That Used to Be Us_ How America Fell Behind in thted and How We Can Come Back - Friedman, Thomas L. & Mandelbaum, Michael [110]
On April 22, 2010, Earth Day, the navy flew an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet powered by a fifty-fifty blend of conventional jet fuel and camelina aviation biofuel made from pressed mustard seeds. That fighter jet flew at Mach 1.2 (850 miles per hour) and has since been tested on biofuels at Mach 1.7 (nearly 1,300 miles per hour)—without a hiccup. As Scott Johnson, general manager of Sustainable Oils, which produced the camelina, put it in Biofuels Digest: “It was awesome to watch camelina biofuel break the sound barrier.”
Mabus believes that if the navy and marines could deploy generators in Iraq and Afghanistan with renewable power, as well as more energy-efficient tents; could run more ships on nuclear energy, biofuels, and hybrid engines; and could fly some of its jets with biofuels, it would gain a major advantage over the Taliban and America’s other adversaries. This is still a long, long way off, but it is heartening to see the Pentagon taking some leadership on this issue—which is no surprise, since for the marines it is a life-and-death issue. The best way to avoid a roadside bomb is not to have vehicles on the roads trucking fuel in the first place. Similarly, the best way not to have to kowtow to petro-dictators is to take away, or reduce the value of, the only source of income they have. And the best way to make it possible for the United States to cut its military budget without harming the nation’s security is to reduce our and the world’s addiction to oil. Making oil less important would reduce the military forces we have to keep on station to protect its flow from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. And, of course, importing less oil would strengthen the dollar. Americans currently send more than $1 billion a day abroad to purchase both crude oil and refined petroleum products from around the world. Bring that number down with energy efficiency and clean power, and America’s trade deficit would improve. As a bonus, the air we breathe would be cleaner, so our health-care bills would be lower.
Any of these points individually would argue for adopting a different policy on energy and climate. All of them together add up to a case that is overwhelming. No single measure would do more to make America stronger, wealthier, more innovative, more secure, and more respected than implementing a sound energy strategy—putting a price on carbon, or increasing the gasoline tax, or establishing national energy-efficiency standards for every building and home. To dismiss global warming as a hoax and refuse to take any of these steps to reduce our addiction to oil, therefore, is to wage war not just against physics but against the American national interest and against elementary prudence.
China has a different approach. “There is really no debate about climate change in China,” said Peggy Liu, chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, a nonprofit group working to accelerate the greening of China. “China’s leaders are mostly engineers and scientists, so they don’t waste time questioning scientific data.” Air pollution is much worse in China than in the United States because the country burns huge quantities of cheap coal. That creates serious health problems of a kind that, fortunately, we in the United States do not face. For this reason, Liu added, the push to be green in China “is a practical discussion on health and wealth. There is no need to emphasize future consequences when people already see, eat, and breathe pollution every day.” And because runaway pollution in China means wasted lives, air, water, ecosystems, and money—and wasted money means fewer jobs and more political instability—the regime takes it seriously. Energy efficiency achieves three