Blog Your “Ride” Shapes Our National Security, And Environment
Cascadia Center “Jump Start” Conference Live-Blog Post #2
REDMOND, WA. — I’m live-blogging today from “Jump Start To A Secure, Clean Energy Future,” the conference our Cascadia Center For Regional Development is co-sponsoring at Microsoft’s Redmond campus. (My first live blog post of the day is here). Underway now is the panel, “National Security Imperatives For Flex-Fuel Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles.” It features Anne Korin and Gal Luft, Co-Directors of the Institute For The Analysis Of Global Security; and former CIA head and National Commission On Energy Policy Commissioner R. James Woolsey. In an exclusive video address to the conference, Woolsey said:
This war against terror is the only war we have fought, since the civil war, where we finance both sides….next time you pull into the gas station, look at yourself in the rear view mirror. Now you know who is paying for the madrassas in Pakistan. We ought to be decisively moving away from oil as a strategic commodity.
Advances in battery technology must and will continue, yielding plug-in hybrid vehicles that will get 125-150 miles per gallon of gas and go 30 to 35 miles on a single charge. With flexibile fuel capabilities, and running on, for instance, a liquid fuel blend that’s 85 percent cellulosic ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, a PHEV will be able to get 500 mpg, Woolsey said. That grows to approximately 1,000 – yes, 1,000 mpg – if the vehicle is constructed of the lightweight carbon composites used in aerospace and race cars, Woolsey added. He concluded:
One thousand miles per gallon ought to be enough to make a Wahhabi frown.
Luft said the average life cycle of cars in the U.S. is 16.8 years, and “if it only knows how to run on gasoline, that is what it will do for the next 16.8 years….We need to give people fuel choice:” including more and longer lasting electricity through plug-in hybrid technology, plus butanol, methanol and other fuel sources. All new cars manufactured for the U.S. market should by federal mandate be flex-fuel capable, Luft recommended.
Korin urged, if you want action you have to make this a voting issue, so support the DRIVE Act to cut oil imports, and boost fuel and vehicle choice; and lobby your elected representatives in Congress to do so as well.
On a following panel here today covering climate change imperatives for flex-fuel plug-in vehicles are K.C. Golden, policy director of Climate Solutions; Dr. Andrew Frank of University of California, Davis; and Dr. Philp Mote, climatologist, University of Washington.
TECHNORATI TAGS: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/PLUG-IN HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES, PHEV, FOREIGN OIL, NATIONAL SECURITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, ANNE KORIN, GAL LUFT, K.C. GOLDEN, ANDREW FRANK, PHILIP MOTE"rel="tag"PLUG-IN HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES, PHEV, FOREIGN OIL, NATIONAL SECURITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, ANNE KORIN, GAL LUFT, K.C. GOLDEN, ANDREW FRANK, PHILIP MOTE