George Shultz Promotes Alternative Energy at the GSB’s London Center Opening

Our appetite for oil feeds terrorism, former Secretary of State George Shultz told more than 350 alumni and friends at the opening of Chicago GSB’s London Center on September 12.

“How many times will we be hit in the head with a two-by-four before we make a really determined effort to use less oil?” asked Shultz, former dean of Chicago GSB, as he made a case for reducing oil dependence during a panel discussion on energy, geopolitics, and the global economy.

Joining Shultz were Nobel laureate Gary Becker, University Professor of Economics and of Sociology; Nick Butler, group vice president of strategy and policy development of BP; Kenneth Crews, ’74, managing director of Greenhill & Co.; and Raghuram Rajan, economic counselor and director of research at the International Monetary Fund and Joseph L. Gidwitz Distinguished Service Professor of Finance. Dean Edward Snyder moderated.

“Hurricane Katrina showed us the risks if one part of a complex international system that supplies energy to six and a half billion people worldwide breaks down, even for a short period of time,” Butler said, noting that Katrina wiped out 900,000 barrels of oil a day and damaged six of the American Gulf coast’s refineries. “That risk doesn’t end with Katrina; there are other risks.”

In fact, according to Shultz, the devastation of Katrina would look like “child’s play” compared to a massive terrorist attack. And the time to start systematically solving the problem, he said, is today. “Now we are seeing an unusual confluence of people who are worried about the environment, people worried about economic pressures, and people worried about what happens if you suddenly have a cutoff of what you use to move your vehicles around,” he said. “While they differ in what they worry about, they’re very similar in what they think should be done about it. This is a moment to seize and get something going in a positive direction.”

Panelists also discussed the shortage of refineries, the three oil crises since the 1970s, and the flexibility of the economy.

After the panel, Snyder welcomed the audience to the London Center with a champagne toast and reception that featured tours of the new facility.

— Melissa M. Bernardoni

Additional coverage of the London opening appeared in The Education Guardian, September 13, 2005

You can read about the London Opening in The University of Chicago Chronicle