Digging into Obama's answer to the energy and environment question broadcast on YouTube today. Terribly consistent with the average Illinois politician's support for more nuclear energy, coal, and corn. He says very little on clean energy.
MR. GROVE: Mr. President, we don't have much time left, but I want to make sure we get to the issue of energy, the environment. One of the rare moments where you were able to get applause from your friends on the Republican side of the aisle in Congress the other night was when you mentioned nuclear energy. And just today your budget announced tripling the loan guarantees for nuclear reactors. A lot of people had questions about just how this would work and why you did that.
Nice set-up by Mr. Grove. Let's assume a lot of young people are concerned with Obama's bi-partisan approach to go nuclear. Obama never explains how the loan guarantee's work. Suffice it to say, it is almost free money for nuclear development,
$35B more on top of $18B of the next generations taxdollars just sitting there now for nuclear power.
Q "President Obama, record numbers of young people elected you in support of a clean energy future. If money is tight, why do you propose wasting billions in expensive nuclear, dirty coal, and offshore drilling? We need to ramp up efficiency, wind and solar, that are all economically sustainable and create clean and safe jobs for our generation."
Good question, young people. Realize that a record number of campaign contributions elected Obama, too, and if money is tight as you say, the $84 milliion spent by the nuclear industry lobbying congress in the first three quarters of 2009 alone goes a long way with Democrats and Republicans. It should go without saying that the dirty coal industry, aka clean coal, has no shortage of money to tout their products, too, which officials in both parties can appreciate, and Big Ag does not skimp either.
I appreciate the desire for a clean and safe job expressed in the question. Too many American youth are forced to enter the U.S. armed forces for a job, and it is a stretch to call those positions clean and safe or to say it has nothing to do with oil (as if more offshore drilling is a sustainable solution).
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you're not going to get any argument from me about the need to create clean energy jobs.
Unfortunately, Obama misunderstands clean coal jobs as a clean energy jobs, and clean coal is his preferred driver over the long term, along side nuke power he considers clean.
I think this is going to be the driver of our economy over the long term. And that's why we put in record amounts of money for solar and wind and biodiesel and all the other alternative clean energy sources that are out there.
Beside his definition of "clean energy sources" including nuclear and coal, notice the young people did not include Obama's use of biodiesel as clean.
Obama is well-versed in the language of coal, corn, and nuclear energy, from his background in Chicago and as a Senator in Springfield. Illinois is the most nuclear state in the country. Chicago is where man created his first ever atomic chain reaction. About 1/3 of this year's record corn crop was burned to make ethanol. Illinois produced about 15% of the total crop, and is home to ADM, probably the largest corn ethanol producer in the world. Put ADM's history of corrupt business practices together with an Illinois politician, and you know clean energy will not be the result. And since 1903, when the Fisk coal power plant in Chicago was built, the first big central power station and the beginning of the dirty power grid we live on today, Chicago has been breathing dirty coal. Today, the Fisk plant is second to only the Crawford coal plant as the biggest polluter in Chicago. Nuclear power, King Coal and King Corn have great power over Chicago, Illinois politicians. For instance, if you wonder why there is hesitancy to stop the threat to the Great Lakes Ecosystem from Asian Carp by closing their route, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, realize it is of great economic benefit to those profiting on corn and coal. The support being given to the sustainable energy sources preferred by the young people pale in comparison to that being offered to the industries they consider dirty and unsustainable.
In the meantime, though, unfortunately, no matter how fast we ramp up those energy sources, we're still going to have enormous energy needs that will be unmet by alternative energy.
That is true. However, the question is really getting to how fast can the enormous energy needs be reduced and the production made sustainable. The answer is barely contemplating change from the status quo. Obama is known for drastically lowering the bar by using 2005 as a baseline for greenhouse gas reductions, thus being able to call a 4% decrease from the world's baseline of 1990 a 17% decrease using his revision.
And the question then is, where will that come from?
Hmmm, could it be. . .
Nuclear energy has the advantage of not emitting greenhouse gases.
I guess we can not count the footprint to create the massive cement structure (the cement industry being the third largest emitter of GHG). Let's forget about water, too, when talking about nuclear or clean coal, right Mr. President?
For those who are concerned about climate change, we have to recognize that countries like Japan and France and others have been much more aggressive in their nuclear industry and much more successful in having that a larger part of their portfolio, without incident, without accidents.
Let's be like Socialists in France, and subsidize the nuclear industry, and copy the Japanese, because aren't they the greatest innovators in the world? (snark)
We're mindful of the concerns about storage, of spent fuel, and concerns about security, but we still think it's the right thing to do if we're serious about dealing with climate change.
When he says "serious," he means what he is expected to do politically on Capital Hill, not what the idealistic youth think. Of course, "secure" is also a relative term (thinking of the nuclear waste stored 100 yards from Lake Michigan, in a defunct nuclear plant in Zion, IL).
And if we are ever going to deal with climate change in a serious way, where we know China and India are going to be greatly reliant on coal, we've got to start developing clean coal technologies that can sequester the harmful emissions, because otherwise -- countries like China and India are not going to stop using coal -- we'll still have those same problems but we won't have the technology to make sure that it doesn't harm the environment over the long term.
Clean Coal will save the world and everone will thank America!
So I know that there's some skepticism about whether there is such a thing as clean coal technology.
Yes we can . . .
What is true is right now that we don't have all the technology to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, but the technology is close and it makes sense for us to make that investment now, not only because it will be good for America but it will also ultimately be good internationally. We can license and export that technology in ways that help other countries use a better form of energy that's going to be helpful to the climate change issue.
The complete transcript of the "interview" on YouTube is here.