Oct 4 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Annette Cary Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Plug-in hybrid cars are part of the answer in breaking oil's monopoly on the country's transportation system, former Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey said Wednesday.

He discussed the nation's energy security at a seminar sponsored by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation and attended by more than 250 people at the Battelle Auditorium in Richland. Woolsey was director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 and now is a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm.

Plug-in hybrids could drive 40 miles each day with improved technology. Then they would turn into ordinary hybrids using both electricity and gasoline or ethanol until they are charged again, he said. They would be charged at night using inexpensive, off-peak electricity.

With the average car in the U.S. driven a little more than 30 miles a day, that would provide a substantial reduction in the use of oil, Woolsey said.

He also advocates following Denmark's example of using heat produced by industry for power, rather than wasting it by venting it into the air. Half of Denmark's power comes from combined heat and power, compared to 8 percent in the U.S. power, he said.

The rest of the nation also could learn from California's move to decouple sales of electricity from earnings. Instead of making more money if consumers use more electricity, utilities earn more for their shareholders by investing in projects such as making the electricity grid more efficient.

For the last 20 years, California's electrical use per person has remained steady while elsewhere in the nation it has increased 60 percent, he said.

He does not see a major role for hydrogen fuel cells in solving the nation's energy problems.

The most pressing issue for the nation's energy future is its reliance on oil, which has long had no competition for fueling transportation, he said.

"Oil has come to be the strategic commodity," he said. "Until the end of the 19th century, salt was the strategic commodity because it was the only way to preserve meat."

The salt monopoly was broken when electricity and refrigeration became available. "We need to do the same thing with oil," he said.