Green Labor Journal - Working for a Substainable Future

Freedom from Future Oil Spills

A roadmap to U.S. independence from Persian Gulf oil and offshore drilling

By Jerry Brown Jul 07, 2010

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Imagine a world in which America had won its freedom from both Persian Gulf oil and offshore drilling ─ while creating millions of good green jobs over the next decade.

Imagine a world in which America had finally marshaled the political will to overcome the energy and climate change crises that threaten our economy, environment and national security.

The good news is that we can build that world in 10 years with existing technology, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generating a decade of job growth.

BP Oil Spill Sharpens Debate
On May 5, British Petroleum officials told a U.S. House committee that its worst-case scenario for the total size of the Gulf oil spill was 225 million gallons.  This would dwarf by 20 times the 11 million gallons released during the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989.

Dire new federal figures (released on May 27) showed that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has already by far surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst oil disaster in American history.

As of June 15, with as much as 2.5 million gallons of oil a day gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf spill was now on par with an Exxon Valdez disaster every four days!

This unprecedented catastrophe is devastating, perhaps irreparably, one of the most productive ecosystems in the world.  In the midst of a major recession, thousands of workers and fishermen are losing their jobs and livelihoods.

As the economic, environmental and health impacts of this disaster increase daily, the debate between costly foreign oil imports and risky domestic offshore drilling is heating up.

Fortunately, just as we do not have to decide between good jobs OR green jobs, we do not have to choose between costly Persian Gulf oil OR risky offshore drilling.

“It is a false tradeoff to say that we must undertake dangerous offshore drilling activities or see an increase in oil imports from potentially hostile regimes,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, Executive Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

The lessons of this oil spill are clear.  New offshore drilling is not the answer.  We must transform our energy system.

Freedom from Mid-East Oil
In 2007, I co-authored a book titled Freedom from Mid-East Oil, which outlines a roadmap by which America could save 5 million barrels of oil a day (MBD) in 10 years.

As Figure 1 on “U.S. Oil Use and Projected Oil Savings, 2005-2015” shows, 5 MBD was larger than all projected imports from the Middle East/Persian Gulf (4.5 MBD) by 2015. (As the information in this figure is presented by sector, percentages do not add to 100%).

However, after the book was published, due mainly to the economic recession that began in late 2007, U.S. energy markets have slowed dramatically.  According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010), “it was the first time in the 60-year data series maintained by EIA that electricity use fell in two consecutive years.”

As a result, the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 Reference Case projects only moderate growth in U.S. oil consumption, increased use of renewables, and rapidly declining reliance on imported oil ─ especially oil from the Persian Gulf nations.

Based on current Annual Energy Outlook 2010 data, Figure 2 shows that projected total U.S. oil use by 2020 will be 21 MBD, instead of the 25 MBD estimated half-a-decade earlier.  And, projected Persian Gulf oil imports will be only 1.4 MBD, a dramatic threefold decline from the 4.5 MBD estimated earlier.


The Prometheus Plan ─ A Roadmap  
Essentially, the Prometheus Plan, as summarized in Figure 3, calls for saving 5 MBD through a combination of increasing fleet-wide light-duty vehicle fuel efficiency (CAFE Standards for new cars and light trucks) to 40 miles per gallon; making efficiency improvements to heavy-duty trucks, motor oil and tires; and accelerating the growth of bio-fuels and bio-diesel.  In April 2010, new Obama Administration EPA/DOT rules increased the CAFE standard to 34.1 MPG by 2016.

Since 2007, when the book was published, there has been an extensive “biofuels backlash” against corn ethanol as relatively inefficient in terms of net energy and as unsustainably competitive with food supplies and animal feed stocks.  The Prometheus Plan anticipated this critique and, therefore, emphasized a rapid transition to next-generation cellulosic biofuels, which appears feasible given rapid new developments.


Considerable Benefits
The benefits to the United States of implementing the Prometheus Plan are considerable.  Over the next decade, they include: saving or creating nearly two million jobs; reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil; increasing national security; mitigating climate change; diminishing trade deficits; re-invigorating the domestic economy; and re-establishing America’s global leadership.

No wonder the energy plan originally adopted by the Obama Administration closely parallels the roadmap provided in Freedom from Mid-East Oil.

Now, all that’s lacking in the wake of the Gulf oil catastrophe is the political will to aggressively build an energy future based on maximizing efficiency and renewable energy ─ without kowtowing to Big Oil.  And, without apologizing to British Petroleum (BP), as Texas Congressman Joe L. Barton did when he denounced Obama’s $20 billion oil spill damage fund as a “Chicago-style shakedown.”

On the contrary, as Hendrik Hertzberg observed in The New Yorker on June 28, 2010, “A shakedown?  What Obama is trying for, in his methodical, sometimes maddening way, is a shakeup.”

Independence from Persian Gulf Oil and Offshore Drilling
Since total U.S. offshore oil production in the lower 48 states is projected to increase from 1.7 MBD in 2010 to 2.1 MBD by 2020, aggressive implementation of the Prometheus Plan allows the U.S. to displace all Persian Gulf oil imports and all offshore drilling in ten years.



Furthermore, a recent U.S. EIA analysis, “Impact of Limitations on Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Outer Continental Shelf,” found that keeping the ban on OCS offshore drilling would decrease offshore crude oil production by 0.5 MBD by 2030 ─ equal to only 2 percent of the projected U.S. oil supply at that time

Offshore Drilling Fails to Provide Energy Security
Citing data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argues that, if we expanded offshore drilling, by 2030 Americans would save only 3 cents per gallon of gas at the pump.  However, if we achieved a 35 MPG CAFE standard, then by 2030 Americans would save about $1.00 per gallon of gas.
David Friedman, former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and current research director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists agrees. 

Friedman points out "When it comes to saving oil, improving the fuel economy of our cars and trucks blows offshore drilling out of the water. Boosting the fuel economy of our cars and trucks to just 35 miles per gallon can save nearly as much oil as we currently import from the Persian Gulf, while saving consumers money at the gas pump. In contrast, opening areas of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast that were previously unavailable for drilling would lower gas prices by less than 2 cents a gallon 20 years from now, while providing less than two months worth of oil over the next two decades."  (http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/offshore-drilling-plan-fails-0366.html)

Now that the “impossible” Big Spill has occurred, it is time to affirm President Obama’s  moratorium on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, because offshore drilling is ecologically risky, economically unproductive and ultimately unnecessary to America’s long-term energy independence and security.

Renewable Energy Generates More Jobs than Fossil Fuels
Consistently, authoritative studies show that investments in energy efficiency and renewables generate more jobs than fossil fuels per dollar invested.  For example,

●   A UC Berkeley report on Putting Renewables to Work concludes, “For a variety of feasible scenarios, the renewables industry consistently generates more jobs per MWa in construction, manufacturing and installation, and in O&M and fuel processing, than the fossil fuel industries. Investment in renewables also generates more jobs per dollar invested than the fossil fuel energy sector.”

●   The Center for American Progress estimates that spending $100 billion on a green recovery program in the US would create approximately 2 million jobs, compared to the same amount spent on the domestic oil industry, which would create 542,000 jobs ─ or, only one-fourth the number of jobs generated by green investments.

●   An Energy Policy article, “Putting Renewable and Energy Efficiency to Work,” finds that all non-fossil fuel technologies (renewable energy, energy efficiency, low carbon) create more jobs per unit of energy produced than coal and natural gas.  

Foundation for Lasting Prosperity
In his June 15 Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill, President Obama said, “For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered.  For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels.  And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.  Time and again, the path forward has been blocked ─ not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.”

“The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight.  Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America.  Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil.  And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.”

“We cannot consign our children to this future.  The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”

However, while the Gulf oil spill could spur the growth of clean energy jobs, the labor movement must continue its vigorous campaign to ensure that these “jobs of tomorrow” are “good jobs.”

As Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, warns in his statement on the release of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act, “The USW has long believed that the goals of stopping the threat of climate change and creating thousands of clean energy jobs can and should be two sides of the same coin.  To do this, a climate bill must ensure that emissions are actually reduced and not simply off-shored along with millions of American jobs.”

Similarly, policy efforts to achieve U.S. independence from Persian Gulf oil and oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico require a variety of “made in America” provisions ─ such as effective training for workers, transition compensation for displaced workers, and domestic jobs generation throughout the entire clean energy supply chain ─ in order to guarantee that these green jobs are good, family-sustaining jobs.

The reality is that we can have our cake and eat it too.  By maximizing sustainable energy efficiencies and renewable fuels in the transportation sector, we can achieve independence from all Persian Gulf oil and offshore drilling within ten years, while reducing greenhouse gases and mitigating climate change.

We can achieve energy independence and generate good green jobs, without further destroying the fragile ecosystems of the Gulf Coast and the livelihoods of hardworking Americans.

Jerry B. Brown, Ph.D., is senior editor of the Green Labor Journal and Founding Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. He is co-author of Freedom from Mid-East Oil (World Business Academy, 2007), a book he wrote with Rinaldo Brutoco, JD, and James Cusumano, Ph.D.  For additional information, contact Jerry Brown at (305) 993-5140 or jbbbrown@gate.net.