Military thinktank urges US to cut oil use

An influential military thinktank is urging America to cut its oil use by 30% over the next decade, as a national security imperative.

 

In its report, the Military Advisory Board said the US should aim to drastically reduce its energy imports over the next decade – or else risk exposing the economy to devastating oil price shocks.

 

“This is a national security threat that grows ever year, and we as a nation need to recognise is at such,” said vice admiral Dennis McGinn, a former deputy chief of naval operations, and one of the authors of the report.

 

“This isn’t just about the volatility of gas prices at the pump. This isn’t just about big oils vs the environment. This is a national security problem, manifesting itself economically, diplomatically and militarily, and it is not just going to go away.”

 

The report, entitled Ensuring America’s Freedom of Movement: a National Security Imperative to Reduce America’s Oil Dependence, describes America’s reliance on imported oil as the “Achilles heel of our national security”.

 

It deploys strong language to describe the consequences of this dependence. “Our reliance on this single commodity makes us vulnerable … We are held hostage to price fixing by a cartel that includes actors who would do our nation harm, and we are too often called upon to risk the lives of our sons and daughters to protect fragile oil supplies form this very cartel,” the report says.

 

It goes on to envisage a scenario in which the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that is the entrance to the Persian Gulf, is subject to a shutdown for up to 60 days, detailing the impact on US prices and jobs.

 

“The thing that bothers us is that there are some circumstances in the world that could literally cause this cascading economic duress that would make the recession of 2008 and 2009 look like the good old days,” McGinn said.

 

The report, which will be formally unveiled on Wednesday at two briefings for members of Congress, is the fourth from the Military Advisory Board.

 

The group of recently retired three and four-star generals was first convened in 2006 by the Institute for Public Research and the Centre for Naval Analyses to help guide the Pentagon’s response to climate change.

 

Now, with all the branches of the military embarked on ambitious projects to reduce their own energy use, the thinktank is trying to exert some influence on civilian habits.

 

It puts forward nine different alternatives to conventional oil and gas – from algae-based biofuels to compressed natural gas, plug-in cars and propane. Most of those technologies are already available or will be within five years, the report says.

 

The most promising in the short-term are methanol, biofuel ethanol, electric vehicles and natural gas. But the report is cautious about the use of the most widely available biofuel in the US, corn ethanol, because of its effects on global food supply.

 

The report also offers policy guidelines for achieving the 30% reduction such as more rigorous fuel economy standards in passenger cars. Commercial trucking businesses could explore using compressed natural gas, it says. The government could expand the use of plug-in cars and biofuels on its fleets, it adds.

 

It dismisses the argument – put forward by Republicans and industry – that America can insulate itself by sourcing its oil from friendly sources such as Canada and Mexico or by increasing domestic drilling.

 

A disruption in oil supplies anywhere in the world will drive up the price of oil, it said. “We really can’t differentiate in a realistic way between oil from Venezuela or Iran or Canada,” said McGinn.

 

Since the board’s first report, the Pentagon has embarked on an ambitious project to reduce its own use of energy. The US navy is working to get half of its energy from nuclear and renewable fuels by 2020. The army wants to get 25% of its energy from renewables by 2025. The air force has been conducting test flights of its aircraft on a mix of conventional and biofuels, and the marine corps has been testing small solar power facilities in the combat zones of Afghanistan.

 

 

“I don’t really see myself as a treehugger in any way. I look at it as an issue of national security,” Howard Snow, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy who was not involved in the report, told a recent seminar.

 

The federal government has also been working to increase its use of renewable fuels – although with much more modest targets – since George Bush was president.

 

But the move away from conventional fuels is a harder sell among civilians, particularly in the current political climate, McGinn acknowledged. Still, he said he was hopeful that the recommendations would gain some traction. “We are going to do something about this as a nation. There is no other way,” he said. “It’s just a question of whether we do it proactively or find ourselves somewhere down the road facing disruptions because of a closure of petroleum supplies. It’s just a question of how much pain do we need to go through as nation before we really get it and fix this in a long-term way.”

Guardian UK