UCS: Five Steps to Curb Our Energy Use

America uses a quarter of the world's oil, but has only 3 percent of known reserves. Today we import more than half of our oil from some of the most unstable regions of the world. Events since September 11 highlight the danger in turning a blind eye to oil dependence. Our biggest challenge is to reduce the amount of oil we use to run our passenger vehicles.

Domestic drilling won't solve the problem; the only way to end the economic and security risks of this imbalance is to cut our import dependence by using better cars and better fuels. "Dangerous Addiction: Ending America's Oil Dependence," a new report from NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), details the security threat and offers a practical, simple, five-step plan to cut the oil needed for our cars and light trucks in half, saving 5 million barrels per day by 2020.

"Washington has been dragging its feet on energy security. Now we face the risk of finishing another war with Middle East origins without a solution in place," said John Podesta, former White House chief of staff, now a senior fellow at NRDC. "It's time for the president and Congress to reverse course, and tackle this national security priority."

The report presents steps we can take now, using American technology and know-how, to reduce the oil needed to power America's cars and light trucks. We can cut that oil demand in half by 2020 -- and give American consumers the best and safest driving choices in the world -- by building better vehicles and making better fuels.

"Detroit has the technology to end our oil addiction," said Jason Mark, director of the Clean Vehicles Program at UCS. "If cars and trucks live up to their technological potential, by 2010 we can save more oil annually than we currently import from Saudi Arabia."

Solving a Dangerous Addiction

Sixty-five percent of the world's known reserves lie beneath the Persian Gulf states. If we do not act, the share of our oil that is imported will grow from one-half to nearly two-thirds by 2020. While oil prices are down for the moment, Middle East instability makes for a situation that could change at any moment. New suppliers such as Russia and the Caspian region are hardly more sound.
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would increase world reserves by less than one-third of 1 percent. That makes an energy strategy based only on drilling for new oil at home into a recipe for continued dependence on these unstable regions.

The report offers solutions to reduce our oil dependence with no reduction in safety, performance, or vehicle choice. Together, they could cut oil use by passenger vehicles nearly a quarter by 2012, and 50 percent in 2020 compared with business-as-usual.

The NRDC-UCS Action Plan to Curb Oil Dependence Includes:

• Improving the fuel economy of new vehicles powered by gasoline-engine technology. Congress should steadily increase standards for the combined fleet of cars and light trucks to 40 mpg by 2012 and 55 mpg by 2020.
  
  
• Mass-producing gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, which get double the mileage of today's cars. Toyota and Honda already have hybrids on the road, and more are coming. Lawmakers should provide consumer tax credits to support the transition to this new technology.
  
  
• Expanding use of renewable, non-petroleum fuels, such as ethanol made from crop wastes, by steadily increasing requirements for "renewable content" in gasoline.
  
  
• Putting hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles on the road using incentives and requirements to ramp up production to 100,000 vehicles by 2010 and 2.5 million by 2020. These vehicles would use one-third the energy of today's cars (none of it from oil) and produce near-zero pollution.
  
  
• Encouraging "smart growth" instead of suburban sprawl to increase our transportation choices and make communities more livable with less driving.