{"id":129,"date":"2010-03-08T13:22:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T17:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/?p=129"},"modified":"2010-03-08T13:22:24","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T17:22:24","slug":"jim-woolsey-pragmatic-visionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/jim-woolsey-pragmatic-visionary\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Woolsey, pragmatic visionary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.\u00a0\u00a0 Speaking as the lunch keynote at Friday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.regonline.com\/builder\/site\/tab2.aspx?EventID=781359\" target=\"_blank\">Yale Alumni in Energy conference<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>It is a refreshing approach &#8211; <strong>visionary<\/strong>, because it proposes that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We don&#8217;t simply need to reduce the use of imported oil, we need <strong>to get completely off oil as a source of energy<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>solutions must consider both the problem of <strong>environmental damage<\/strong> and <strong>impact on the earth&#8217;s poor<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>while his assessment of solutions is <strong>pragmatic<\/strong> because he stresses the importance of a <strong>portfolio<\/strong> of multiple solutions and doesn&#8217;t rule something out simply because it has problems.\u00a0 Not all problems have solutions, but all solutions have at least a few problems&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As a framing device, Woolsey outlines three types of problems to be considered when posing solutions for energy and climate challenges:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Malignant<\/strong> problems &#8211; those that no one intended to create but were created as the result of pursuing other, worthwhile goals.\u00a0\u00a0 Society didn&#8217;t choose to mine coal because it would damage the environment, but to generate electricity.\u00a0 The damage is real, but causing the damage was not the intention.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Malevolent<\/strong> problems &#8211; those that people intended to create.\u00a0 Attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in our electric grid or energy delivery system by terrorists is an example.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wretched<\/strong> problems &#8211; 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).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Woolsey then conjures a rhetorical device &#8211; &#8220;three ghosts&#8221; &#8211; to examine how any proposed solution would affect these three types of problems:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John Muir<\/strong>, for the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">malignant<\/span> problems of environmental damage<\/li>\n<li><strong>George Patton<\/strong>, for the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">malevolent<\/span> problems of security<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mahatma Gandhi<\/strong>, for the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">wretched<\/span> problems affecting the world&#8217;s poorest 2 billion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He uses those &#8220;ghosts&#8221; as he outlines his thinking on some of the components that might make up our energy future.\u00a0 Some of his assesments\u00a0 (without the detailed views from the ghosts&#8217; perspective that I could not hope to replicate):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Renewables<\/strong> are very important and must be developed, but given how small a percentage they play in today&#8217;s energy mix, we still have to use and improve conventional energy sources even if we can grow renewables very quickly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nuclear<\/strong> produces no greenhouse gases.\u00a0 The disposal of waste is a tractable problem &#8211; countries like France and Sweden have been dealing with it.\u00a0 But it can&#8217;t be <strong>the<\/strong> solution because of the huge energy security problem.\u00a0 Ramping up nuclear worldwide means spreading fuel enrichment knowledge and technology.\u00a0 Even though fuel is enriched only 3-5%, the technology needed takes a country much further than that along the way to producing weapons.<\/li>\n<li> From an energy perspective, <strong>Oil<\/strong> is now solely a transportation fuel.\u00a0 Getting off oil means <strong>electrifying our transportation system<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<strong> <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>CNG<\/strong> (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).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Biofuels<\/strong> makes sense where they are &#8220;drop-in&#8221; replacements.\u00a0 Those that need a separate distribution infrastructure or massive changes to the engine and vehicle are not a good solution.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Natural gas<\/strong> is the fuel to move toward for electricity generation.\n<ul>\n<li>It produces 1\/3 the CO<sub>2<\/sub> of coal<\/li>\n<li>A gas-fired plant is 20-25% the cost of a comparable nuclear plant<\/li>\n<li>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)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In all of these assessments, Woolsey demonstrates a refreshing lack of partisanship &#8211; you have the impression he will gladly reassess any of these if technology or the situation changes.\u00a0 The ability demonstrated in his biography to negotiate the other type of partisanship &#8211; the political one &#8211; is equally refreshing.\u00a0\u00a0 You don&#8217;t have to agree with all of his conclusions &#8211; though they are very persuasive &#8211; but it shouldn&#8217;t be hard to agree that his approach is sorely needed now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.\u00a0\u00a0 Speaking as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[45,44],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","tag-james-woolsey","tag-yale","","tg-column-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverbendadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}