Submitted by Cedric Hughes on Thu, 03/20/2008 - 14:19
Conventional oil is a non-renewable resource. Now the debate is whether peak production and peak dependency have been reached. It may be that the age of fossil fuels is no longer in its ascendancy.
Today, because the auto industry consumes “the lion’s share of the 85 million barrels of oil produced [daily]” and generates “the lion’s share” of pollution created by surface transportation modes, estimated to be the source of about 25% of the problem, inevitably it faces mounting antagonism. The extent of its engagement—where things are at now and where the solutions may come from—is the subject of “Zoom, The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future” by Iain Carson and Vijay Vaitheeswaran (New York: Hachette Book Group, October 2007).
Despite its gloomy beginning—Part 1 refers to the auto industry and “big oil” as “The Terrible Twins,” describes the current state of the auto industry in the US as “Down and Out in Detroit,” and of the oil industry as “Big Oil in Big Trouble”— all is not doom and gloom. The thesis may be seen as positively encouraging: “Oil is the problem; cars are the solution.” There is much to be learned from this book, including reasons for optimism on this subject.
Part 2 outlines the history of the globalization of the auto industry with a particular focus on Toyota that includes the authors’ view that while the hybrid gasoline/electric Prius is not “the car of the future,” it has become parabolic because “it will teach Toyota and others about what will be the automotive future in a world challenged by carbon emissions and oil’s geopolitical complications.”
Geopolitical complications are detailed: —the legacy of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s reportedly “Faustian” bargain with King Ibn Saud at the end of the second world war, the “Oil Curse,” the prospects of “an energy shock” if terrorist threats against Saudi Arabian production or processing facilities were ever to succeed, and America’s lethargy in acknowledging the risks of its “oil addiction.”
The reasons suggested for hope, in Part 3 of the book, include that America has, in fact, “joined the race to fuel the car of the future.” In Asia, growth in India and China could be catastrophic but also could lead them to “leapfrog to a cleaner world, perhaps teaching America and Europe something along the way.” The signs of leapfrogging are identified.
The development of alternative fuels and alternative vehicle technologies are detailed. The “Age of Hydrogen” and the groundbreaking inventions from Stan Ovshinsky’s company, Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) are also described.
The book has a concluding list of five principles for energy policy. The list begins with an interesting suggestion for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Politicians with the courage to craft such policies “may yet prove the petro-pragmatists—[those who argue that life-after-oil-talk is naïve and way too premature]— wrong by leaving oil behind long before the world runs out of it.”
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