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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > June > 19
Friday, June 19, 2009
Guest column: Tackle energy issues with Wright kind of intensity
Lt. Gen. Lawrence P. Farrell Jr. served as the vice commander of the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Now retired, he is president of the National Defense Industrial Association.
In 1909, Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, a plane designed and built by Orville and Wilbur Wright, ushered in a new era when it became the world’s first military airplane. Once the site where the famed inventors tested their aviation inventions, today Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and military bases across the country, can help transform the way our nation secures and uses energy.
The need is urgent. I serve with retired high-ranking military leaders on the Military Advisory Board of the Center for Naval Analysis, which produced the landmark 2007 report — National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. That report found that energy, climate change and national security are inextricably linked.
Our latest study, Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security, builds upon that by considering risks inherent in the United States’ energy posture.
Our conclusion is sobering: U.S. energy posture is an urgent threat to national security. As military leaders who have spent our careers anticipating threats, we concluded that continuing business as usual is not an option.
Militarily, the sources of, and the ways in which we use, energy add to the already great risks assumed by our troops. It puts our troops — more directly and more often — in harm’s way. Ensuring the flow of oil around the world, the global economy’s lifeblood, stretches our military thin.
The country’s dependence on oil — not just foreign oil — reduces our leverage internationally and limits our diplomatic options. We say all oil, because we simply do not have enough resources in this country to ever meet our demand. We find ourselves entangled with unfriendly rulers and undemocratic nations simply because we need their oil.
In 2008, we sent $386 billion overseas to pay for oil — much of it going to nations that wish us harm. And we cannot produce enough oil to change this dynamic; we have to wean ourselves from it.
Economically, we are in the midst of a financial crisis, and our approach to energy is a key part of the problem. We are heavily dependent on a global petroleum market that is highly volatile.
In the last year alone, the per-barrel price of oil climbed as high as $140, and dropped as low as $40. This price volatility is not limited to oil; natural gas and coal prices also saw huge spikes in the last year.
While coal and natural gas resources may be plentiful, they are increasingly difficult to access and have associated impacts that are expensive. Dramatically increasing worldwide demand for fossil fuels and finite supplies will inevitably lead to a future of greater price volatility and shortages.
There are those who say we cannot afford to deal with our energy issues right now. But if we don’t address our long-term energy profile now, future economic crises will dwarf this one.
Increasing demand for, and dwindling supplies of, fossil fuels will lead to greater instability around the world.
So, too, the impacts of global climate change will pose serious threats to water supplies and agricultural production, leading to intense competition for essentials, competition that, in far too many cases, will lead to conflict. The United States cannot assume that we will be untouched by these conflicts.
In our most reasoned military judgment, we must transform the way our country produces and uses energy. We must diversify our sources of energy, both as to type and to source. This will inevitably mean moving to more renewable sources of energy and to a reduced dependence upon fossil fuels.
As the nation’s largest single largest consumer of energy, the Department of Defense can play a leadership role as an early adopter and test-bed for new energy technologies. It can spark the next technological revolution, just as it did as incubator of the Internet.
Wright-Patterson and bases like it have an important part in this transformation. I know, because I have served at Wright-Patt and am keenly aware of the human and technological resources it and other military bases have to jump-start smart energy innovation.
We can win this energy battle if we bring the same sense of urgency and intensity to smart energy innovation that the Wright brothers brought to air travel. Once again, Dayton, home of the Wright brothers’ aviation testing ground, can — and must — help lead the nation to a new era of security and prosperity.
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