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Translator: Jenny Zurawell Reviewer: Morton Bast
America's public energy conversation
boils down to this question:
Would you rather die of A) oil wars,
or B) climate change,
or C) nuclear holocaust,
or D) all of the above?
Oh, I missed one: or E) none of the above?
That's the one we're not normally offered.
What if we could make energy do our work
without working our undoing?
Could we have fuel without fear?
Could we reinvent fire?
You see, fire made us human;
fossil fuels made us modern.
But now we need a new fire
that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.
Let's see how.
Four-fifths of the world's energy
still comes from burning each year
four cubic miles of the rotted remains
of primeval swamp goo.
Those fossil fuels
have built our civilization.
They've created our wealth.
They've enriched the lives of billions.
But they also have rising costs
to our security, economy, health and environment
that are starting to erode, if not outweigh their benefits.
So we need a new fire.
And switching from the old fire to the new fire
means changing two big stories about oil and electricity,
each of which puts two-fifths of the fossil carbon in the air.
But they're really quite distinct.
Less than one percent of our electricity is made from oil --
although almost half is made from coal.
Their uses are quite concentrated.
Three-fourths of our oil fuel is transportation.
Three-fourths of our electricity powers buildings.
And the rest of both runs factories.
So very efficient vehicles, buildings and factories
save oil and coal,
and also natural gas that can displace both of them.
But today's energy system is not just inefficient,
it is also disconnected,
aging, dirty and insecure.
So it needs refurbishment.
By 2050 though, it could become efficient,
connected and distributed
with elegantly frugal
autos, factories and buildings
all relying on a modern, secure
and resilient electricity system.
We can eliminate our addiction to oil and coal by 2050
and use one-third less natural gas
while switching to efficient use
and renewable supply.
This could cost, by 2050,
five trillion dollars less in net present value,
that is expressed as a lump sum today,
than business as usual --
assuming that carbon emissions
and all other hidden or external costs are worth zero --
a conservatively low estimate.
Yet this cheaper energy system
could support 158 percent bigger U.S. economy
all without needing oil or coal,
or for that matter nuclear energy.
Moreover, this transition needs no new inventions
and no acts of Congress
and no new federal taxes, mandate subsidies or laws
and running Washington gridlock.
Let me say that again.
I'm going to tell you how to get the United States
completely off oil and coal, five trillion dollars cheaper
with no act of Congress
led by business for profit.
In other words, we're going to use our most effective institutions --
private enterprise co-evolving with civil society
and sped by military innovation
to go around our least effective institutions.
And whether you care most
about profits and jobs and competitive advantage
or national security, or environmental stewardship
and climate protection and public health,
reinventing fire makes sense and makes money.
General Eisenhower reputedly said
that enlarging the boundaries of a tough problem
makes it soluble by encompassing more options and more synergies.
So in reinventing fire,
we integrated all four sectors that use energy --
transportation, buildings, industry and electricity --
and we integrated four kinds of innovation,
not just technology and policy,
but also design and business strategy.
Those combinations yield
very much more than the sum of the parts,
especially in creating deeply disruptive business opportunities.
Oil costs our economy two billion dollars a day,
plus another four billion dollars a day
in hidden economic and military costs,
raising its total cost to over a sixth of GDP.
Our mobility fuel goes three-fifths to automobiles.
So let's start by making autos oil free.
Two-thirds of the energy it takes to move a typical car
is caused by its weight.
And every unit of energy you save at the wheels,
by taking out weight or drag,
saves seven units in the tank,
because you don't have to waste six units
getting the energy to the wheels.
Unfortunately, over the past quarter century,
epidemic obesity has made our two-ton steel cars
gain weight twice as fast as we have.
But today, ultralight, ultrastrong materials,
like carbon fiber composites,
can make dramatic weight savings snowball
and can make cars simpler and cheaper to build.
Lighter and more slippery autos
need less force to move them,
so their engines get smaller.
Indeed, that sort of vehicle fitness
then makes electric propulsion affordable
because the batteries or fuel cells
also get smaller and lighter and cheaper.
So sticker prices will ultimately fall to about the same as today,
while the driving cost, even from the start,
is very much lower.
So these innovations together can transform automakers
from wringing tiny savings
out of Victorian engine and seal-stamping technologies
to the steeply falling costs
of three linked innovations that strongly reenforce each other --
namely ultralight materials, making them into structures
and electric propulsion.
The sales can grow and the prices fall even faster
with temporary feebates,
that is rebates for efficient new autos
paid for by fees on inefficient ones.
And just in the first two years
the biggest of Europe's five feebate programs
has tripled the speed of improving automotive efficiency.
The resulting shift to electric autos
is going to be as game-changing
as shifting from typewriters to the gains in computers.
Of course, computers and electronics
are now America's biggest industry,
while typewriter makers have vanished.
So vehicle fitness
opens a new automotive competitive strategy
that can double the oil savings over the next 40 years,
but then also make electrification affordable,
and that displaces the rest of the oil.
America could lead this next automotive revolution.
Currently the leader is Germany.
Last year, Volkswagen announced
that by next year they'll be producing
this carbon fiber plugin hybrid
getting 230 miles a gallon.
Also last year, BMW announced
this carbon fiber electric car,
they said that its carbon fiber is paid for
by needing fewer batteries.
And they said, "We do not intend to be a typewriter maker."
Audi claimed it's going to beat them both by a year.
Seven years ago, an even faster and cheaper
American manufacturing technology
was used to make this little carbon fiber test part,
which doubles as a carbon cap.
(Laughter)
In one minute -- and you can tell from the sound
how immensely stiff and strong it is.
Don't worry about dropping it, it's tougher than titanium.
Tom Friedman actually whacked it as hard as he could with a sledgehammer
without even scuffing it.
But such manufacturing techniques
can scale to automotive speed and cost
with aerospace performance.
They can save four-fifths of the