Short and to the Point — Forbes Essay by Two Former Marine Corps Commandants, Bob Lutz (GM), and Frederick Smith (FedEx) on the Need for a National Energy Plan

© 2012 Peter Free

 

18 April 2012

 

 

Citation

 

Bob Lutz, Frederick W. Smith, General P.X. Kelley, and General James Conway, A Real U.S. Oil Security Strategy Would Boost Electrification of Transport Sector, Forbes (15 April 2012)

 

 

Political posturing and inaction in Washington usually miss critical points — this Forbes essay gets it right

 

In regard to energy, the critical points are:

 

(a) national security,

 

(b) avoiding the needless deaths of our troops in protecting

 

(c) foreigners’ “right” to take our complacently handed over money.

 

As the Forbes-published team writes:

 

Having had the honor of serving as United States Marines [USMC Commandants], we take seriously the threats that our young service men and women face while defending our country and our liberty.

 

When these threats exist because the United States is the protector of the world’s global oil supply lines, it is a clear illustration of how our nation’s over-reliance on a single, globally-priced fuel impacts our national and economic security.

 

It’s time to act to protect our national interests and get serious about a real oil security strategy.

 

© 2012 Bob Lutz, Frederick W. Smith, General P.X. Kelley, and General James Conway, A Real U.S. Oil Security Strategy Would Boost Electrification of Transport Sector, Forbes (15 April 2012) (extracts)

 

 

What to do?

 

These very successful executives believe that — though raising domestic oil production will help — breaking oil’s “stranglehold on the transportation sector” is the key to an enhanced national security.

 

For them, the solution combines (i) electrifying light-duty vehicles and (ii) fueling heavy trucks with natural gas.

 

The two advantages to electric cars, they think, are that:

 

(a) these vehicles can be charged from multiple domestic sources, like natural gas, renewables, and (gasp) coal and nuclear energy generation,

 

and

 

(b) prices for electricity are less volatile than those for oil.

 

 

Are there problems with the proposed electric solution?

 

Problems include the uncompetitive prices of electric vehicles like Chevy’s Volt, which means that their market penetration is virtually zero.  But, realistically, this is to be expected with the majority of transformative technologies.

 

Though the Forbes authors do not say so, it is clear that they are advocating a sustained government effort — in the name of national security — to promote progress in electrifying our motor vehicle sector.

 

 

Would a sustained U.S. energy plan make sense?

 

Of course.

 

But there are two political problems:

 

The first is Americans’ hostility to economic planning — even though we do it every day in unrecognized ways.  Inaction itself is a plan.

 

Second, even when we accept that plans are occasionally necessary, many Americans are averse to pre-choosing technologies by essentially subsidizing them before the market has had a chance to sort them out for their alleged economic efficiency.

 

My answer to both objections is that we no longer have competitively viable reverse choices.

 

China and Germany both have demonstrated that generalized economic and social plans are necessary for achieving (even temporary) national success in the global economy.

 

Note

 

Notice that I said national success.  If our goal is simply making multi-national corporations rich at American workers’ and tax-payers’ expense, then the logic of my formulation falls short.

 

Second, pre-choosing technologies — even in the absence of an existing preponderance of evidence that they will ultimately work — is a necessity in many of the ultimately most significant engineering endeavors.  Avoiding these gambles is competitively self-destructive.

 

In terms of light vehicles, the spectrum of increased risk ranges from (i) promoting high gas mileage cars (via raised MPG standards) through (ii) electric vehicles (iii) ultimately to hydrogen-fueled transportation.

 

Given the probably sparseness of long-lasting domestic oil reserves, it is unlikely that simply raising fuel economy is going to free the United States of dependence on foreign oil.  Therefore, the Forbes authors’ mention of coal and nuclear power as avenues to electrification is legitimate.

 

As much as died-in-the-wool environmentalists hate coal and nuclear, those two sources comprise our most immediately accessible ways of improving the nation’s energy security.  If national security and realistic energy policy are the goals, it might be wise to invest in cleaning them up, as opposed to stamping them out.

 

Consequently, an intermediate-term emphasis on combining:

 

(i) increased fuel economy in gasoline cars

 

and

 

(ii) promoting the electrification of a significant proportion of the American car market

 

over the next thirty years is not as risky a proposition as it might appear.

 

The necessary energy distribution grid is already in place.  In contrast, hydrogen cell vehicles, as of today, would have to depend on (a) an unproven automotive technology and (b) a complex distribution grid that does not yet exist.

 

Like the Forbes authors, I think promoting significant market penetration of electric vehicles in the name of national security is a sound idea.

 

I also think that the Chevrolet Volt’s emphasis on combining battery with gasoline power, so as to extend vehicle range of travel, is a characteristic American pragmatism at work.  Under foreseeable American geographic and transportation conditions, who wants a car that will not go but a few miles without plugging it in?

 

 

The moral? — Think of achieving oil independence as an alternative direction for spending our national defense dollars

 

If we recognize that there are non-military ways of protecting our security with defense-intended dollars, the idea of providing government tax breaks and subsidies for an evolving energy sector makes affordable sense.

 

But Americans will first have to get over their aversion to thinking ahead.  That flaw is one of the key reasons that China and Germany have (at least temporarily) gained such a competitively worrisome jump on the future.