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Breaking the Oil Addiction
Addressing the Oil Crisis in the U.S.

Ending our petroleum addiction is the most important short-term action we can take in transitioning to sustainable transportation modes.

By Paul Notari

The United States faces a crisis of major proportions. Experts agree that oil production is near peaking globally and may fall dramatically during the next decade. Yet demand keeps growing in China, India and other developing countries. In addition, oil supplies are threatened by political and terrorist activities in oil-producing countries such as Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. These events portend a major increase in petroleum costs, exceeding even last year’s record of more than $78 per barrel, with repercussions throughout the economy. Even more threatening, evidence clearly demonstrates that climate change caused by fossil fuel combustion is setting in motion disastrous consequences. It is a crisis we must address immediately.

This country consumes about 21 million barrels of crude oil per day, about 14 million of which are used for transportation. The remaining 7 million barrels are used for heating and the manufacture of chemicals and plastics. More than 13.4 million barrels per day are imported. Clearly transportation fuels are the area in which we can most effectively act to reduce our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on imports.

We must learn to economize on our travel in every possible way, such as through more mass-transportation systems and better urban planning to ensure less travel between home, stores and places of employment. Photo courtesy of Petra Spiess

In the long term, many experts are optimistic that we can wean our nation from oil through greater use of mass transit, pedestrian-friendly communities and, for personal vehicles, a transition to hydrogen fuel cell technology and electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

In the short term, however, our options are fewer and far from perfect. The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet, no single remedy. The only realistic approach in the immediate term is to address both the supply and consumption sides of our oil dilemma with an open mind, considering the pros and cons of every option.

Increasing Domestic Supply
In the short term, there are few supply solutions that we can deploy to meet our transportation fuel needs. Any efforts to extend our reliance on finite fossil fuels must be viewed, at best, as a stopgap measure. At worst, they may serve to delay our critical transition to pollution-free options. Despite growing concerns about damage to the environment, however, it seems inevitable that increasing domestic oil supply by drilling offshore and in unexplored public lands will continue to be a major U.S. strategy in the near term. Declining oil production in the Lower 48 U.S. states means that any substantial increase in the domestic supply will depend on finding new oil deposits, as well as producing substitute fuels by other means.

Green Vehicles: A Near-Term Fix?

When biking and public transport aren’t possible, fuel-efficient vehicles using cleaner-burning fuels can help address some of oil’s problems.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Problem: Scientists have set the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60–70 percent by 2050 to keep emissions to 450 parts per million. Transportation emits one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Solution: Consumers can choose the most fuel-efficient mode of transportation or vehicle, as well as the vehicle that uses fuel emitting less greenhouse gas emissions. Policymakers must raise CAFÉ standards to increase fuel efficiency, regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, make biofuels part of the gasoline or diesel fuel mix, and support mass transit and biking.

Improving National Security
Problem: The United States owns only 2–3 percent of the known oil reserves and imports more than 60 percent of its oil. It is vulnerable to fuel price shocks and is dependent on countries prone to political conflict and instability. Transportation is 97 percent dependent on oil, and it consumes two-thirds of all the oil used in the United States.

Solution: A transition to domestic oil substitutes and fuel-efficient vehicles, plus walking, biking and mass transit, reduces the need for oil: Vehicles powered by biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electricity, hydrogen, ethanol or biogas reduce oil usage by 96–99 percent. Hybrid-electric vehicles use 20–50 percent less gasoline than conventional vehicles.

Boosting the Economy
Problem: Imported oil represents over 30 percent of the U.S. trade deficit, and transportation uses 67 percent of all the nation’s oil. Defense spending to keep the oil supply secure costs billions annually.

Solution: Reduce oil imports by increasing vehicle efficiency, shifting transportation to more efficient modes such as rail, mass transit, walking and biking, and using energy sources other than oil. Create jobs by producing transportation fuels domestically.

Source: Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, www.nesea.org/transportation

Other efforts to increase supply focus on developing a practical means of producing substitute fuels. Hydrogen has been the focus of much enthusiasm, but in reality its practical application is likely two or more decades away. Julia Thomas, Howard Brown and Paula Pitchford describe the prospects for hydrogen-based transport in “Renewable Hydrogen: A Long-Term Sustainable Solution” (click here to download this article). Others hope that liquid petroleum can soon be produced domestically from coal or oil shale at a reasonable cost and without damage to the environment. Peter Tijm presents an overview of these possibilities in “Synthetic Fuels: Toward More Sustainable Options?” (Click here to download this article.)

That leaves, as the most promising oil substitute, biofuels — that is, fuels like ethanol and biodiesel that are derived from biomass. Despite widespread excitement about their potential, most experts agree that biofuels have serious shortcomings. The feedstocks require a tremendous amount of land and water, and the energy used to produce biofuels exceeds the energy delivered. Currently biofuels supply a net average of about 0.15 million barrels per day (about 55 million barrels per year). The net amount 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 (e.g., corn ethanol currently returns less than 2 gallons of fuel for each gallon of fuel consumed). Further, ethanol produces less than 70 percent of the energy that gasoline does. That means we must produce about 1.4 gallons of ethanol to displace 1 gallon of gasoline.

There is hope that ethanol produced from various cellulosic feed stocks, such as switchgrass, will provide about five times better return than corn, but the technology to accomplish that remains several years away. A pilot project in Colorado to convert algae into biodiesel also shows considerable promise. All things considered though, even if we increased biofuels production more than 20 times, it would supplant little more than 20 percent of our current transportation petroleum needs within the next 15 years. Frank Kreith, P.E., discusses the potential of biofuels in more detail in “Cellulosic Ethanol: Answer to the Biofuels Challenges?” (Click here to download this article.)

Slashing Oil Consumption
If we are to make a significant impact (say, enough to reduce our oil imports to zero) — even with a dramatic rise in domestic production of transportation fuels — we would have to reduce U.S. petroleum usage by about 9 million barrels per day. That’s no small goal.

Certainly commercial airlines, trains, buses, freight trucks and farm machinery consume large quantities of jet fuel and diesel fuel. However, in response to rising crude oil prices during the last several years, most private companies have taken steps to reduce their consumption. Experience demonstrates that as oil prices continue to increase, so too will conservation.

Perhaps the best way to reduce oil consumption to required levels is a federal mandate to significantly increase the average mileage of our 235 million-plus car/light truck fleet over the next 15 years — from the current average of 21 mpg to 36 mpg. The ideal goal would be to phase in high-efficiency new vehicles to replace all low-efficiency vehicles as they are removed from service.

To accomplish this goal, our federal government would have to launch a massive public relations campaign, along with financial incentives, to convince consumers that it is in the national interest, as well as their own, to change from SUVs, minivans and light trucks to more efficient vehicles. Higher fuel-efficiency (CAFÉ) standards for cars and light trucks should be implemented gradually over the next decades. Further, special rebates should go to purchasers of hybrid gas-electric vehicles and, better, to buyers of “plug-in” hybrid cars as they enter the market (for more on the promise of plug-ins, click here to download Roger Duncan’s article, “Plug-In Hybrids: Pollution-Free Transport on the Horizon." The rebates should also apply to electric vehicles as they become price competitive and even to diesel autos that meet high-efficiency standards.

Forging a Path to Foreign-Oil Independence
If we are to relieve our oil dependence in the near term — say, during the next 15 years — we must act now. The only realistic approach is to considerably reduce our nation’s oil consumption, while increasing production of domestic sources of supply. To reach total oil independence and begin moving to sustainable transport modes in this time frame, we would have to achieve the following.

Raise Gas Mileage. First and foremost, we would need to reduce our transportation oil consumption by almost 44 percent, or some 6 million barrels per day. That depends on increasing the federal CAFÉ standards to no less than an average 36 mpg. It will require a mass manufacture and sale of fuel-efficient vehicles, along with lifestyle changes.

Cut Use of Other Oil Derivatives. We also would have to reduce the amount of jet fuel, diesel and all other oil derivatives used for air and rail transportation, busing, trucking, heating and, to a large extent, for the manufacture of chemicals, plastics and other products. We need to reduce this consumption by some 23 percent, or about 2 million barrels per day.

Travel Smarter. We must learn to economize on our travel in every possible way. More mass-transportation systems need to be built in metropolitan areas. State and local governments should pass zoning laws and create incentives for better urban planning 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 per day by my estimation.

Produce Environmentally Acceptable Fossil Supplies. Although slashing our oil consumption is our best path to dependence from foreign oil sources, to break ties in the near term without changes so dramatic as to create an economic disaster, we also must increase domestic supply. To maintain our current level of oil consumption, even after accounting for dramatic reductions in our oil consumption, we still would need to increase our domestic oil production from the current 7.5 million barrels per day to about 9 million barrels per day. In light of environmental concerns, however, increased drilling and any other approach that would contribute to greenhouse gas emissions are highly undesirable. However, if it could become economical and environmentally acceptable, the production of oil via coal liquefaction and/or extraction from oil shale is one possible route to increased domestic supply.

Ramp Up Biofuels Production. Despite concerns about the large land and water inputs and relatively small energy outputs associated with biofuels, they appear to be our best near-term option for increasing domestic supplies of transportation fuel. To support our transition to oil independence within 15 years or so, we would need to produce as much as a net 4.3 million barrels of biofuels per day, which would displace approximately 3 million barrels per day of petroleum. That assumes that practical methods of producing ethanol from cellulosic feed stocks and algae will be developed within the next five years and that they will be the predominant methods of producing ethanol during the following decade. It also assumes a major increase in biodiesel production.

Increase R&D Investment. To support the rapid development of both near- and long-term technologies for sustainable transportation, policymakers must immediately boost R&D budgets by many factors.

Accounting for all of these measures and assuming bold policy support as well as near-term technology advances in synthetic fossil fuels and biofuels, we could conserve and produce an amount equivalent to the total level of U.S. oil consumption today. In the longer term, as technologies mature and policymakers take aggressive steps to mitigate climate change, renewable energy technologies hold the potential to address much, if not all, of our energy needs for transportation.

These are ambitious goals, but we must strive to achieve them as best we can. By doing so, we will decrease our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, improve health, generate new jobs and reduce our reliance on oil-producing countries. If we do nothing, we will doom ourselves.

Paul Notari is past chair of ASES and its Renewable Fuels and Sustainable Transportation Division. In 1980, as head of the Technical Information Branch at the Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory), he was the originator and publisher of Fuel From Farms, one of the first textbooks on ethanol production technology. The publication is recognized as one of the primary movers in launching today’s ethanol industry. For an unabridged version of this article, go to http://paulnotari.wordpress.com.

Read the counterpoint to this article, by Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. >>>

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