AHC: More Successful Project Independence

This is something I've been wondering about. If President Nixon hadn't been so badly distracted by a certain other issue - and you know the one I mean - how successful could Project Independence have been?

Project Independence was the rather optimistic name for a plan to get the United States entirely off foreign oil by (IIRC) ten years after the 1973 OPEC embargo. That obviously didn't happen. I'm not entirely clear on the whole story, although I would guess that Nixon being otherwise occupied didn't help. I know that at one stage the AEC found itself the lead agency on planning the R&D, and then proceeded to use it as a platform to beg for more money for the fast breeder and fusion, which - while they might be worthy projects - were not exactly addressing the issue at hand.

I doubt we could get off foreign oil entirely in ten years by any means short of the collapse of industrial civilization, but how far could we have gotten?
 
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This is something I've been wondering about. If President Nixon hadn't been so badly distracted by a certain other issue - and you know the one I mean - how successful could Project Independence have been?

Project Independence was the rather optimistic name for a plan to get the United States entirely off foreign oil in (IIRC) ten years after the 1973 OPEC embargo. That obviously didn't happen. I'm not entirely clear on the whole story, although I would guess that Nixon being otherwise occupied didn't help. I know that at one stage the AEC found itself the lead agency on planning the R&D, and then proceeded to use it as a platform to beg for more money for the fast breeder and fusion, which - while they might be worthy projects - were not exactly addressing the issue at hand.

I doubt we could get off foreign oil entirely in ten years by any means short of the collapse of industrial civilization, but how far could we have gotten?

Nixon was president in '83? :confused:
 
I imagine the plan would've remained in place but unsuccessful under Nixon's own administration. His successor would build on it in their own way - Carter was very interested in energy, and Ford seemed to have an interest as well - not so sure about Reagan, tbh - but either way, I think the project would've continued but Nixon would not have benefited from it as anything more than being the guy who signed off.
 
Not sure about zero imports but a net zero import of oil and gas in 1983 is achievable. Fracking technology is not hard - the basics were available in the 1980's only the certainty that the oil price would remain high (and hence pay for the costly fracking techniques) was missing.

Oil imports had halved from 1978 to 1983 (of course high prices had something to do with this) but widespread fracking and an earlier development of the gulf of mexico resources (allow FPSOs for example) could have achieved it.

Probably not sustainable when the oil price crash happens in the late 80's
 

Archibald

Banned
I heard of project independence during my research for my all post-apollo space TL. NASA jumped on that to try and make itself more useful after the post Apollo debacle, with all kind of ideas - gas core nuclear rockets adapated for civilian power; space based solar power; solar power, including jettisoning nuclear waste into the solar system. Things like that.
It didn't seem to have gone very far - not only because of Watergate, but also because it was somewhat a kneejerk reaction to the oil crisis...
In an ideal world they would have funded mass contraction of MSRE (molten salt, non breeder, non thorium reactors), and replaced oil with ammonia (with hydrogen from water through thermochemical process, plus nitrogen from air via nuclear power)
 
Sweet idea

I'm with Archibald re MSR's. Asnys has made it clear in previous posts the AEC had the Sadim touch politically but assuming somebody competent at making the case with the public and Congress especially for swapping out coal, oil, and gas-fired power plants for nuclear power plants would be a nice POD.

Conservation efforts yielded pretty impressive results as well. Much as I love throwing Big Science mad cash to get things done in nuclear engineering, alternative fuels, and solar, conservation was and is lower hanging fruit.
 
I'm with Archibald re MSR's. Asnys has made it clear in previous posts the AEC had the Sadim touch politically but assuming somebody competent at making the case with the public and Congress especially for swapping out coal, oil, and gas-fired power plants for nuclear power plants would be a nice POD.

Problem is, much as I love MSRs - and you know I do :p - the US basically realized those gains IOTL by shifting electricity generated from oil to natural gas and coal. Which sucks for the climate, but does achieve the objective of reducing oil imports. And there's coal enough for a century or more.
 
I would look at ways of slashing consumption, especially with regards to cars and other kinds of goods able to be influenced by regulations and incentives.

Earlier and more drastic CAFE/Corporate Average Fleet Economy standards for cars sold in America;

revised regulations for auto-safety that grant some leeway for two-seat ultra-efficient and/or electric-powered cars made and sold in America,

along with various government incentives for manufacture and purchase of same,

all could act to encourage American companies to proceed with production of the concepts/prototypes they had come up with in response to the OPEC boycott.

See below, from wikipedia, GM's Urban Electric Vehicle concept, and, below that, the Ford Commuta electic car concept.


1973_GM_electric_car.png



1967_Ford_Comuta_electric_car_prototype_02.jpg
 

Robert

Banned
The plan had Zero chance because it was a Government Top Down approach that would have been corrupted by special interests and eco-fantatics who think that everyone should bicycle everywhere.

Let's remember in the 1980s the oil shortage turned into an oil glut, and no government department had anything to do with it.
 
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