Ex-CIA Head: Biofuels Help Security
The U.S. has become dangerously dependent on foreign oil, and developing transport fuel from agricultural products is in its national security interest, former CIA director James Woolsey said.
Woolsey, speaking Wednesday at the Oklahoma Biofuels Conference, said the United States needs to significantly reduce its reliance on foreign oil.
"The people who produce large amounts (of oil) have a lot of leverage that we don't want them to have," he said.
The two-day biofuels conference has focused on developing alternative transportation fuels by using agricultural products native to the U.S. state, such as Oklahoma switchgrass.
Woolsey served as the CIA's director under President Clinton from February 1993 to January 1995. He is now a vice president and officer for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.
Woolsey said the fact that so much of the oil used by U.S. consumers comes from the Middle East gives some nations in that volatile region an inordinate amount of power.
He said a terrorist attack in the right place could cause oil prices to rise as high as $200 a barrel. Light, sweet crude for November delivery settled at $87.40 a barrel Wednesday.
The way to break the stranglehold, he said, is to develop alternative fuels. He predicted the main alternatives would be biofuels, such as ethanol and butanol, and electricity in the form of plug-in hybrid vehicles.
"Plug-in hybrids, together with alternative liquid fuels like ethanol and butanol - especially if we can make them from prairie grass or switchgrass - that combination would be quite something," Woolsey said.
Woolsey said the government should encourage the continued free-market development of alternative forms of energy, including wind and solar power, and not push any one solution over another.
Woolsey said he traces his interest in energy independence to 1973, when he sat in his car in long lines waiting to fill up with gasoline during the oil shortage. He now drives a hybrid car with a bumper sticker reading, "Bin Laden hates this car."
He said cutting back on oil use would not necessarily hurt Oklahoma's strong energy sector or the state's economy. Natural gas, also produced in large amounts in the state, is environmentally friendly, he said.
"What we're talking about in the long run is having rural America and farms be able to supply the raw material for not just some of what we do, but a lot of what we do, in both fuels and chemicals."
By Associated Press Writer Murray Evans