For years, I have been looking for a good, readable book on the oil problem and its solution -- just as I'd been looking for a good book on clean technology. Well, I found the Clean Tech book in August, and now I've found the oil book.
It is Freedom from Oil, by Brookings scholar and White House veteran David Sandalow. It is an unqualified success -- cleverly told as a series of policy memos from the cabinet of a near-future President, who begins the book by telling his staff:
I plan to deliver an address from the Oval Office one month from today. The topic will be oil dependence.
In the breathless narrative that follows, you learn the stripped-down facts about oil dependency, plus the growing strategic and environmental danger posed by oil dependency -- and key solutions like plug-in hybrids and revised CAFE standards (as well as stories of fascinating figures in the oil game). You get a "unique window into the White House at work" from a former assistant secretary of state and senior director on the National Security Council staff.
Sandalow's President ultimately offers an aggressive plan to free the country from oil dependence, which includes:
- Offering for the federal government to buy 30,000 plug-in hybrids at an $8,000 premium.
- Offering an $8000 consumer tax credit for purchasers of the first million plug-ins, and a $4000 rebate for purchasers of the second million.
- Legislation to retool U.S. auto factories and assume some auto industry health costs.
- Replacing CAFE standards with Fuel Reduction and Energy Efficiency (FREEdom) standards.
- A low-carbon fuel standard.
- A major shift in federal funding from new road construction to mass transit.
- To pay for all this, a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax phased in over five years, with excess revenues used to lower personal income taxes.
I should note that Sandalow is a friend and former Clinton administration colleague, that I reviewed a couple of chapters of his book prepublication, and that he cites me extensively in his debunking of hydrogen. But you know that I have no compunction about railing against misguided writing (see here and here).
If you are looking for one book to read on the oil problem and its solution, get Freedom from Oil.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!
Comments
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Bart Anderson Posted 9:33 am
19 Oct 2007
My reaction is based on the quotes and the reviews at reviews at the Grist/Amazon store
Problems:
The worldwide energy crisis is interpreted as "how to enable Americans to keep driving their cars." It's a much bigger problem than that.
No mention of peak oil. How can one make intelligent recommendations if one has not investigated this issue? The GAO, National Petroleum Council and International Energy Agency are all expressing worries about the supply of oil. Bill Clinton and Al Gore both have mentioned peak oil. Former CIA director, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy, James Schlesinger announced "the battle is over, the peakists have won." In an interview, Schlesinger said that many oil companies recognize the reality of peak oil, even though they aren't saying so publicly. Even if one is skeptical about peak oil, one cannot ignore it as this book does.
Apparently biofuels are a major part of Sandalow's proposal. Increasingly the argument is turning against biofuels - corn ethanol is braindead, the food vs fuel conflict is reality, and continual biofuel cropping is not sustainable. Perhaps David Sandalow should be reading Gristmill more regularly!
I wish I could be more enthusiastic, because as the reviews said, there are many good things about the book.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Ron Steenblik Posted 9:33 pm
20 Oct 2007
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kn99 Posted 10:41 am
21 Oct 2007
Biofuels are relatively small part of the plan. Their supply would gradually expand to about 4 or 5 times more than today. At this level, the environmental effects remain positive (ie, reducing CO2 emissions), while creating an alternative fuel supply chain.
Subsidies are applied in the short term and phased out as the vehicle market develops. With Europe and most of Asia even more vulnerable to oil shocks, it's unlikely they would not follow suit and remove their reliance on oil as well.
While Sandalow's plan includes some programs for improving public transit and altering growth patterns, their benefits would be additional to the above reductions.
The premise of the book is the need to substitute other energy sources for oil, and the plan cuts use by three-quarters or more. I guess I don't understand the objection concerning 'peak oil'. The environmental and geopolitical reasons to cut oil use are pressing regardless of its supply; arguments concerning peak oil simply pile on more reasons for the premise.
BTW, there's a new video interview of Sandalow at http://www.eande.tv/video_guide/680
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Bart Anderson Posted 1:35 pm
21 Oct 2007
The reason that peak oil is important is that it will affect supply and prices significantly. If one proffers an analysis of the oil problem, one cannot ignore this elephant in the living room.
In particular, it means that personal vehicles for most of the population are probably not sustainable. Our resources would be better spent on more important things -- like low-energy infrastructure and making sure that sufficient food can be produced.
It's not that efficient hybrid cars the other proposals are bad ideas in themselves. It's that they are an incomplete solution to an incompletely analyzed problem.
BTW, This this article on peak oil just appeared in the UK Guardian - we may be nearer than people think. The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year... [falling] by half as soon as 2030...
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:41 pm
21 Oct 2007
Biofuels are relatively small part of the plan. Their supply would gradually expand to about 4 or 5 times more than today. At this level, the environmental effects remain positive (i.e., reducing CO2 emissions), while creating an alternative fuel supply chain.
A four- or five-fold expansion in biofuels use would not be trivial. Already, at today's level of production, there have been huge impacts on the markets for grains and vegetable oils. Even if the biomass for biofuel feedstock were to be produced sustainably, the displacement effects of devoting that much land to biofuels could mean either much more-intensive production on the remaining land, in order to meet the pre-existing needs of food, fibre and feed (which undermines the GHG emission benefits), or an expansion of crop production into prairies or forests.
Subsidies are applied in the short term and phased out as the vehicle market develops. With Europe and most of Asia even more vulnerable to oil shocks, it's unlikely they would not follow suit and remove their reliance on oil as well.
If you are talking about the biofuels market, all the evidence is to the contrary. The industry has been subsidized for almost 30 years now, and legislation under consideration in the U.S. Congress would both extend the subsidies and boost them. So what would Sandalow's plan do differently?
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kn99 Posted 2:42 am
22 Oct 2007
About subsidies: If the peak oil theories are right, they are not a problem -- at oil over $50 per barrel, today's biofuels are profitable. The problem in the past has been that oil production never peaked, and prices were under $25 per barrel for decades.
In any event, it's the shift to electric power that is critical. If oil prices go very high, even today's PHEVs are economic. With high enough prices, or shortages in biofuels, Sandalow's plan shifts more to electricity. The plan assumes only 40-mile batteries and overnight recharging. With higher oil prices, larger battery packs become economic, vehicles can recharge during the day, and they can have replaceable battery packs (similar to today's replaceable propane tanks). These are small disruptions at minimal risk, and the can push the reduction in oil use to 90%.
Sandalow's book makes the point that his plan is already close to mainstream thinking. Even the Brookings Institution is promoting it, the book is endorsed across the political spectrum, and that's in response to today's ecological and geopolitical costs of oil (before the coming economic costs of peak oil.)
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:07 am
22 Oct 2007
What a load of bullshit.
Where exactly do these "agricultural residues" come from? What is an "agricultural residue"?
http://greyfalcon.net/peaksoil
Even the USDA isn't that optimistic, since they plan on a max of 1.3 billion tons of biomass. ASSUMING a gigantic laundry list of impossible scenarios.
For instance, "all crops will magically increase 50% of their currently yeild." Even though yields are currently declining.
http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/05/why-cellulosic-ethanol- ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:17 am
22 Oct 2007
At the current level, there is no positive benefit to biofuels.
Just gigantic downsides.
http://greyfalcon.net/palmoil
http://greyfalcon.net/soy
http://greyfalcon.net/ran
http://greyfalcon.net/n2ostudy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/n2ostudy
http://greyfalcon.net/lcarough7.png
_
Then again, the DOE/USDA love to gloss over the titanic flaws by willing them out of existence.
For instance, In the view of the DOE/USDA, nitrogen fixation does not exist.
Poof! Gone.
Why? Because N2O is nearly 300x more potent than CO2.
http://greyfalcon.net/n2o.png
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trock Posted 3:55 am
22 Oct 2007
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Burl Haigwood Posted 11:26 pm
02 Feb 2008
http://blog.cleanfuelsdc.org/2008/01/corn-vs-cellulo.html ...
BurlHaigwoodCFDC
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amazingdrx Posted 3:06 am
03 Feb 2008
If the design was rear wheel plugin electric drive, with a standard economy car front wheel drive internal combustion engine, retooling would be minimal.
Each car company could produce models to fullfill contracts, conversions of present models. It's a real shortcut to renewable electric transportation and distributed power storage.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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