The United States is at a crossroads in energy and security policy. The attacks of September 11, 2001 have revealed, as nothing has done before, the vulnerability of the U.S. energy system to a variety of disruptions. The Bush administration's proposed energy plan -- released in May 2001 and neither reviewed nor changed in light of the events of September 11 -- would worsen these vulnerabilities.

In November 2001, IEER released a preliminary report presenting a plan for a more secure energy future for the United States. The report is part of IEER’s energy project, which we began about two years ago to examine the feasibility and time span required for a complete phase-out of nuclear power and a substantial (on the order of 50 percent) reduction in carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. We released it in preliminary form earlier than planned in order to contribute to the national and international debate on energy and security that is now taking place. The report, Securing the Energy Future of the United States: Oil, Nuclear, and Electricity Vulnerabilities and a post-September 11, 2001 Roadmap for Action, is summarized here. References can be found in the report, which is available in its entirety online at http://www.ieer.org/reports/energy/bushtoc.html.

Vulnerabilities to the U.S. energy system, especially those related to oil imports and nuclear power, are greater today than ever. Table 1 summarizes oil and nuclear vulnerabilities and their potential severity.

Oil vulnerabilities

Oil has been at the center of security and military issues ever since it became a crucial fuel in the conduct of war during the first part of the twentieth century. It remains one of the central aspects of the violent tangle of Middle Eastern, European, Soviet/Russian, U.S., and world politics. Much of World War II, including Pearl Harbor and the battle of Stalingrad, had the control of oil as a major factor¹.

U.S. oil import and nuclear vulnerabilities are greater today than they have ever been despite the recommendations of studies done as a result of earlier crises regarding security, which were for the most part not adopted². U.S. actions after past crises, notably in the period between 1973 and 1980, have mitigated problems temporarily, but they have not been stringent enough to make the U.S. energy system more secure for the long-term.

Currently U.S. oil imports are at 11 million barrels per day with about 25 percent coming from the Persian Gulf area. Overall, about 40 percent of the world’s oil exports come from the Persian Gulf region, which holds two thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves. Figures 1 and 2 show U.S. petroleum imports and world oil reserves, respectively.

Rising U.S. oil imports in the context of growing oil imports in developing countries will create greater dependence on Persian Gulf area supplies worldwide. Sustained U.S. oil imports over 10 million barrels per day raise the risk of severe disruptions that could have grave military and economic consequences.

Oil is also at the center of the global warming problem. Roughly half the emissions of carbon dioxide (the most important contributor to greenhouse gas buildup) from fossil fuels are attributable to oil. Most urban air pollution comes from motor vehicles. Much of the pollution of the oceans comes from oil spills, both routine and accidental. Major disruption of the global climate may also bring serious security implications, whose character is difficult to anticipate.

Studies in the past have hypothesized the potentially catastrophic effects of accidents, war, or terrorist attacks on certain portions of the nuclear energy infrastructure³. Indeed, nuclear power plants in more than one country have been the objects of terrorist attacks, as have other nuclear facilities⁴.

The most vulnerable parts of the nuclear power system currently, in terms of catastrophic consequences that would cause long-term disruption, are nuclear reactors and nuclear spent fuel pools. The consequences of a complete loss of containment by accident or attack could very well be on the same scale as the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Releases of long-lived radionuclides from a massive spent fuel pool accident or attack can be larger than those from a reactor. A single successful attack would bring about a crisis in the electricity sector since it would create severe pressures for a precipitous shut down of all nuclear power plants.

Spent fuel must be stored in pools for at least three years after discharge from the reactor in order to cool. Spent fuel pools in the United States contain most of the 40,000 metric tons or so of spent fuel discharged so far from U.S. power reactors, though increasing amounts of spent fuel are now in on-site dry storage casks. Most spent fuel pools are not inside reactor secondary containment buildings and thus are vulnerable to a variety of potential attacks, unlike the reactors, which are vulnerable only to the most severe ones.

Dry storage is less vulnerable because it is not subject to meltdown in case of containment breach since only relatively cool fuel can be stored in dry casks. The consequences of an attack can still be very severe however, especially in case of the dispersal of radioactivity that would be attendant on a petroleum fire in case of an aircraft attack. Above surface dry storage of spent fuel also is a vulnerable form, but this can be addressed by on-site or near-to-site subsurface storage.

U.S. stocks of plutonium and highly enriched uranium are almost entirely held within the nuclear weapons complex or by the Pentagon, the latter in the form of nuclear weapons. Only a small part of the U.S. stock of plutonium is of commercial origin, while the rest is military. About 50 metric tons has been declared surplus to military needs⁵.

The U.S. government proposes to use the surplus plutonium as a fuel in nuclear reactors. IEER has discussed the proliferation-related vulnerabilities of plutonium fuel, also called mixed oxide or MOX fuel, at length in other publications⁶. The main points to be highlighted in the context of September 11, 2001 are:

• Transporting fresh plutonium fuel increases the chances of diversion in cases of terrorist attack. It is relatively simple to re-extract the weapons-grade plutonium from the mixed oxide ceramic pellets and obtain material suitable for use in nuclear weapons. This cannot be done with present low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. It would take massive enrichment facilities to make highly enriched uranium (HEU) from LEU.
• Storage of fresh plutonium fuel at nuclear power plants would increase the attractiveness of nuclear power plants as a target.
• Use of plutonium fuel would make the consequences of an accident or attack more serious⁷.
• The storage of MOX spent fuel in pools would make the consequences of an attack on spent fuel pools more catastrophic.

Current methods of plutonium storage are sorely inadequate, particularly considering the consequences of an attack should one occur. Plutonium is stored in a variety of buildings, mostly above ground in forms that could catch fire (metal) or that are relatively easily dispersible in air, such as plutonium oxide. Moreover, the two large reprocessing plants at the Savannah River Site are adding to the stock of high-level liquid radioactive waste (stored in large underground tanks) and the stock of separated plutonium.

The September 11 events have shown that vulnerabilities of the energy production and pipeline infrastructure to wartime or terrorist attack are not only theoretical for the United States. Indeed, there have been terrorist attacks on U.S. electricity infrastructure in the past⁸. Of these vulnerabilities, the potential for a highly centralized, increasingly interconnected grid to crash if a strategic portion of it collapses due to overload, accident, weather, or attack, is arguably the most important non-nuclear vulnerability of electrical systems.

The trend towards deregulated electricity systems with a national grid would exacerbate the vulnerabilities of the grid. The chaotic financial situation around electricity deregulation and sales in California would be much more complex were the shortages to result from a physical disruption of the electricity system as a result of an attack on one or more key elements of a national transmission grid.

In May 2001, a task force led by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney published a National Energy Policy report, which has become the energy blueprint of the Bush administration⁹. The plan was already unsatisfactory in a number of respects on non-proliferation, safety, and environmental grounds even before the severe increases in certain risks pointed up by September 11. To date, the basic stance of the administration remains unchanged.

By far the most severe vulnerabilities in the Bush plan relate to oil imports and to various aspects of the nuclear power enterprise. The nuclear vulnerabilities will, in many ways, be the most severe with the Bush plan¹⁰.

The Bush plan contains major proposals for new nuclear facilities that, if implemented, would greatly increase nuclear vulnerabilities, in addition to those associated with the prolongation of the licenses of existing nuclear power plants. The plan would result in a need to store spent fuel in pools for the indefinite future. A change to Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMRs), which do not require spent fuel pools, would mean the widespread adoption of reactors that are proposed to be built without secondary containment, making them far more vulnerable to attack than present light water reactors. Consequences of an attack on new advanced reactors like those implicit in the Bush plan could be even more catastrophic than with current commercial reactors.

Heavy reliance on oil imports carries a high risk of disruption of supplies. U.S. oil imports of less than five million barrels a day would essentially eliminate the potential for catastrophic disruption, particularly if they were accompanied by a decline in European imports as well. Under the Bush energy plan the United States would be importing an estimated 23 billion barrels of oil per day by the year 2040, much of it from the Persian Gulf region. Figure 3 compares U.S. oil production and import projections under the Bush and IEER plans through 2040.

The Bush energy plan would create a national electricity grid to facilitate the transmission of electricity by large-scale generators. It has been presented as part of plan to increase electricity system reliability by allowing generators to build plants anywhere they want. However, this will not necessarily address reliability problems and may aggravate them.

The administration also is continuing with a plan to develop commercial plutonium fuel as a normal part of the U.S. nuclear power system. This would exacerbate both proliferation pressures and vulnerabilities to attack. It would also reverse a quarter century of bipartisan nuclear non-proliferation policy though five previous administrations.

It is shocking that the momentous events of September 11 have not led to an urgent reappraisal of plutonium-related energy policies, especially since this is an area where the consequences of an attack would be among the most severe and where solutions to greatly reducing vulnerabilities can be implemented within a relatively short time, compared to say, those related to existing nuclear reactors.

The IEER Energy Plan

The IEER energy plan is explicitly designed to address certain security vulnerabilities that have been revealed as far more serious than generally recognized prior to September 11. These vulnerabilities are not new; they have been discussed in past official and non-governmental studies. The difference is that September 11 has made the potential for severe attacks and terrible human and economic consequences tragically palpable.

IEER’s energy plan uses the same economic and demographic parameters as the Bush plan. Only the ways in which the energy services are provided for the economy are different. That is, the IEER plan assumes for instance the same number of car miles and degree of lighting or heating or cooling, but the energy system that provides these services would be structured differently. This approach allows a direct comparison of the vulnerabilities of the two plans given the same overall economic outcomes. This approach also has some defects, which we do not attempt to remedy in the report. For instance, it does not allow the factoring in of major economic initiatives to change the underlying structure of entire energy using systems, such as the transportation system, a system in which huge investments of time, energy, money, land, and ecosystem integrity are put into a car-centered transportation system. It also does not discuss lifestyle changes, nor the desirability of integrating the notion of "enough" at some level of consumption into the global social and economic framework.

The technological and policy-related assumptions of IEER’s energy plan are described in the box below, providing the plan's framework as well as a basis from which we can compare it to the Bush plan.

IEER Energy Plan: Assumptions Local electricity generation through high efficiency use of natural gas along with cogeneration of heat will be the basic approach enabling the creation of a distributed grid as well as an increase in efficiency of heating and cooling. A 60 percent electricity generation efficiency is assumed. This can be achieved with fuel cells today (though not on very small scales at present) and with advanced combined cycle natural gas fired power plants. Large scale wind energy generation, notably in Midwestern states, will be the mainstay of wind energy supply. A relatively small role is assumed for solar energy. Coal consumption is only marginally reduced for the first decade, then reduced to 45 percent of the year 2000 level by 2030 and then reduced to ten percent of current levels by the year 2040. Natural gas would be the main fossil fuel used in centralized electricity generation, with combined cycle plants of 60 percent efficiency. Fifty percent efficiency is the norm for such plants today and 60 percent efficient plants are anticipated to be the norm in the near future. The large reduction of the use of coal provides a corresponding reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. A significant use of coal for three decades will allow time for transition in a vital industry and also provide for flexibility in the energy system that will provide for additional security. For instance, a decision to phase out nuclear power plants faster for security reasons would be more feasible if a coal industry is maintained at a substantial level until all nuclear power plants are closed. The maintenance of a coal industry at the 50 to 100 million tons per year would provide for flexibility in the energy system, for instance, in preventing exclusive reliance on natural gas as an interim fuel during the transition to renewables. The reference technology for space heating and cooling and water heating is the geothermal heat pump, which would be used in conjunction with high efficiency local electricity generation with heat recovery. (The use of a reference technology does not imply a universal adoption of that technology but rather indicates the average efficiency that can be expected to be achieved by a variety of methods.) The fuel-based coefficient of performance for heating would average 2.4 for heating and 3 for cooling. Geothermal heat pumps are commercially available today and have been used in recent years, including by the government, for energy efficiency improvements. President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas is equipped with such a device. Average fuel efficiency of all new passenger vehicles will be 100 mpg by the year 2020 and the average for the whole fleet will be 100 mpg by 2030, improving 2 percent per year after that for 10 years. A government regulation to that effect will be needed in the near future if this is to be realized. Aircraft efficiency will improve by 2 percent per year over the whole period in terms of fuel per seat mile. Cargo transport efficiency will improve by about 3 percent per year. This will probably require efficiency standards for truck transport. A carbon dioxide emissions decline of at least 40 percent and preferably 50 percent by 2040 should be achieved and made compatible with other security goals. Nuclear power will be phased out by 2030. Local solar, hydropower, and some cogeneration plants are largely managed for peaking power provision. Inefficient gas turbine units now widely used for providing peaking power would be phased out by 2040. About 40 percent of the hydropower capacity will be dismantled by the year 2040 for a combination of security and environmental reasons. A 40 percent improvement in efficiency of electricity use in non-HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) sectors is possible relative to the Bush administration’s supply side plan, through government procurement policies, appropriate regulations for new developments, appliance standards, and the general use of high efficiency lighting and motors. Industrial heat requirements will be met by cogeneration systems wherever possible. Only those technologies that have already been tried and tested will be in widespread use enough to greatly affect energy efficiency and the energy production structure in the next two to four decades.

We assessed the IEER and Bush energy plans according to the energy system vulnerabilities discussed. Table 2 provides a static comparison of the projected vulnerabilities of each plan in the year 2040¹¹. Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 (below) illustrate over time the projected differences between the two plans on energy consumption by source, carbon emissions, and energy productivity.

In sum, the Bush administration’s energy plan would worsen energy system vulnerabilities by:

• increasing the attractiveness of and number of targets for terrorism particularly in the nuclear, oil, and electricity systems;
• increasing oil imports in absolute amount and as a proportion of oil supply (even if domestic oil production is expanded by opening up environmentally sensitive areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling); and,
• increasing risks of nuclear proliferation.

It will never be possible to eliminate all vulnerabilities and risks to terrorist attack, war, severe accidents, and mistakes. But it is possible to reduce the attractiveness of major elements of the energy system as targets of attack and also to reduce the consequences of an attack should one occur. For instance:

• A reduction of oil consumption of about 40 percent can be achieved in the next four decades provided stringent standards for efficiency in land-based transportation are set¹². The current state of technology in relation to automobile efficiency is far in advance of the current average performance for passenger cars, which is about 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles. The Toyota Prius, a commercially available four-passenger gasoline powered car with a hybrid engine, gets nearly 50 mpg. General Motors' prototype fuel cell car gets 100 mpg of gasoline equivalent and goes from zero to sixty in about 9 seconds. It may be commercialized by 2010.

• The technologies to simultaneously reduce carbon dioxide emissions and vulnerabilities to attack already exist. Some, such as wind energy and cogeneration, are already economical. Others will need suitable government procurement policies to make them economical. The achievement of reduction of carbon dioxide emissions can be made compatible with a total phase out of nuclear power¹³.

• A number of technical advances have provided the basis for a completely revamped energy sector. Advances in the efficiency of electric power generation from natural gas have made it possible to increase efficiency, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and maintain electricity generation levels all at the same time. Wind power technology improvements have made it economical in vast areas of the United States where the collective wind potential far exceeds current U.S. electricity generation¹⁴.

It is stunning that the Bush administration has not revisited its energy plan proposed four months prior to September 11 in light of the events of that day. The scale of the events and the vastness of the economic impact makes it imperative that the United States take urgent and tough action to reduce energy system vulnerabilities, notably those related to oil imports, nuclear power plants and associated infrastructure, and the electricity grid. IEER's recommendations for doing so are detailed here.