Once again, it looks like the President missed another golden opportunity to do what is needed to save our economy and transform it to long term sustainability. Although he is taking baby steps to move away from fossil carbon based energy, he continues to miss the urgency of the need to move to Alt-E, and he continues to miss the immediate benefits to a jobless economy.
Mr. Obama's approach to energy issues is that we are running a marathon, and at the end of a long hard run we will win a medal and be victorious. My contention is that we are on a train track with a train speeding toward us and if we don't run like hell right now we are going to get splattered all over the countryside.
We've been running a marathon since the 1st oil spike in the 1970's and with every Republican congress and administration we go back to the start line.
I'm going to try and create this list of proposals live during the speech.
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His new goal. Cutting imports of oil by 1/3 over the next decade.
Wants to increase our own oil supplies. More off shore oil.
Talks about energy efficiency, and global warming. New sources such as natural gas shale.
Biofuels. Talks about alternatives to corn ethanol.
Efficiency. Improving cafe standards and technology advances in fuel efficient internal combustion cars. Convert the federal fleet to higher mileage by 2015.
High speed rail and mass transit. Lots of talk no specific suggestions.
Electric vehicles. $2 billion for battery advancements, but it's old money, no new money proposed. Talk of incentives, no specifics.
Electricity production. Talk of efficiency. Propose new programs for lighting and heating and cooling systems. More emphasis on efficiency than new technology.
Nuclear. Want's a significant contribution. Build a new generation of nuclear plants. An international framework to prevent spread of technology. Hints at loan guarantees for new nukes.
Government funding for clean energy will be necessary. No definition for what clean energy includes.
Lots of fluffy talk, no big specifics.
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The speech is more about political compromise than a serious plan to transition from fossil fuels. Cutting oil imports by 1/3 over the next decade is ridiculous! The worlds oil production will probably drop by at least 10% in the next decade.
He demonstrates his lack of understanding of the problem by proposing to increase American production. This is basically sticking the oil needle deeper into Americas arm. Building our dependence on a rapidly declining resource rather than a renewable resource is not what America needs. Depleting Americas reserves faster, will make the future inevitable transition to Alt-E will be much more difficult.
Natural gas shale is a joke! There is great debate whether the claims of NG shale are anywhere realistic and whether the cost of extraction will be extremely high and whether the technology is available to extract more than a small portion of the shale NG.
Biofuels. We need a lot of research money to develop alternatives to corn ethanol. But biofuels are very limited in the quantity that can be produced.
Efficiency. Efficiency should never be looked at as an end in itself. It should always be talked about as needed as a pathway to a more sustainable method such as electric or hydrogen... If you treat it as an end, you are only delaying the inevitable. Converting the federal fleet is a good step in achieving these goals.
Electric vehicles. Where's the incentives? Lots of talk, not much proposed action.
Nuclear. Learned nothing from Japans current situation.
Government support for energy. At least he is giving lip service to clean energy. But he does not say where the money will go. If he's talking about nuclear and "clean coal" he is just making the situation worse.
Where is the proposal to put solar panels on every federal building in the country? This is a no brainer, especially when the government is borrowing money more cheaply than ever before, and the payback is shorter than ever.
Where is the proposal for interest free loans and tax credits for any office building in the U.S. that will put solar panels on their roof?
If you don't have a plan to transition our energy dependent economy away from rapidly declining fossil fuel sources, to renewable sources, than you don't have a plan at all!
I consider this another missed opportunity. The jobs that could be created by putting solar panels everywhere, by making government buildings more efficient, by providing subsidies for all of America to start the transition immediately, would have a huge impact on the economy, right now!