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Needed: A Manhattan Project
for oil
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Ed Koch
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Manhattan Project, which began in 1940 and was successfully completed in 1945, cost $2 billion and employed more than 130,000 people. Today the cost would be at least $20 billion in current dollars, and probably more.
The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to harness the energy released by nuclear fission in the form of a bomb, and to do it before Nazi Germany developed its own bomb. In 1952, the so-called hydrogen bomb or thermonuclear device was produced and tested, greatly increasing the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
We now import 60 percent of our oil, 28 percent of which comes from OPEC countries such as Saudi Arabia, the other Persian Gulf states and Venezuela About 9.4 percent of our imported oil comes from Canada and 7.7 percent from Mexico. This month, the price of oil got as high as $67 per barrel. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that we will spend $211 billion on imported oil. In 2004, we spent $158 billion and in 2003, $114 billion.
Rising oil prices have increased the cost of living and are causing a diminution in consumer spending for other purposes that may ultimately cause major downward shifts in the value of equities.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s website, “In the past, dependence on oil has cost our economy dearly. Oil price shocks and price manipulation by the OPEC cartel from 1979 to 2000 cost the U.S. economy about $7 trillion, almost as much as we spent on national defense over the same time period and more than the interest payments on the national debt. Each major price shock of the past three decades was followed by an economic recession in the United States. With growing U.S. imports and increasing world dependence on OPEC oil, future price shocks are possible and would be costly to the U.S. economy.”
In the interest of safeguarding our economy and protecting our foreign policy from the pressures of oil suppliers, it is critical that a government-backed program be initiated comparable to the Manhattan Project that would explore alternative sources of energy. I assume that creating a nuclear bomb was an even more difficult task.
The program I am recommending would be an international project similar to the joint effort now being made by the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea to harness the clean power of nuclear fusion. There is no time to waste. We must find a substitute for oil.
Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.
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