Michael T. Klare: Tithing at the Crude Altar

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama has often stated that one of his highest priorities is to vanquish the

In the past, the United States made an implicit bargain with our foreign energy suppliers; we will protect your government, supply arms to your military and overlook your human-rights violations in exchange for preferred access to your oil outputs. These arrangements reduce our political leverage, our moral authority and our ability to bargain with these states on other issues. We must accept the reality of our continued oil dependence and reframe our relationships so that the market, rather than guns, bloodshed and dictatorships, governs trade in crude. Contrary to popular belief, these petro-regimes need the United States more than the United States needs them. The tyranny of oil can be stopped.

ENERGY DEPENDENCE is our reality. At the beginning of 2009, the United States needed nearly three-fifths of its total oil supply to come from imports. To reduce this high level of reliance, most policy makers favor some combination of measures aimed at spurring conservation and expanding the supply of domestically produced fuels. These could include higher gasoline taxes, incentives for the acquisition of gas-electric hybrids or all-electric vehicles, the accelerated production of alternative fuels (such as liquids derived from shale, biomass and coal), the expansion of public transit and increased drilling in protected areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the outer continental shelf. All of these proposals have their fair share of advocates and opponents. All, no doubt, will be examined closely by this and future administrations. But even if given a strong endorsement by Congress and the White House, every one of them poses significant obstacles of one sort or another, and so, no matter which menu of options is ultimately adopted, it will be several decades before they can achieve maximum effect.

Unfortunately, no amount of wishful thinking can get us around the facts. Much hope has been placed, for example, on the development of advanced biofuels that can be derived from nonedible plant matter like switchgrass and straw and that can be manufactured by chemical means, rather than energy-inefficient cooking. But no such refineries are now in operation and it will be a decade or more before fuel of this type is available in large quantities. The full-scale development of other petroleum alternatives, such as coal-to-liquids (CTL) and biodiesel derived from certain strains of algae, is expected to take even longer. Boosting wind, solar and nuclear energy to produce more electricity for use by plug-in hybrids, all-electric cars and high-speed rail will also require trillions of dollars in new investment and take several decades to achieve. Thus, even in 2030, the Department of Energy projects that biofuels and CTL will provide a mere 14 percent of the nation