A Big Idea & A Billion Dollars
July 20th, 2006 by Vihar ShethPosted in Energy, Environment, Ideas, Science
To paraphrase Mayor Newsom of San Francisco, we need to stop playing in the margins and starting acting with audacity. Booya.
Awareness: One aspect of sustainability I’m going to focus on with this site is big ideas. They’re inspiring, energizing, often extremely innovative and usually much more attainable then they’re given credit for. We all know people are scared of change. What’s more frustrating is that many of our elected officials are status quo protectionist wanks. We didn’t have the science to land on the moon when Kennedy announced we would but we made it happen. We DO have the science to become a more efficient, less wasteful nation but it has already taken longer than the eight years between Kennedy’s speech to Congress and the Eagle landing at Tranquility Base. Boo to each and every one of us.
A massive, backwards moving storm tore up St. Louis last night. I have a fragment of a Budweiser Select concession sign as proof you loony right-wing the-volcanoes-are-causing-the-warming morons. That it was born from virtually nothing in record time and moved in the exact opposite direction of this hemisphere’s weather pattern has nothing to do with global warming. Not in a million years. I digress. Big ideas is why we’re here and a big idea I will deliver, though it’s not mine. In the footsteps of the moon landing, or more recently the X Prize, comes another challenge to the American people. Dan Lungren, a Republican representative from north-central California (of course), asks, “What would happen if the United States were to offer a $1 billion prize for the first American automaker to sell 60,000 midsized sedans that could travel 100 miles on one gallon of gasoline?”
What would happen? Can you even imagine the implications? The mind boggles. Lungren offers these thoughts of the idea:
It’s backed by precedent: “There is a long history of offering prize money for important inventions. As Amory Lovins and E. Kyle Datta point out in “Winning the Oil Endgame,” the Orteig Prize for aviation, offered in 1919, was awarded to Charles Lindbergh in 1927 for his flight across the Atlantic. And the 1895 Great Chicago Car Race, which was really a test of innovation rather than speed, played an important role in giving birth to the American automobile industry.”
It’s results-oriented: “Competition for a prestigious prize is far more likely to get results than government programs aimed at anticipating and funding “winners.” Although occasionally effective, federal subsidies are paid before an industry proves it can achieve what it set out to do, and all too often such subsidies are given to the politically influential, not to the meritorious. Prize money, on the other hand, is paid out only when the goal is achieved.”
It’s common sense: “Some may argue that the prize shouldn’t be offered for a car, however efficient, that runs on gasoline because the national goal should be to end our oil dependence. But it is foolhardy to create a situation in which the perfect is the enemy of the good. Alternative fuels and new concept cars present exciting possibilities, but they probably won’t be developed quickly enough to end our petroleum dependence soon.
Meanwhile, we must conserve. And cutting gasoline consumption in the short term doesn’t conflict with the development of alternative fuel sources for the long term. The United States requires 8.9 million barrels of oil a day to fuel its vehicles. Replacing our cars with prize-winning vehicles would reduce consumption to about 1.8 million barrels a day. It also would slash carbon emissions.”
It’s good for national security: “It is critical to the U.S. national interest to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The growth of the Chinese and Indian economies increases global demand for oil, while the vulnerability of our supplies has been spotlighted by Venezuelan unrest, veiled Iranian threats to disrupt Persian Gulf shipping and an attempted attack on Saudi oil facilities by al-Qaida.
Our economic lifeblood must be immunized against the dictates of a global petroleum cartel. We must not allow our potential energy vulnerability to become the Achilles heel of our status as a global superpower. Our ability to pursue our interests and promote our values in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy must not be encumbered by petroleum dependency.”
It’s hopeful: “The good news is that our energy, environmental and national security interests are converging. A new coalition ranging from Greens to those concerned with the national security threat posed by our oil addiction now is possible. The challenge before us transcends traditional ideological barriers.”
Action: Support big ideas. Lungren recently introduced the New Options Petroleum Energy Conservation Act in Congress to establish a prize for a 100-mile-per-gallon car. He says to win the prize “a vehicle would have to prove itself commercially viable and meet all federal safety standards”. I haven’t read the language of the proposed act so I can’t say it’s without politically driven caveats. But, in principal the idea is genius and something the entire country (and world) can rally around. Who will rise to the challenge?
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