Drivers needed
Every time I get out of my car to fill the gas tank these days, I realize that there's no driver behind the wheel�not only of my car, but of our national energy policy. The current rapid fluctuation in the price of a gallon of gas is but one indicator of how we have no control over our energy future, that we are subject to the whims of others over whom we have no control.
Is anybody in charge of our energy future?
It's not the first time I've had this realization. I'm old enough to remember lining up at gas stations on alternate days (determined by whether my license plate number was odd or even) to wait for the privilege of filling up. It was that experience that led to a major shift in the American attitude toward car design, the rise of Asian auto manufacturers, and the dethroning of Detroit's Big Three. At the time, it seemed clear we were being taught that the way we used energy had to change significantly. But we seem to have forgotten that lesson.
The discovery of potentially significant oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico recently may have momentarily given us a respite from the current crisis, but it does not change the fact that oil is not a readily renewable energy source. (While there are some theories that say it is, it would be imprudent to base the future of our country on their eventually being proved true.) On the other hand, there are a number of alternatives�solar, wind, bio-fuels, fuel cells, and even nuclear energy�that do offer the promise of energy independence for the United States.
When President George Bush announced the Advanced Energy Initiative in May, it sounded as if the administration might actually be going to do something about our energy future. But intervening events and politics seems to have put this program on the back burner. And that's the problem: politics often gets in the way of our country's real and foreseeable needs. Current crises distract us from dealing with them until they become crises; it's certainly what's happened in this case.
It seems to me that, to deal with our energy future, we need some sort of organization empowered to do this work that is buffered from, not buffeted by, the winds of political change. Such an organization�preferably one manned and directed by scientists and engineers, and not politicians�could realistically plot a future course, with adjustments based on technical developments, that would be consistent over many administrations. After all, securing the energy needs of our country is not a problem that can be dealt with in four or eight years. It will take persistent effort, probably for a decade or more, to develop the sustained energy approaches needed to ensure the nation's well-being in posterity.
Richard Comerford
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