How we can achieve true security

Oil pipelines in Alaska.

Anniversaries offer opportunities for reflection.

Seven years after 9/11, ponder this: Has the cost -- of the War on Terror, enabling the Patriot Act, enhanced security and so on -- been worth it? Is our country truly more secure than it was pre-9/11?

To answer that question, we must consider what security is.  One can argue that yes, our airports, public stadiums, ports, and other areas are in fact more secure.

However, Amory Lovins, co-founder and chief scientist of RMI, who has promoted true security for decades, believes there's more to it than fighting wars and installing metal detectors.

In essence, we are still at least as vulnerable now as we were in 2001.  Why?  Because our energy infrastructure remains a pretty tasty target for potential attack, with strikes able to wield considerable damage that affects vast numbers of Americans.

True security, Lovins argues, is about ridding ourselves of vulnerability -- vulnerabilities that have built up over years and now pervade our energy, water, wastewater, telecoms, financial transfers and transportation systems.

True energy security -- led by energy efficiency and distributed, renewable resources -- can make us feel safe in ways that work better and cost less.

Efficiency and renewables simultaneously strengthen our economy, defund petro-dictators, reduce climate change risks, create jobs, break our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and cut pollution -- making us healthier in the process.

So, what does a secure energy system look like and how do we get there?

It all begins with energy efficiency -- doing more with less.

To displace imports of Persian Gulf oil would require a mere 2.7 miles-per-gallon fuel economy increase in our cars. We used to increase fuel economy by that much every three years back in the 1970s.

At the same time we need to make our energy systems resilient to potential terrorist attacks or extreme weather patterns (think Hurricane Katrina and Gustav). 

Resilient infrastructure is the opposite of our current infrastructure -- large centralized power plants and long links (of powerlines, pipes and the like) to users.

This system is vulnerable because a disruption along any point can knock out power for millions of users at once.  A terrorist strike could actually prove very effective with our current set-up.

With this in mind, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge presents as many risks as importing oil from the Mideast. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline is one of the fattest energy-related terrorist targets in the United States.

Now, picture a renewable energy system distributed equally across the country, comprised of redundant smaller modules that can back each other up, are located close to end-users to minimize transmission lengths and are heavily interconnected so that if one part fails, other components continue to work seamlessly.

We can look to Lovins' pillars of energy security, presented to the U.S. Senate in 2006, as a guide:

1. Make domestic energy infrastructure, notably electric and gas grids, resilient through efficiency, diversity, and distributed systems.
2. Phase out vulnerable facilities and unreliable fuel sources.
3. Ultimately eliminate reliance on oil from any source.

In 2004, RMI published an independent, peer-reviewed study cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense showing how to eliminate U.S. oil use (pillar #3, above) by the 2040s and revitalize the economy -- all led by business for profit.

Though a terrorist attack defies predictability, eliminating our energy vulnerabilities goes a long way to restore the comfort and assurance that comes from a truly safe and secure country.

Maria Stamas is an analyst at Rocky Mountain Institute.