fifteen minutes every fifty or a hundred miles? So how do we cover the gaps between stops? We need to also incentivize places like Greyhound to partner with the rail companies to cover the gaps and to convert to hybrid bio-diesel/electric buses.

The next argument: But trains run on oil to! Yes and they can easily run on bio-diesel—just like farm tractors & other heavy equipment. Modern diesel locomotives only use their diesel engines to turn a generator to supply large amounts of electricity to the traction motors located at the wheels. It is possible—but many would not like the idea—to run these engines on nuclear power. In disclosure, I’m not too keen on the idea either.

A big hidden issue that also needs addressed is the dirty business of the batteries in electric cars. The materials are not a local U.S. source using current technology so once again we end up importing materials—swap one demon for another? A good article on this is here.

So how do we make the switch if oil is predominated by some countries, and nickel, lithium, and cobalt, by others? First we need to eliminate the restrictions on industrial hemp farming. The oil from hemp can be used for fuel, plastics, and paper. It uses less resources and can be grown readily. It stands to be a very viable alternative to petroleum and should be a fairly easy drop in—no drop in is 100% exact, though.

We are already set up to make the switch but why don’t we? Partly regulations. Partly lack of incentives to go forward, and partly career politicians listening to lobbyists.

If we want out of all these wars we have no business in then we need to look at our own backyard and ask “what can I do myself?” A good place to start is by not choosing “next day delivery” when ordering on-line when it won’t hurt you to wait a few days; if it isn’t in a local hub then that package is being fast tracked and flown in. Find your local congress critter and personally lobby for changes, not because they’re green but because of our national security. We could also look at our largest carbon foot print and fuel consumer and that is our own military.

It takes enormous amounts of resources to keep U.S. troops all over the world. Between flying them in and out, supplying them, and routine training exercises our military uses a lot of fuel. Do we really need troops spread across 750 bases in 80 different countries?

“I think a submarine is a very worthwhile weapon. I believe we can defend ourselves with submarines and all our troops back at home. This whole idea that we have to be in 130 countries and 900 bases… is an old fashioned idea,” the Texas congressman said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It makes no sense at all. Besides, we’re bankrupt – we can’t afford it any longer.”—Ron Paul (Source)

Now I am not so well versed as to say we can close all the bases and rely entirely on submarines as Mr. Paul says, but we could close most of those bases and maybe up our carrier attack groups. It doesn’t completely solve our carbon foot print issue but it doesn’t cut it down significantly, yet allows for rapid deployment of air and ballistic missile power IF they are needed. By pulling our resources out to international waters and out of the main shipping lanes we may actually find ourselves more agile—but I am no tactician. We would also increase our harmony with friend and foe alike—see our Japanese relations with Okinawa for an example of this. We take our honestly loud and boisterous youth out of the local influence and out of accusations way too.

Over all we need to move away from petroleum. How we do it will have to be a mixture for the foreseeable future, but technology is always improving. The big issue is we as a nation are stretched thin, we are over indulging on resources from other nations, and in the long run putting ourselves in danger.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities… it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.

— George Washington’s Farewell Address

We don’t need a treaty of mutual defense to entangle us; our need of energy has done that for us.