Electric cars would reduce US dependence on oil imports: panel

New York (Platts)--1Dec2010/626 pm EST/2326 GMT

The prospect of a flourishing US electric car market would not end crude oil imports into the US, but would at least broaden the fuel mix and help cut the country's dependence on oil, speakers said Wednesday at a clean energy conference.

"I'm a muscle car guy," Max Sandlin, a partner at lobbying firm Mercury, said at the Platts Fourth Annual Global Energy Outlook Forum. The broad endorsements that electric cars have received "scare me," Sandlin said.

"I don't like it, but I think I have to listen to it," he said, adding that "we're also getting market signals" on electric cars.

Sandlin spoke as part of a panel on the feasibility of clean energy.

Panelists differed on electric cars as a transition away from oil, with some saying the infrastructure is not yet in place. Sandlin said the prices of electric cars may corrode market support, even among those who may want to be viewed as "greens."

"They still want to pay their mortgage," he said.

"There is not going to be a single technology" to resolve an energy shortage, Mark Brownstein, deputy director of the Environmental Defense Fund, said. "It will be a suite of technologies," with smart grids serving as an integrator.

Natural gas, meanwhile, is stepping in as coal producers move to retire old coal plants on the verge of obsolescence, Brownstein said.

But the natural gas industry must improve current production practices before environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, will broadly embrace the fossil fuel, Brownstein said later on the sidelines.

"We think natural gas can be a constructive part" of the mix of fuels, Brownstein said. "But current production processes are causing real harm to real people."

--Leslie Moore Mira, leslie_moore@platts.com

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