Energy Security Critical for National Security
Jackson Offers Six-Point Plan for Sustainable U.S. Energy Policy
Nov 27, 2008
Energy independence is not just unlikely, it is virtually impossible in the tightly intertwined global economy.
“There is no such thing as energy independence. There is none now, and there is not likely to be at any time soon,” says Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, the U.S.A.'s oldest (founded 1824) engineering college.
Jackson depicts the magnitude of the world-wide oil tangle:
- the European Union imports 80 percent of its oil;
- the U.S. consumes nearly 19 million barrels of oil a day;
- the U.S. produces only about five million barrels a day;
- in 1973, the U.S. imported about one-third of its oil;
- the U.S. now imports about three-fourths of its oil;
- the U.S. spent some $327 billion for oil in 2007.
Climate Change Does Not Wait
Jackson poses these challenges: Does the U.S. reduce our consumption, or quadruple production? What immediate strategy must the U.S. adopt? How will the U.S. manage climate change? The U.S. needs to change its thinking about energy because, she points out, “Climate change does not wait.”
A physicist by trade, Jackson is a former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as a former U.S. delegate to the International Energy Agency. She is also on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, where she says she has become familiar with corporations undergoing realignment and changing the way they do business. They realize energy use is a critical issue facing a future of probably energy scarcity. Jackson says the only reasonable path is one toward what she calls national energy security.
In a November 20, 2008 presentation at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, “Beyond the Price at the Pump: A Comprehensive Energy Security Roadmap,” Jackson provided a definition for the concept of energy security: “An adequate and sustainable supply of energy to meet our needs, in a way that is as environmentally benign as possible.”
Six-Point Plan for Energy Security
To meet that ambitious goal in the U.S., Jackson proposes a six-point plan:
- Redundancy of supply and diversity of source, protecting against disruption;
- Environmental sustainability and conservation, assessing the environmental impact of every proposal;
- Linking an optimum source to a specific sector of use, possibly reserving fossil fuels for the airlines and mandating plug-in hybrids for the auto industry;
- Investing in sound infrastructure for energy generation, transmission and distribution;
- Developing policy alternatives with consistent regulatory measures, possibly including a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions;
- Support for well-functioning energy markets, including transparency in fuel pricing and other costs of generating energy, along with long-term investments.
Jackson says she has great hopes for significant progress on energy issues in the early stages of the Administration of incoming President Barack Obama. She hopes a new outlook in Washington will counter the history of repeated advances and retreats on energy policy beginning in 1973 with President Nixon’s “Project Independence” in the face of the Arab oil embargo. President Ford established the Strategic Petroleum reserve; next, President Carter advocated a national energy plan emphasizing conservation, renewable energy, and research.
A Brown Cloud over China
And yet, she sees the U.S. still without a coherent energy policy. The worst effects of indifference to the consequences of energy use are all too visible, with the immense “brown cloud” of ozone, smoke and particulate matter hovering over China and Asia.
“This time, we must get the goal right and find the answers to the intellectual problems,” Jackson says. Energy security and climate change mitigation, together, are a national security issue.”
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