NPQ

In Bailing Out Detroit, Break US Oil Dependence

James Woolsey is a former director of the CIA and was JohnMcCain’s energy adviser in the United States presidential campaign. He spoke to NPQ in November.

NPQ | President Obama has promised not to let the Big 3 in Detroit fail. What are the conditions for a bailout?

James Woolsey | Any bailout money for Detroit should be used to maximize the speed of a shift toward the use of electric hybrids and flexible fuel vehicles. Both are necessary in breaking oil’s monopoly on transportation in the US. Both would utilize existing infrastructure such as electric power grids and filling stations, and the technology is already there, and in use, for the engines themselves. So it can be done relatively quickly.

When I say electric, I don’t necessarily mean all-electric cars. With an electric hybrid, you only need a battery that can take you 30–40 miles on an overnight charge—along the lines of what the Chevy Volt (scheduled for 2010) can do. Three-quarters of the cars in the US go less than 40 miles a day. On three days out of four, you can use all electricity. For anything beyond that, with a hybrid, you’d have liquid fuel to take you the rest of the way where you need to go. Flexible fuel vehicles should have an “open standard,” which means they can use not only ethanol but methanol, butanol or other alcohol-based fuels. This can be done quickly. Brazil went in only three years from having 5 percent of its new cars using flexible fuel to 75 percent.

Putting this shift front and center will not only help save jobs in the auto industry but create new jobs—for example, in the production of batteries for electric hybrid vehicles. It will create a whole new set of suppliers.

NPQ | America has been through this cycle several times where we pledge to free ourselves from Mideast oil—the first OPEC oil shock in the 1970s, the first Gulf War, 9/11 and the rise of oil to $140 a barrel a few months ago. What will be different this time?

Woolsey | First of all, the apparent need for an industry-wide restructuring in Detroit is an opportunity for intervention to set fuel and vehicle standards that we’ve not seen before. Second is the cheap cost of electricity. If you are driving a car fueled by electricity and stored in batteries the cost is between 2 and 4 cents a mile. The electric hybrid car I have costs me 2 cents a mile on an overnight charge because my utility company charges less for energy use at night than at peak hours during the day.

No matter how cheap a barrel of oil becomes, it will never match this price of electricity. Last summer, gas was up to 10 cents a mile; perhaps it is now in the high single digits. This was not true in the past for alternatives such as synfuels or hydrogen, which were even more expensive than oil.

Ultimately, this is why I believe electricity is the resource that will wean us from oil. For the average family, electric hybrid cars can reduce its fuel bill by one-third or more. That is a pretty good deal. And this is true independent of its other benefits—reducing carbon output that causes climate change or stemming our indirect subsidy of terrorism in the Middle East by hemorrhaging cash to the likes of Saudi Arabia for their oil.

NPQ | In World War II, the US retooled the auto and other industries in a matter of months to produce tanks, planes and other weaponry. Is there any reason we can’t shift that quickly today from gas-guzzlers to electric and hybrid fuel cars as part of the managed bankruptcy of the auto industry?

Woolsey | As we geared up for World War II, the US became a command economy under FDR. He simply ordered industries in the name of national security to mobilize for war after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It would be more complicated today, and I think we’d want to preserve as much of the market as possible in a crisis, but not wartime, environment. But I do think that by changing the incentives for both the industry and consumers we can rapidly create a large enough market for electric and hybrid fuel vehicles that will challenge and then override oil-fueled transportation.We need to make it easier for people to buy flex fuels and electric hybrid cars. There is already a $7,500 tax credit available.

And we need to mandate the automakers retool for flex-fuel capacity—a minor manufacturing shift that costs only $100 per car or so, much simpler than the mandate for seatbelts or airbags. The government might even want to let the automakers write off capital expenditures for any move toward oil independence.

NPQ | The Japanese have spent years refining hybrid vehicles, including the Toyota Prius, which is widely driven in the US. If we want to be free of Middle East oil, why not just import Japanese cars or buy cars made in the US by Japanese companies?

Woolsey | The health of the US economy over the long run is tied up with having a viable auto industry. We can certainly be open to giving the Japanese or others incentives to locate their production in the US—perhaps with tax write-offs—if they moved rapidly to electric drive. This would reduce their transport costs of shipping from abroad and create jobs in the US. But that is in addition to, not as a substitute for, an American industry.

NPQ | The Obama team has been talking a lot about a “green stimulus” for the economy. Perhaps the bailout or managed bankruptcy of the Big Three can be linked to that stimulus—for example, the construction of electric fueling stations around the country for consumers who shift to electric cars.

Woolsey | Any stimulus that moves us toward a green economy should be structured so it can operate even if credit markets are frozen up for a time. A direct fiscal stimulus can be aimed at weatherizing buildings so they are more energy efficient or installing solar units. That would employ people. The more we can move toward distributed generation of energy and away from central power plants, the better we are. That kind of decentralization of power production will create jobs.

Denmark, for example, gets a third of its electricity from co-generation—the recycling of waste heat in homes, offices and factories. In the US, co-generation is a tiny source of electricity. Moving to Denmark’s level on this front alone could employ those very people who have lost their jobs because of the downturn in the housing construction industry.

In many states and localities, simply changing the rules set by the public utility commissions, which favor the large centralized producers of energy, would allow this to go forward. No big, huge government program from Washington is required.

NPQ | So there may be a “green lining” to America’s economic crisis?

Woolsey | Yes, possibly so.

		Winter 2009
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THE RISE OF THE MEDIA- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX BOOM [NUCLEAR] AND [BUST] ECONOMIC IN ASIA BEYOND CAPITALISM ASIAN CRISIS CHINA: THE ASIAN RENAISSANCE SLOW IS BEAUTIFUL ECLIPSE OF THE BIG PICTURE AFTER THE END OF HISTORY THE EAST IS RED AGAIN HALF-A-HEGEMON THIRD WAVE TERRORISM HEIMAT Fall 1987 Winter 1987 Spring 1986 Fall-Winter '84-'85 Spring 1984		In Bailing Out Detroit, Break US Oil Dependence James Woolsey is a former director of the CIA and was JohnMcCain’s energy adviser in the United States presidential campaign. He spoke to NPQ in November. NPQ \| President Obama has promised not to let the Big 3 in Detroit fail. What are the conditions for a bailout? James Woolsey \| Any bailout money for Detroit should be used to maximize the speed of a shift toward the use of electric hybrids and flexible fuel vehicles. Both are necessary in breaking oil’s monopoly on transportation in the US. Both would utilize existing infrastructure such as electric power grids and filling stations, and the technology is already there, and in use, for the engines themselves. So it can be done relatively quickly. When I say electric, I don’t necessarily mean all-electric cars. With an electric hybrid, you only need a battery that can take you 30–40 miles on an overnight charge—along the lines of what the Chevy Volt (scheduled for 2010) can do. Three-quarters of the cars in the US go less than 40 miles a day. On three days out of four, you can use all electricity. For anything beyond that, with a hybrid, you’d have liquid fuel to take you the rest of the way where you need to go. Flexible fuel vehicles should have an “open standard,” which means they can use not only ethanol but methanol, butanol or other alcohol-based fuels. This can be done quickly. Brazil went in only three years from having 5 percent of its new cars using flexible fuel to 75 percent. Putting this shift front and center will not only help save jobs in the auto industry but create new jobs—for example, in the production of batteries for electric hybrid vehicles. It will create a whole new set of suppliers. NPQ \| America has been through this cycle several times where we pledge to free ourselves from Mideast oil—the first OPEC oil shock in the 1970s, the first Gulf War, 9/11 and the rise of oil to $140 a barrel a few months ago. What will be different this time? Woolsey \| First of all, the apparent need for an industry-wide restructuring in Detroit is an opportunity for intervention to set fuel and vehicle standards that we’ve not seen before. Second is the cheap cost of electricity. If you are driving a car fueled by electricity and stored in batteries the cost is between 2 and 4 cents a mile. The electric hybrid car I have costs me 2 cents a mile on an overnight charge because my utility company charges less for energy use at night than at peak hours during the day. No matter how cheap a barrel of oil becomes, it will never match this price of electricity. Last summer, gas was up to 10 cents a mile; perhaps it is now in the high single digits. This was not true in the past for alternatives such as synfuels or hydrogen, which were even more expensive than oil. Ultimately, this is why I believe electricity is the resource that will wean us from oil. For the average family, electric hybrid cars can reduce its fuel bill by one-third or more. That is a pretty good deal. And this is true independent of its other benefits—reducing carbon output that causes climate change or stemming our indirect subsidy of terrorism in the Middle East by hemorrhaging cash to the likes of Saudi Arabia for their oil. NPQ \| In World War II, the US retooled the auto and other industries in a matter of months to produce tanks, planes and other weaponry. Is there any reason we can’t shift that quickly today from gas-guzzlers to electric and hybrid fuel cars as part of the managed bankruptcy of the auto industry? Woolsey \| As we geared up for World War II, the US became a command economy under FDR. He simply ordered industries in the name of national security to mobilize for war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be more complicated today, and I think we’d want to preserve as much of the market as possible in a crisis, but not wartime, environment. But I do think that by changing the incentives for both the industry and consumers we can rapidly create a large enough market for electric and hybrid fuel vehicles that will challenge and then override oil-fueled transportation.We need to make it easier for people to buy flex fuels and electric hybrid cars. There is already a $7,500 tax credit available. And we need to mandate the automakers retool for flex-fuel capacity—a minor manufacturing shift that costs only $100 per car or so, much simpler than the mandate for seatbelts or airbags. The government might even want to let the automakers write off capital expenditures for any move toward oil independence. NPQ \| The Japanese have spent years refining hybrid vehicles, including the Toyota Prius, which is widely driven in the US. If we want to be free of Middle East oil, why not just import Japanese cars or buy cars made in the US by Japanese companies? Woolsey \| The health of the US economy over the long run is tied up with having a viable auto industry. We can certainly be open to giving the Japanese or others incentives to locate their production in the US—perhaps with tax write-offs—if they moved rapidly to electric drive. This would reduce their transport costs of shipping from abroad and create jobs in the US. But that is in addition to, not as a substitute for, an American industry. NPQ \| The Obama team has been talking a lot about a “green stimulus” for the economy. Perhaps the bailout or managed bankruptcy of the Big Three can be linked to that stimulus—for example, the construction of electric fueling stations around the country for consumers who shift to electric cars. Woolsey \| Any stimulus that moves us toward a green economy should be structured so it can operate even if credit markets are frozen up for a time. A direct fiscal stimulus can be aimed at weatherizing buildings so they are more energy efficient or installing solar units. That would employ people. The more we can move toward distributed generation of energy and away from central power plants, the better we are. That kind of decentralization of power production will create jobs. Denmark, for example, gets a third of its electricity from co-generation—the recycling of waste heat in homes, offices and factories. In the US, co-generation is a tiny source of electricity. Moving to Denmark’s level on this front alone could employ those very people who have lost their jobs because of the downturn in the housing construction industry. In many states and localities, simply changing the rules set by the public utility commissions, which favor the large centralized producers of energy, would allow this to go forward. No big, huge government program from Washington is required. NPQ \| So there may be a “green lining” to America’s economic crisis? Woolsey \| Yes, possibly so.