Towards an Intelligent Homeland Defense
by Lee H. Goldberg, Senior Technical Editor, ChipCenter

It's time to stop shopping, and start working on a sensible energy policy.

I've been as confused as the next person about what the attacks on Sept. 11 mean, and what we as citizens should be doing about it. I've got to say, however, that our president's admonitions to hit the malls or fly off to Disneyland don't strike me as the right prescription for what ails us. Looking at our current situation, it seems to me that one of the biggest contributions we civilians can make to the homeland defense effort is to move our country more towards energy independence through conservation and the increased use of renewable energy resources.

While it's crucial to get the economy moving and help the tens of thousands of folks whose jobs and businesses have been devastated by the backwash of the recent attacks, we did not win World War II or any other major conflict by getting into our SUVs and going out on a shopping spree.

During WWII, most civilian efforts went towards re-tooling the economy for production of the weapons and materials needed to match and surpass Germany's massive war machine. This time, however, we must re-tool our economy to eliminate our current dependence on fossil fuels, especially imported oil. Oil from the Mid-East has been one of the key ingredients in the volatile mixture of politics and economics that exploded in New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

Seymour Hirsh's remarkable article, "King's Ransom," in the October 22 issue of The New Yorker underlies the unsavory relationships and dangerous compromises we've had to make to keep our gasoline and other energy prices at around half that of most other industrialized nations. It's been an open secret that the Saudi Arabian government is a monstrously corrupt regime, presided over by a figurehead king who has been a near-vegetable since he suffered a major stroke in 1995.

A despotic government and continued U.S. military presence on Saudi soil (mostly there to protect our oil interests) have created ever-increasing disaffection and unrest among the Saudi people and other nearby countries. In good measure, the hatred we face in the Islamic world is a result of the festering resentment of these governments, and by association, the United States. Despite overwhelming evidence, we have failed to acknowledge the fact that our supposed allies are on the brink of an unstable situation that threatens to throw their countries, and our oil supply, into turmoil.

What is less well known is that Saudi Arabia (and probably Kuwait) has been a major sponsor of Bin Laden and other terrorist groups. Hersh documents how they have extorted ever-larger sums of money (tens of millions of dollars) from the Saudi government and its national industries in return for not stirring up any trouble in their country. It is a bitter irony that this is the thanks we get for defending these corrupt regimes during the Gulf War of 1991.

Even if our massive intelligence resources had somehow been blind to this alarming situation, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney should have been independently aware of it because of their extensive private business dealings with the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil interests. Despite glaring evidence, our government turned a blind eye to this dangerous turn of events, much like we are now ignoring the dangers of turning to Russia to meet our undiminished appetite for gas and oil.

If America is to be truly able to stand strong in this struggle, we must begin the difficult task of reducing our dependence on foreign energy resources. For the short run, we'll probably need to boost domestic fossil fuel production and rely on "friendly" sources of imported petroleum. But between our limited reserves and the large environmental costs of these short-term fixes, we must shift our economy towards a sustainable energy path as quickly as possible.

Despite Vice President Cheney's dismissive attitude towards energy-demand management and the development of alternative sources, we have little choice if we want to free ourselves from a nasty addiction that has compromised our security. Of the 19 million barrels of oil we use per day, 13 million are currently imported. The proposed exploitation of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would, by even the most optimistic reckoning, supply us with only an additional 290,000 barrels per day, or less than 3% of our imports, for the next 20–30 years.

In contrast, similar investments in conservation technologies that we can easily implement today will deliver permanent savings many times more than the 3% we'd get from the ANWR. Since 70% of the oil we import is burned in the transportation sector, consumers can do their part by purchasing energy-efficient conventional and hybrid-electric vehicles. Small changes in government policies could create large incentives for manufacturers to further improve vehicle mileage. Support for development of non-petroleum technologies such as hydrogen systems, natural gas fuel cells, and bio-fuels could also help us start to see much larger savings, and much more quickly than the three-to-five year construction cycle required before see a single barrel from the new Alaskan pipeline.

While most of the coal and natural gas that rounds out our energy diet is produced domestically, we can apply many of the same technologies to help make the best use of these resources until we bring alternatives to fossil fuels into widespread use. Already, hydro, wind, photovoltaic, biomass, and tidal generation systems supply nearly 7% of our energy needs, a close second to the 8% nuclear power gives us. With the installed costs of large wind turbines as low as $1/watt, and photovoltaic systems expected to soon dip below $2/watt, the economics of renewable energy are rapidly becoming extremely favorable.

Despite any short-term difficulties we might experience in our transition to energy independence, we can expect that for every industry that founders, there will be two new ones to replace it, and the employment opportunities will far outstrip any job short-term job losses. Those businesses with enough foresight to produce energy-frugal products will find that they are in demand both here and throughout the world.

We can also expect to see a boom in jobs related to the creation of energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, industrial controls, lighting, transportation, computing, and communication equipment. The same goes for jobs in the photovoltaic, geothermal, wind, bio-fuel, and hydro-power industries that are already meeting an ever-increasing percentage of our energy needs.

In the long run, re-tooling our economy towards the use of renewable energy and energy conservation will make us stronger and more secure, and will revitalize our position as an economic leader of the world. We'll need the combined talents of our best technical minds, our business leaders, and our elected officials to forge the tools and policies to put our country on a path towards energy independence. It's a big challenge, but then again, that's what brings out the best in the American people.

I say it's time to get out of our SUVs, stop shopping, and get to work making our country a better place to live.

Questions? Comments? Bright Ideas?

Write me at lgoldberg@green-electronics.com.

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