Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Seventeen: Achieving Resilience 295In giving practical effect to such generalities, several changes of policy wouldhelp federal agencies to improve national prosperity and energy resilience.First, and perhaps most important, federal energy thinking should reflectthe comprehensive approach to vulnerability and resilience which the foregoinganalysis has developed. This has not been the case since at least WorldWar II (if then). Even such Secretaries of Energy as James Schlesinger, whosebackground as Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligencemight have been expected to heighten his sensitivity to such issues, ignoredany energy vulnerability other than cutoffs of oil imports. The Department ofEnergy’s stated desire for a “resilient” energy policy 4 needs to consider arange of disruptions far wider than this traditional and continuing emphasis. 5Present responses to vulnerability (stockpiling, encouraging dual fueling ofcertain oil-using devices, developing surge capacity, and international liaison) 6are well meant. However, they ignore and disguise the tendency of most federalenergy policies to slow down the displacement of foreign oil and to increaseother energy vulnerabilities.Currently, a few federal programs do reflect specific security concerns. TheStrategic Petroleum Reserve, for example, has benefited from vulnerabilityanalyses (done without encouragement from the Department of Energy ormuch coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency). Thereare also minor utility programs concerned with the integrity of regional gridsand with the traditional studies of technical reliability, though their future is indoubt under the proposed abolition of the Department of Energy. And finally,there are site- and program-specific nuclear security programs. Yet the focus ofall these programs is far narrower than that proposed in this book. The programstend to focus on the cosmetic treatment of vulnerabilities already created,rather than on selecting alternatives which are not so vulnerable in the firstplace. The potential contribution which end-use efficiency and appropriaterenewable sources can make in enhancing national security—especially in minimizingthe consequences of terrorist attacks, a major concern of the currentAdministration—is thus not being exploited because it is not fully perceived.Second, the Reagan Administration’s free-market approach to energy policyis long overdue and can produce immense benefits in efficient energyinvestment, but it is not yet being consistently applied. 7 When the AssistantSecretary for Fossil Energy remarked that without the one-and-one-half-billion-dollarfederal loan guarantee given to TOSCO by the Synthetic FuelsCorporation (a huge subsidy fund set up after the 1979 gasoline shortages),even its partner Exxon might pull out of a vast Colorado oil-shale project, 8that was tantamount to admitting that shale oil cannot compete in a free market.If so, it hardly deserves federal support; conversely, if it can compete, it