Like It or Not, We Will Be Drilling Into the Foreseeable Future

As oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps instead of filling pages of newspapers and blogs with politically and geographically slanted commentary about whose fault it is, and whether or not President Obama is showing enough anger, we might be better served by expert reports that provide unbiased information to the American people about what energy alternatives exist that could reduce or eliminate our reliance on oil, what barriers lie in the way of full-scale transition to those energy sources, and what technological and economic challenges prevent us from getting there quickly. 

It is easy for advocacy groups and political candidates to promise reduced dependency on oil, as if political will or want is all it will take to make the transformation. It is not unusual for academic scientists to oversell us on the promises of the technology they seek federal funding to develop. And we know that some corporate leaders have a tendency to underemphasize potential limitations of new technologies in order to bolster investor confidence. But all of this self-serving and biased information leaves us unclear about which options will serve us best, and when we might reasonably expect to move to new and cleaner energy sources. 

This lack of uncertainty creates a tremendous public-policy challenge because when there is a lack of consensus among the experts about which option is best, politicians are unable to get behind a particular technology, or to provide the funding necessary to bring it to full scale. This leaves us stuck with the status quo, and the typical solution of a little bit here and a little bit there rather than a full-scale investment in the best idea. Selecting the right energy technology for a carbon-reduced future is hard. Even scientists who agree that we desperately need new energy solutions cannot agree on the best pathway to get there. And even if they all agree on a particular solution, there is no guarantee that we can get past the technological, economic, and cultural challenges to make the transition possible in our lifetime. 

Oil is the primary fuel source for our transportation sector while coal is the primary fuel for electricity production in the United States. This is an important distinction because while renewables such as wind and solar have the potential to help us meet at least some of our future electricity demands, these technologies are not likely substitutes for petroleum-based fuels in the transportation sector. Sure, if we can convert the entire transportation sector to electric vehicles, solar and wind could help supply some of the power we need to run our cars and buses, but this is a proposition that will take decades to accomplish—if ever—for a number of important reasons. First, if we were to transition the entire transportation sector (or most of it) to electric power, our electricity demands would increase so dramatically that we would need to build many new coal-fire power plants and/or nuclear power plants in order to satisfy increased demand. After all, even the most optimistic projections anticipate that less than 20 percent of our energy needs can be met by renewable sources in the coming decades, and that proportion becomes substantially smaller if we convert to an electric transportation fleet. So we should fully exploit the power of wind and solar while understanding that they will probably never be the primary source of electricity in the United States. 

Wind and solar have tremendous advantages, but they also have their own associated poblems. Significant production of wind and solar power will require the construction of vast wind and solar farms, and almost nobody wants them in their backyard or along their coast line. We are already seeing elected officials who support alternative energy—in theory—pass legislation to restrict the construction of wind and solar farms because to do so disrupts the habitat of some animals, or places obstructions in the pathway of some migratory birds. The environmental groups are pretty much wrapped around the axle on this one because one man’s carbon-reducing technology is another’s habitat-destructing debacle. We also have much to learn about designing efficient systems for storing and transmitting the energy created from renewable sources. Of course we shouldn’t give up on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, but despite the rhetoric, they will never generate a substantial proportion of the energy used in this country.  

In theory I agree that every roof should have a solar panel, but in reality, I have a solar power system on my sailboat and know full well its limitations. Although the panel is large and the batteries extensive, I can power little more than a dorm-sized fridge, a few lights, and a small window air conditioner for only a few hours during the night. Soon I will need to replace my batteries, which are not only very expensive, but highly toxic.  Producing and disposing of batteries creates a nasty waste stream, and if we were all using these batteries in our homes and sending them to recycling centers around the country, we would find ourselves in yet another environmental conundrum. The solar power system was also very expensive to purchase and install, making it cheaper to plug into marina power than to generate our own electricity from the sun. We are in the fortunate position to be able to afford this technology for our boat, but certainly could not afford a solar power system large enough to power an entire house. 

But for the purpose of thinking big, let’s pretend that we were able to build enough nuclear plants to power all of those electric cars, trucks, and buses with carbon-free electricity. In such a case, we still have a tremendous infrastructure challenge since most people do not have the capacity to plug in their car at home, at work, or at the shopping mall—or to throw away their current combustion engine car and buy a new electric one.  Building the infrastructure to power electric cars will be very expensive, especially in population-dense cities where most drivers don’t pull into a private driveway or park in front of their own house. Sure we can someday create the plug-in infrastructure, but it won’t happen quickly, and it won’t alleviate the need to drill for oil in the coming years. 

Probably the best near-term alternative to petroleum-based fuels in the transportation fleet is natural gas, which we know is an abundant and a lower carbon-emitting fuel than gasoline. However, most environmentalists are against this solution—even as a near-term solution—because it is not a carbon-free solution, and because of concerns that the fracking technology utilized to obtain the natural gas will ultimately contaminate drinking water. If we do convert all or most of the transportation sector to natural gas, we would need to import a substantial amount of it, which then raises concerns among the energy-independence types among us. And consumers may be less than happy to depend on a fuel which is well known for its price fluctuations in the market. 

Hydrogen fuel cells are a potential replacement for gasoline combustion engines, and both President Bush and President Obama have supported investing in the development of this technology. Like other potential solutions, though, hydrogen has its major downsides. Engineers have not yet been able to optimize fuel-cell technologies, there is not a ready infrastructure to transport, deliver, and dispense hydrogen across the country, the cost of an amount of hydrogen that produces energy equivalent to a gallon of gasoline is currently around $15, and it either requires a great deal of electricity or carbon-emitting methane to produce the hydrogen in the first place.  Some day hydrogen may be a good solution for those who drive in crowded cities, but mass transit is probably a more economical and better option in the near term. 

Yes, we can and should increase the efficiency of combustion engines, which is something that both President Bush and President Obama have supported. Both President Bush and President Obama also supported increased CAFE standards to improve the average fuel efficiency of the fleet. In the near term, improved efficiencies are probably the most practical way of reducing our energy consumption, although for every improvement we make in energy efficiency, we seem to add yet another appliance or gadget to our life that demands an over-night recharge in our already-over filled outlets. Heck, some even have to plug in their “books” to recharge them at night. 

Probably the best way to reduce our demand for oil in the short term would be for people to drive smaller cars, and to use public transportation and bicycles whenever possible, but those sorts of cultural shifts tend to be driven not by good intentions but instead by economic necessity—such as when gasoline prices soar. Still, most public transportation systems exist only in dense cities where rising housing prices (even during the housing crisis) have forced all but the weathiest workers to distant locations where they absolutely need their car. We also haven’t quite found the right financial model to support public transit since it seems like every other day I hear that Maryland MARC and the Washington Metro systems are on the verge of bankruptcy, even though most rush-hour commuters haven’t had a seat on the trains or metro for years.   

There are lots of possible alternatives to petroleum-based fuels in our transportation sector, but all require significantly more research (which is why President Bush called for a doubling of the budgets of the NSF, NIST, and DOE Office of Science in his American Competitiveness Initiative, and which is why President Obama and Congress funded President Bush’s initiative as part of the American Recovery and Relief Act just last year) and none is without its own set of risks and shortcomings. As a result, I don’t see our demand for oil decreasing any time in the near future, which means that we had better hope that BP can remain solvent in order to clean up the mess, pay damages, and continue to pump oil. 

I offer no defense for the companies or government agencies who caused the problem in the first place, or mishandled the cleanup effort to date, but I will say that in the same way that air travel became safer after the tragedy of 9/11, and FEMA became a more responsive federal agency after the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, and universities became better emergency responders and communicators in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, I suspect that BP will become a better energy producer when it gets to the other side of this enormous disaster. In the meantime, let’s stop the chatter about who said what and start focusing on new ways to more reliably and safely pump the oil we need, better prevent the accidents we can anticipate, and better respond to the inevitable ones that we can’t. And let’s have an honest dialogue about the risks and benefits of all of the alternatives to oil so that we can make an informed decision about which we are willing to accept, and which we are willing to pay for on our way to a carbon-reduced future.