Jim Woolsey served in the administration of four different Presidents, both Republican and Democrat, and is today a leading voice for the role of clean technology in addressing both the future of the planet and our national security. Speaking as the lunch keynote at Friday’s Yale Alumni in Energy conference in New Haven, he laid out a problem statement, a clear vision for the goal and his relentlessly pragmatic assessment of the possible technologies and approaches to a clean energy future.
It is a refreshing approach – visionary, because it proposes that:
- We don’t simply need to reduce the use of imported oil, we need to get completely off oil as a source of energy
- solutions must consider both the problem of environmental damage and impact on the earth’s poor
while his assessment of solutions is pragmatic because he stresses the importance of a portfolio of multiple solutions and doesn’t rule something out simply because it has problems. Not all problems have solutions, but all solutions have at least a few problems…
As a framing device, Woolsey outlines three types of problems to be considered when posing solutions for energy and climate challenges:
- Malignant problems – those that no one intended to create but were created as the result of pursuing other, worthwhile goals. Society didn’t choose to mine coal because it would damage the environment, but to generate electricity. The damage is real, but causing the damage was not the intention.
- Malevolent problems – those that people intended to create. Attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in our electric grid or energy delivery system by terrorists is an example.
- Wretched problems – those affecting the 2 billion people who live in abject poverty and have virtually no access to modern sources of energy (those are related problems).
Woolsey then conjures a rhetorical device – “three ghosts” – to examine how any proposed solution would affect these three types of problems:
- John Muir, for the malignant problems of environmental damage
- George Patton, for the malevolent problems of security
- Mahatma Gandhi, for the wretched problems affecting the world’s poorest 2 billion
He uses those “ghosts” as he outlines his thinking on some of the components that might make up our energy future. Some of his assesments (without the detailed views from the ghosts’ perspective that I could not hope to replicate):
- Renewables are very important and must be developed, but given how small a percentage they play in today’s energy mix, we still have to use and improve conventional energy sources even if we can grow renewables very quickly.
- Nuclear produces no greenhouse gases. The disposal of waste is a tractable problem – countries like France and Sweden have been dealing with it. But it can’t be the solution because of the huge energy security problem. Ramping up nuclear worldwide means spreading fuel enrichment knowledge and technology. Even though fuel is enriched only 3-5%, the technology needed takes a country much further than that along the way to producing weapons.
- From an energy perspective, Oil is now solely a transportation fuel. Getting off oil means electrifying our transportation system.
- CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is a possible fuel for fleet vehicles because it requires a significant infrastructure that can be supported for fleets (much as diesel is today).
- Biofuels makes sense where they are “drop-in” replacements. Those that need a separate distribution infrastructure or massive changes to the engine and vehicle are not a good solution.
- Natural gas is the fuel to move toward for electricity generation.
- It produces 1/3 the CO2 of coal
- A gas-fired plant is 20-25% the cost of a comparable nuclear plant
- It is hugely abundant in the US, especially with recent discoveries (with a belief that the environmental challenges to removal of shale gas are tractable)
In all of these assessments, Woolsey demonstrates a refreshing lack of partisanship – you have the impression he will gladly reassess any of these if technology or the situation changes. The ability demonstrated in his biography to negotiate the other type of partisanship – the political one – is equally refreshing. You don’t have to agree with all of his conclusions – though they are very persuasive – but it shouldn’t be hard to agree that his approach is sorely needed now.