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 November 19th issue: BOND IS FURIOUS that “the government has allowed us to become dependent on other nations” for oil, and calls gas guzzling a myth. Stephanie Dexter of Wilmington, Dela., opted last month for a GMC Yukon XL (12 mpg, city). She believes Americans have a right “to do what we want and buy what we want. Isn’t that why we’re fighting?” Bond and Dexter have a lot of company. Last month buyers snapped up 42 percent more SUVs than they did a year ago. “No one,” says auto consultant Wes Brown of NexTrend, “is talking about parking their SUVs to be patriotic.”
Would it help if they did? Suspicions about Saudi support for terrorism have sparked unease with our reliance on oil from Riyadh, resurrecting a phrase almost unheard in a generation: oil independence. With only 2 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves, the United States needs foreign crude. But it might not need Saudi Arabia’s. This year we are importing 1.7 million barrels of Saudi oil a day (a barrel is 42 gallons). That’s 9 percent of our total oil consumption. But since we buy more from Canada (1.8 million barrels a day), and a lot from Venezuela (1.6 million) and Mexico (1.3 million), right off the bat Saudi oil—attractive because of its cheap and constant flow—doesn’t loom that large. Even better, the lion’s share of the oil America consumes—68 percent—goes to a single use: transportation.
To live without Saudi crude, in other words, does not require new ways to generate the electricity that powers our appliances and runs our factories. It does not require new fuels to heat our homes (only 5 percent of total U.S. oil consumption goes to home heating). What it requires are new sources of oil to keep cars and trucks rolling, technologies to make vehicles go farther on a gallon of gasoline and, eventually, engines that make gasoline as obsolete as a hand crank on the front bumper.
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