Herald Energy Article<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nFor anyone who thinks a $700 billion bailout is a lot of money for Americans to commit to this economic rescue plan, consider this: In this country, we spend about that much on foreign oil every single year. And what do we have to show for it?<\/p>\n
Over the past 30 years, our dependence on foreign oil has perilously increased from 20 percent to 62 percent, giving OPEC enormous leverage over U.S. policy. Cheap gasoline in the United States (half of what Europeans pay) for years has fueled our disregard for energy conservation and efficiency. While other nations not as rich as the United States have been pursuing alternative forms of energy \u2014 such as biofuels, solar, wind and nuclear \u2014 we have been treating energy as an issue of secondary importance. As developing countries consume more of the world\u2019s oil production and new oil discoveries\u00a0\u00a0 flatten,\u00a0\u00a0 the United States is facing a dan-gerous situation with regard to its energy security.<\/p>\n
The only way to secure America\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0 future\u00a0\u00a0 is\u00a0\u00a0 by aggressively increasing the nation\u2019s fuel efficiency while investing\u00a0 in\u00a0 domestic\u00a0 fuel and energy sources as soon as possible. It is a matter of national security and should be treated as such \u2014 nothing less than a new Manhattan project. We are the world\u2019s leader in research and inge-nuity,\u00a0 but\u00a0 we\u00a0 lack\u00a0 a\u00a0 long-term vision and, so far, the political will to implement energy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 diversification regardless of the price of oil.<\/p>\n
THOSE LEADING WAY \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nBrazil is a prime example of the opposite: A country with\u00a0\u00a0 a\u00a0\u00a0 fraction\u00a0\u00a0 of\u00a0\u00a0 ourresources has achieved fuel diversity\u00a0 and\u00a0 even\u00a0 self-sufficiency. Since the 1970s, it has\u00a0 instituted\u00a0 a\u00a0 long-term policy of ethanol and flexi-ble-fuel vehicle production, allowing\u00a0\u00a0 its\u00a0\u00a0 citizens\u00a0\u00a0 to choose their fuel among etha-nol, gasoline and natural gas. It was not easy, but govern-ment and the private sector worked together despite eco-nomic\u00a0 and\u00a0 political\u00a0 chal-lenges.<\/p>\n
Similarly, large European countries like Germany and Spain\u00a0 are\u00a0 on \u00a0their\u00a0 way\u00a0 to making\u00a0 biofuels,\u00a0 solar\u00a0 and wind energy a major compo-nent of their energy portfo-lios. The United Kingdom is tapping ocean energy, while over half of France\u2019s electric-ity\u00a0 comes\u00a0 from\u00a0 nuclear energy. A combination of tax incentives and greenhouse-gas emission mandates have led to widespread adoption
\nof renewables in Europe.<\/p>\n
A PLACE TO START \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\nThe United States is by far the world\u2019s largest importer and\u00a0 consumer\u00a0 of\u00a0 oil.\u00a0 Our transportation sector burns 10 million barrels of gasoline a\u00a0 day,\u00a0 an\u00a0 amount\u00a0 almost equal\u00a0 to\u00a0 all\u00a0 of\u00a0 the\u00a0 oil\u00a0 we import. Our goal should not be to simply replace oil with another\u00a0 single\u00a0 fuel,\u00a0 but rather to introduce a variety of\u00a0 alternatives\u00a0 to\u00a0 oil.\u00a0 We have a number of options at our disposal. First and fore-most, we should start with biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. The most signifi-cant domestic source of these fuels\u00a0 is\u00a0 abundant,\u00a0 inedible and inexpensive biomass \u2014 plant material such as wood waste,\u00a0 corn\u00a0 stover,\u00a0 wheat straw,\u00a0 sugar\u00a0 cane\u00a0 bagasse and\u00a0 yard\u00a0 waste.\u00a0 Although great technical progress has been achieved to date, a long-term policy that makes bio-fuels a top national priority will\u00a0 attract\u00a0 private\u00a0 invest-ment to accelerate their com-mercialization\u00a0 in\u00a0 the\u00a0 next five years.<\/p>\n
At\u00a0 the\u00a0 same\u00a0 time,\u00a0 U.S. energy policy should boost investment\u00a0 in\u00a0 automotive technologies\u00a0 that\u00a0 enhance fuel economy, regardless of the\u00a0 fuel\u00a0 used,\u00a0 and\u00a0 reduce emissions of climate-chang-ing gases. More than 70 per-cent\u00a0 of\u00a0 Americans\u00a0 drive under 25 miles a day, which can\u00a0 be\u00a0 readily\u00a0 accommo-dated with newly developed plug-in rechargeable batter-ies, while longer distances can be powered by biofuels. Such a combination of new technologies could drop our gasoline use by as much as 75 percent\u00a0 within\u00a0 10 years, significantly\u00a0\u00a0 freeing\u00a0\u00a0 the United\u00a0 States\u00a0 from\u00a0 its\u00a0 oil dependence once and for all. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0 government\u00a0 should not\u00a0 dictate\u00a0 which\u00a0 biofuelsand automotive technologies should make it to the com-mercial arena \u2014 this should be\u00a0 left\u00a0 to\u00a0 market\u00a0 forces. However, since energy secu-rity is of national importance, the government should man-date that all new vehicles be made fuel-flexible, no longer limiting us to the use of only oil products. Financial incen-tives\u00a0 should\u00a0 be\u00a0 provided directly to U.S. consumers to switch\u00a0\u00a0 to\u00a0\u00a0 flex-fuel\u00a0\u00a0 and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It is criminal to send billions of dollars every year to rogue oil-producing nations, when we can spend a fraction of that amount to help Ameri-can consumers change their habits and stop this monu-mental\u00a0\u00a0 hemorrhage\u00a0\u00a0 of national wealth.<\/p>\n
THE ROAD AHEAD<\/strong><\/p>\nThe road to energy inde-pendence\u00a0 will\u00a0 be\u00a0 fraught with difficulties. It will takevision ,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 execution\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and patience. But above all, it will take political will to turn the United States into an econ-omy\u00a0 that\u00a0 is\u00a0 fueled\u00a0 by\u00a0 a diverse\u00a0 array\u00a0 of\u00a0 energy sources and is no longer hos-tage to oil. Fuel and energy diversity \u2014\u00a0 biofuels\u00a0 frombiomass, solar, wind, nuclear and\u00a0 others\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0 will\u00a0 lead\u00a0 to price competition benefiting the U.S. consumer and help usher the country into an era of\u00a0 long-term\u00a0 energy\u00a0 and national security.<\/p>\n
Dr. Modesto Maidique is president of Florida Interna-tional University<\/a>, co-author of \u2018\u2018Energy Future,\u2019\u2019 a New York Times\u00a0 best\u00a0 seller,\u00a0 and\u00a0 has served on the U.S. Secretary of Energy\u2019s Advisory Board. Dr. George Philippidis is energy director at FIU and an expert in energy and biofuels with experience in both the private and public sectors. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BY MODESTO MAIDIQUE AND GEORGE PHILIPPIDIS Special to The Miami Herald Herald Energy Article For anyone who thinks a $700 billion bailout is a lot of money for Americans to commit to this economic rescue plan, consider this: In this country, we spend about that much on foreign oil every single year. And what do we have to show for it? Over the past 30 years, our dependence on foreign…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54351,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/54351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}