"Freedom from Oil"- not just a dream

Freedom from Oil: how the next President can end the United States' oil addiction

by David Sandalow.
New York: McGraw-Hill, copyright 2008
273 pages, including Noes with web addresses, index

     David Sandalow comes across in this book as a sincere and idealistic policy wonk: focused on solving problems, nonpartisan and positive. But please, read it anyway! It's a short book, packed with information that is painless to absorb and potentially profitable to you as a voter, or even perhaps as an investor. If you have a shred of intellectual curiosity, it will correct misconceptions and fascinate you with unsuspected truths.

   Sandalow is a former Assistant Secretary of State and senior director of the National Security staff who now serves as Energy and Environment Scholar at the Brookings Institution, a well known think tank. His clever idea here is to dramatize our oil dependency and possible solutions to it through fictional documents from the desk of our next President.

   These memos work well at communicating the realities of our current situation, as well as the political realities that intrude and sometimes undermine the real potential for progress. For example, the option of taxing gasoline more heavily as a means of encouraging the growth of reneable fuels and hybrid electric engines is discussed from both the practical and political viewpoints. These mixed discussions give insight into the politics of decision making on the national level, and prevent the book from ever becoming too dry and removed from reality.

   Sandalow presents a great deal of valuable information here. There is a very clear explanation of the concepts behind plug-in hybrid vehicles, and why these present advantages of cheaper fuel costs as well as reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This technology and renewable fuels seem to offer the best short term means of addressing oil addiction- hydrogen fuel cells could take 25 years to become a reality. Throughout the text, we learn about key players- people such as Vinod Khosla, environmental entrepreneur, Martin Eberhard, the CEO of Tesla Motors, or Chelsea Sexton, executive director of Plug-In America. Ending on an up note, Sandalow finishes the book with the text of an address that the new President makes to Congress to kick off his effort to steer us away from oil as our main transportation fuel. The copious Notes section is valuable for those who desire deeper detail. No hands-off libertarian, the author argues truthfully that our national government is indispensable in weaning us from oil.

   It is noteworthy that reality is catching up with Sandalow. One of his prescriptions for progress, raising the fuel standards for new cars sold in America, has just been enacted by Congress and signed by the President. In other news, Walmart is planning to begin selling retrofitted Mini-Coopers as plug-in electric cars in 2008. We are clearly leaving the denial period of our oil dependence and entering the "negotiation" era.  No longer laughing at the idea of leaving oil behind, we now are finally willing to ask the cost.  Sandalow's contribution to this debate is timely, perceptive, and valuable. Read it now, and get informed ahead of the flock of similar books next year that will greet the new President.