A former president of a major oil company spoke Wednesday on the Tempe campus to promote energy efficiency and environmental protection.

John Hofmeister, who retired from his Shell Oil Co.presidency in 2008 to found and head Citizens for Affordable Energy, gave a lecture called “Why We Hate the Oil Companies” as part of the Wrigley Lecture Series on Sustainability.

There is a grave problem with the current energy system in the U.S., Hofmeister said.

“If we stay on our current energy system course, by 2018 we will enter an unprecedented era in American history: the age of the energy abyss,” Hofmeister said.

He predicted continuous and sustained blackouts and gas rationing if the country doesn’t adopt a new energy system within the next decade.

“Every day, we Americans consume 20 million barrels of crude oil,” Hofmeister said. “That’s 10,000 gallons of crude oil every second.”

The U.S. has ever-expanding energy needs, and the energy system it is operating on is out-of-date, Hofmeister said.

“We built such a huge system between the 1930s and 1970s that we’ve been living off of it for years without any new ideas or infrastructure,” he said.

Although President Barack Obama’s administration gave $40 billion in stimulus dollars for the advancement of alternative energy, Hofmeister said that is not enough.

“$40 billion is a drop in the bucket of what a renewal or overhaul of an energy system requires,” he said.

Hofmeister created Citizens for Affordable Energy to address these energy problems and push for a new energy system. An independent federal regulatory agency is necessary for change, he said.

“We are making decisions in political time  every two or four years  when we need to be making decisions in energy time, which is decades long,” Hofmeister said.

He cites the continual changing of officials and committees that govern energy and the environment as a problem, because long-range energy solutions are missed.

The new agency he calls for would manage the supply of future energy resources, embrace technologies that would make energy efficient and affordable, cap the carbon footprint of energy emissions and decide what infrastructure changes need to be made.

“[The proposed regulatory agency] threatens the authority of existing elected officials, who are elected, in their minds, to make the decisions that make us energy secure,” Hofmeister said. “They have failed for 40 years, and they’re running out of time.”

It’s up to everyday citizens to spark a real change in the energy system of the U.S., Hofmeister said.

“The grassroots of America, the citizens, the students, the business people, the communities who have their interests and their children’s interests in mind … will deliver environmental and economic justice and security,” he said.

Citizens need to pressure their elected officials to support an independent regulatory agency, or fail to be re-elected, Hofmeister said.

“It’s very timely to have [Hofmeister] here because of his background with Shell Oil and since Congress is engaged in the climate change legislation right now,” said Karen Leland, director of communications and marketing of the Global Institute of Sustainability.

Bret Schencker, an interdisciplinary studies senior, said Hofmeister’s switch from president of Shell Oil to an energy and environmental activist is interesting.

“It was weird how he used to be on the other side of things … but it’s cool how he’s now trying to help by conserving energy before it’s too late,” he said.

Reach the reporter at kkfrost@asu.edu.