OIL  (CONT)

best bet for reducing oil consumption is to concentrate on efficiency - doing the same amount of work with less energy.

He said there is a potential for saving more than 8 million barrels of oil per day simply by switching to the use of super-strong, super-light composite materials to make everything from planes to cars and light trucks.

"It's like finding a Saudi Arabia under Detroit," he said of the amounts of oil that could be saved. And, the panelists agreed, that oil would therefore not have to be imported from any of a number of increasingly hostile nations with large oil reserves that help meet America's demand of about 20 million barrels per day.

Udall and Lovins both agreed that oil shale - the mining of an oil-like substance that can be refined into jet fuel - probably is never going to become economically and environmentally feasible.

And Udall called tar sands "probably the most damaging" of the unconventional petroleum sources, in terms of the environment.
"The tiles are coming off the space shuttle," Udall said metaphorically, referring to his belief that time is running out and that the world's leaders are engaged in too much talk and too little action. Maintaining that the oil exporting nations are entering "a period of avid resource nationalism," he said the U.S. will not be able to count on secure oil imports for much longer, especially given that China is busily tying up oil production as fast as it can for its own exploding economy.

Lovins argued that China, at the same time, is working to increase energy efficiency in its various economic sectors, because "Beijing is scared to death of falling into the same trap we did." Both Lovins and Odum predicted that China may be a leader in a future shift to more efficient use of dwindling energy reserves, and in the search for alternatives to oil.

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