On the supply side there are several avenues that could relieve the situation. The first avenue, of course is to increase our domestic oil supply. Such increase, however, will first need to offset the ever declining oil production in the lower United States before any positive growth can be realized. All things considered it is a fact that any substantial increase in our domestic supply will depend upon how successful we are in finding new oil deposits offshore and/or in previously unexplored land areas, and on how soon we can develop a practical means of producing substitute fuels.

In the short term, there are few other supply solutions that we can deploy now to meet our needs. Hydrogen is often mentioned as a solution but in reality this is technology whose practical application is likely two or more decades away. Then there is the hope that liquid petroleum can be domestically produced from coal, or from oil shale at reasonable cost and without damage to the environment.

This leaves mainly biofuels, i.e., ethanol and biodiesel. While wide attention is now being given to these fuels as petroleum substitutes, most experts agree that they have serious shortcomings. Currently a NET average of about 0.15 million barrels/day is being supplied by biofuels (about 55 million barrels/year). The NET is calculated by subtracting the amount of liquid fuel that is required to produce a given amount of biofuel from the total amount of fuel produced (corn ethanol currently returns less than 2 gallons of fuel for each gallon of fuel consumed). Further, ethanol produces less than 70% of the energy that gasoline does. This means we must produce about 1.4 gallons of ethanol to displace 1 gallon of gasoline. There is hope that ethanol produced from a variety of cellulosic feed stocks, such as switchgrass, will provide about five times better return than corn but the technology to accomplish this is still several years away. There is also a pilot project underway in Colorado aimed at converting algae into biodiesel that shows considerable promise. All things considered though, even if we increased biofuels production more than 20 times, this would supplant little more than 20% of our current transportation petroleum needs within the next 15 years.

Reducing Consumption

The bottom line is if we are to make a significant impact (say enough to reduce our oil imports to zero) - even with a dramatic rise in biofuel production and with a substantial increase in domestic oil production - we would have to reduce our petroleum usage by about 9 million barrels per day, no small accomplishment.

It is true that our commercial airlines, trains, buses, freight trucks, and farm machinery consume large quantities of jet fuel and diesel fuel. Furthermore the amount of oil necessary to heat buildings and produce petroleum-based products such as plastics, fertilizers, and chemicals is enormous. However, in deference to rising crude oil prices over the last several years, most private companies and homeowners are already beginning to take steps to reduce their consumption on their own. This leaves private auto transportation fuels as the principal target for further reducing consumption.

In my estimation, the best way to reduce oil consumption to the level needed is to launch an "Apollo" size federal program aimed at increasing the average mpg of our 235+ million car/light truck fleet over the next fifteen years from the current average of 21 mpg to 36 mpg. The ideal goal would be to phase in new high-efficiency vehicles to replace all low-efficiency vehicles as they are removed from service over the period. To accomplish this, our federal government would have to launch a massive public relations campaign, along with an innovative financial incentive program, to convince car owners that it is in not only in their own best interest, but in the national interest as well, to change their automobile preferences from SUVs, minivans, and light trucks to smaller, more efficient vehicles. In addition, higher and higher fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) standards for cars, as well as light trucks, should be gradually imposed on car manufacturers for implementation over the next decades. Further, special rebates should be given to car buyers to purchase hybrid cars and, better yet, "plug-in" hybrid cars once they become commercially available. The rebates should also apply to electric vehicles (EVs) once they become price competitive and even to diesel autos that meet certain fuel efficiency standards.

PATH TO FOREIGN OIL INDEPENDENCE

If we are to relieve our oil independence in the near future (say 15 years) we must act NOW. All things considered, the only realistic solution is to take every acceptable measure to reduce our oil consumption and to increase domestic oil (or substitute fuel) production as is necessary. To reach total independence in this time frame we would have to achieve the following:

First, and FOREMOST, we would need to drastically reduce our transportation oil consumption by almost 44% or some 6 million barrels/day. This means an upping of CAFÉ standards by government edict to an average of no less than 36mg. This will require a mass manufacture and sale of highly fuel-efficient vehicles with a subsequent change in our life style habits. We can no longer lavish ourselves with large gas guzzling vehicles. We need to replace them with fuel efficient cars and trucks such as hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and possibly EVs and fuel efficient diesel autos.

Second, we would have to increase our domestic oil production from the current level of 7.5 million barrels/day to about 9 million barrels/day. This is a 21% increase and will certainly mean substantially more offshore deep well drilling, possibly some discrete drilling in unexplored lands, and, if it can become economical and environmentally acceptable, the production of oil via natural gas liquids (NGL), coal liquefaction and/or extraction from oil shale. This is a very ambitious goal and its realization depends largely how fast coal liquefaction and oil shale technologies can come on line.

Third, we would need to produce more and more biofuels, hopefully as much as a NET 4.3 million barrels/day, which will displace approximately 3 million barrels/day of petroleum. This assumes that practical methods of producing ethanol from cellulosic feed stocks and from algae will be developed within the next five years and that they will be the predominant methods of producing ethanol over the following ten years. It also assumes that there will be a major increase in biodiesel production.

Fourth, we would have to reduce the amount of jet fuel, diesel and all other oil derivatives used for air and rail transportation, for busing, for trucking, for heating and, to a large extent, for the manufacturer of chemicals, plastics and other products. We need to reduce this consumption by some 23%, or about 2 million barrels/day.

Fifth, we must learn to economize on our travel in every way we can (car pools, fewer road trips, shorter commutes, greater use of public transportation). More mass transportation systems need to be built in large metropolitan areas. State and local governments should pass new zoning laws and create incentives for better urban planning of all new real estate developments to ensure less travel between home, stores and places of employment. These actions could enable us to reduce our oil consumption by about 1 million barrels/day.

Voila! This adds up to the magic number of 21 million barrels/day, which is the total level of oil consumption in the United States today.

These may appear to be near impossible goals, and maybe they are. But we must strive to achieve them as best we can. If we fall short we will still be far ahead of our current business as usual scenario and will reduce our oil imports appreciably. If we do nothing, we will be doomed.

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