Good Reads for Executives:
Commentary and Questions by Kimberly Taylor

Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How
S. David Freeman
Gibbs Smith, Publisher

The popular notion that there is a silver bullet that will solve the global energy emergency is not one I usually subscribe to. However, two things about S. David Freeman’s new book, Winning Our Energy Independence:  An Energy Insider Shows How, could make me change my mind. The first is that I’ve met a slew of near-term octogenarians who are giving me great hope for our future. Oil and gas tycoon T. Boone Pickens and former California Congressman Pete McCloskey are among them. David Freeman is the third and his new book is inspiring. The second is that Freeman’s no-holds-barred approach to carefully explaining why renewable energy can be the silver bullet today has turned me into a cheerleader.

Freeman is an icon because of his fifty years in the energy industry in a career marked by straight-forward integrity and candor. His experience ranges from creating policy at every level of government to his work leading some of the largest power authorities in the world. Freeman has rolled up his sleeves with Presidents Carter, Nixon, and Johnson. He also led, among others, the Tennessee Valley Authority, New York Power Authority, and Sacramento Municipal Utilities District. You play in those worlds for long and the result is an incomparable knowledge of the players and political forces that have the power to shape or destroy change. Today, Freeman is the General Manager of the Port of Los Angeles and as of this month, the author of a very candid book that points difficult to ignore fingers at the industries that have had us stuck in neutral in addressing energy supply and climate change. More importantly, he debunks the myths about renewables and creates a blueprint to get us out of our current policy quagmire. Combining his considerable experience with his uncanny ability to connect the energy dots, he creates a vision that could actually work.

Freeman’s two major points are that we must swiftly move away from nuclear, coal and petroleum, as they are not the answers, and that renewable sources of energy are here and available today to build a promising energy future. While the 240-page book looks at sun, wind, biomass, geothermal and hydrogen as the ways we can power everything from vehicles and homes to factories, I was particularly interested in his transportation vision. He’s a proponent of Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and proposes raising the current average fuel efficiency by one mile per gallon per year for the next twenty-four years. Like much of the free world, Freeman waxes euphoric over hybrids that can plug into renewable electricity, reducing gasoline consumption from 55% to 100%. As one of the stars of the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” it’s no surprise that he’s also an advocate of pure electric vehicles. He touts electricity and hydrogen converted from the sun and the wind. And, he thinks we should move ahead with ethanol and biodiesel up to the 30% goal.

If you are looking for one book that can give you a historic and up-to-the minute context of why we are where we are today, complete with specific actions to build a society for the future, this is it. Freeman’s hopefulness for the future is infectious and in a time of such vast problems and a striking void of leadership, it is refreshing to read such a thorough synopsis of tangible ways to build a sustainable future.

I had a chance to pose questions to Mr. Freeman about his book. My questions and his answers follow:

Q: You say, “Our oil dependence is our foreign policy.” Is it realistic to think that in the near-term (five to ten years) we will have energy alternatives and the political will to turn that around?
A: We have the alternatives. The political will will come when enough ordinary Americans understand that we do have the technology and demand that they be employed. If everyone in America says, “My next car must be a plug-in hybrid,” it would happen.

Q: I’m having a hard time seeing where the leadership is coming from generally in this country and definitely on the issues of energy supply/independence/climate change.
A: We have an election coming up next year, and it is a time to choose. This issue is now front and center and if enough people show enough interest in the subject, one of those candidates could become a leader.

Q: Your George Schultz task force experience exemplifies just one of the many times you were a part of energy security problem solving exercises, often concluding with prescient analyses that required action. Decades have passed, and arguably there has been some momentum to displace oil but largely, the window on our ability to mitigate the potentially disastrous consequences of our inaction is closing fast. You offer a ten-year plan but given all of the tens of years that have rushed by with you and others offering plans before, what is different now that gives you hope that as a nation/world we will rise to the challenge?
A: The hope comes from the fact that the problems are more visible than ever and that we have a new generation of Americans that are getting educated on the subject matter. The hope comes from $3.00 a gallon gasoline and the fact that we are in a war on terror and our oil money is funding the terrorists. These are stronger, clearer reasons than we’ve ever had in the past. And I am still young enough to be hopeful.

Q: Is it possible to move full steam ahead with coal and offset those emissions with aggressive incentives and regulations in other areas?
A: No. No. No. Coal is carbon-rich and the more you burn, the hotter the earth is going to get. Sequestration is a dream, global warming is the reality.

Q: Is it possible to break the hold that oil, coal, nuclear and other fossil fuel loving lobbyists have on Congress?
A: Yes. If I can be self serving -- If enough people read my book, and agree with it, we can turn it around.

Q: Your description of the “green, clean energy crowd” not emphasizing renewables for transportation rings true. Aside from your emphases on plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, biofuels and fuel cells, are there other renewable energy transportation technologies that you foresee gaining a near-term market share?
A: My main point was that we haven’t traditionally made the connection between solar, wind and biomass and the transportation sector. Everybody talks about solar power and everybody talks about the problem of Mid East oil dependency, but we haven’t made the connection. The connection, of course, begins with the plug in hybrids and needs to be a major focus of the energy policy which is not yet achieved.

Q: What has to happen to overcome the reliability and cost concerns of renewable options?
A: We just need to build more of them. Last time I checked, solar power was a hell of a lot more reliable than nuclear power and in terms of the cost to society; the renewables are cheaper as I point out in my book. We just need to be talking in plain English to the American people and helping them understand the difference between true facts and oil company propaganda.

Q: You talk about the big picture importance of changing our paradigm to one of “intelligent austerity.” Given our happy motoring, right to consumer lifestyle, what do you foresee taking place to re-shape our core values about how we live?
A: That’s where we really need some far-sighted leadership – a sort of environmental Martin Luther King. I’ll have to admit that she is not on the horizon yet.