A new debate about increasing US energy security, by reducing gasoline dependence, may be getting underway. Leading the move is Andy Grove, the man who made Intel into the leading global chip company. His key phrase, and the title for his 1996 book, was ‘Only the paranoid survive’. Now he is taking this approach into the energy sphere, commenting that the US may end up ‘starving to death economically’, if nothing is done to reduce US gasoline consumption.
Grove’s focus is on developing electric cars that can cover 40 miles (65km) before switching to gasoline. He is calling for 10 US million vehicles to be converted within 4 years. And he already has some powerful backers, in the shape of the big Silicon Valley venture capital firms who helped power Intel to its current $38bn of sales.