On the 30th anniversary of the Arab oil embargo, the Secretary-General of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Alvaro Silva Calderón, writes (“Changing the Mix: Renewable Energy and the Continuing Need for Fossil Fuels,” Fall 2003) that OPEC now “cares passionately about world energy as a whole and not just about petroleum.” Is this the germ of a major new OPEC initiative to reduce and move the world from the use of fossil fuels? In a word: No.

For the United States, this anniversary coincides with concerns about US energy-environmental stewardship and energy security and should be marked with progress in the management of its energy future. Has the country learned how to neutralize OPEC threats to critical resources and is it equipped to protect its energy future? In a word: No.

The United States has no national energy policy to enable us to manage our energy future to meet the pressing and sometimes confl icting goals of affordability, environmental protection, economic development, and security. Renewable energy fundamentals are currently strong, but these projects cannot make their way from conception to fi nancial closing to development. The US electric sector is in the midst of a radical revamping of the matrix of state and federal poli cies on new energy technologies after relying too much on markets that have not worked and simultaneously destroyed the regulatory framework that supported technology development. Critical decisions about the US energy economy are left by default to the priorities of OPEC.

Calderón’s sketch of the future can be broken down into three components: platitudes, old threats, and new threats. The platitudes reveal OPEC’s true view of renewable energy, that it is nice but not practical. The old threats repeat OPEC’s commitment to manage a Malthusian future of exponentially growing demand for oil being supplied from an ever-declining base of reserves, with the exception of OPEC’s reserves that will allow OPEC to be the “key supplier of the incremental barrel.” The new threat is Calderón’s quiet announcement of OPEC’s intention to do to natural gas what it is now doing with oil.

This new threat will arise if and when liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) becomes a globally traded commodity used particularly to provide fuel for electric generation. Right now the United States is enabling OPEC in realizing this new threat by uncritically embracing increased reliance on LNG, using about 26 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas per year. To meet the growing demand by electric generators, US policymakers are calling for the increased imports of LNG to provide the necessary three to fi ve tcf per year of incremental gas supplies. For the fi rst time, electric generation will become dependent upon imported fossil fuels, with decisions about price and availability made by OPEC.

Calderón states that because of its reserves, OPEC can control the LNG market. According to OPEC models, global natural gas use will rise much faster than oil, doubling by 2020, and OPEC controls roughly 50 percent of the world’s proven natural gas reserves. As a low cost producer with critical reserves, OPEC believes it will be the key supplier of natural gas just as it is for oil. The silence among US energy policymakers about the dangers of becoming dependent on OPEC for LNG shows how little the country has learned about managing its energy future and security.

Right now wind-generated electricity costs less per kilowatt hour (kWh) than the cost of gas alone to generate a kWh in the most effi cient new generation facility. Study after study has shown that a program of renewable energy development will lower the expected national energy bill, greatly improve the environmental footprint of our energy production, boost domestic investment and job creation, and increase energy security. After September 11, 2001, and after the current Iraq war, and 30 years after the initial OPEC embargo, the United States is drifting toward a greatly escalated exposure to OPEC power and politics without even systematically determining whether renewable energy can help it manage and reduce the threat.