Yesterday President Barack Obama announced his new energy policy. Some parts are sound like increased fuel efficiency and increased conservation, but the bulk of the plan depends on fossil fuels, including a potentially disastrous expansion of offshore drilling. Sufficient energy is meaningless in the absence of a viable planet on which to use it.
President Obama on Wednesday called for a one-third cut in oil imports by 2020, part of a plan he says will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum.
With rising gasoline prices at home and political turmoil throughout the Middle East, Obama sought in a speech at Georgetown University to rally Americans – and bickering lawmakers – behind a program that draws equally from energy savings and increases in energy production.
"We’ve been down this road before," Obama said, acknowledging that past presidents have made similar calls for greater energy independence. But, he added, "We can’t rush to action when gas prices are high and then hit the snooze button when prices are low again."
Most facets of his proposals are familiar. The president proposed wider use of natural gas, including incentives to use it to fuel fleet vehicles such as city buses. He backed greater production of biofuels and vowed to establish at least four commercial scale refineries producing cellulosic ethanol or advanced biofuels within the next two years.
He also pledged to establish higher fuel-efficiency standards for heavy trucks, just as he did for passenger vehicles early in his administration.
Obama also urged oil companies to make greater use of the federal leases both onshore and offshore to prop up domestic oil output. The oil industry and GOP lawmakers have been loudly complaining about delays in the permitting of offshore drilling in recent months.
But an irked administration, which had pledged tougher scrutiny of drilling applications after last year’s massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, fired back Tuesday with an Interior Department report that revived earlier debates about whether oil companies were exploiting the leases they already have.
"We just spent all that time, energy and money trying to clean up a big mess," Obama said. "I don’t know about you, but I don’t have amnesia. I remember these things. I think it’s important that we prevent something like that from happening again."… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <San Francisco Chronicle>
I have no problem with using natural gas as a bridge fuel, but tight prohibitions against fracking are needed to protect ground water. Ethanol requires as much energy to make as it delivers in the tank, making it inefficient. It also takes resources away from food production. Increasing domestic oil production in no way lessens imports. As soon as it’s out of the ground it joins the the international market and becomes a generic commodity. Because we will need some oil long term, we’re actually better off keeping our reserves for a time when oil is much more scarce. Worse yet, the equipment and disaster recovery plans for offshore drilling are unchanged since BP flooded the Gulf with oil. None of the needed preventive measures are in place.
Rachel Maddow explains these problems.
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Her analysis is clear. The promised new safety standards do not exist.
On the plus side, he did not hype nuclear plants.
The biggest flaw in Obama’s policy is what it does not contain. We need to make the same kind of national effort we did to put a man on the moon. We need to direct that effort into scientific research to develop the next generation of abundant, inexpensive, environmentally safe energy. I suspect that fusion may be the answer. Whatever it is we won’t get it from Republicans. They are too busy insuring that the energy companies that own them stay profitable, and they hate skience [spelling intentional].
8 Responses to “Obama Mostly Wrong on Energy”
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Ethanol doesn’t have to use as much energy as it creates. Switchgrass and hemp are both absolutely wonderful sources of ethanol, they’ll grow most anywhere, and they yield much more per pound than corn does. It’s plain stupid to use corn for energy; subsidize switchgrass farming instead, since it requires little handling ans grows in a lot of places unsuitable for food crops.
JR, if that is the case, and I have read that there are problems with it, I’m all for it. Whatever works.
Solving our energy problems requires a long-range view. Unfortunately both our citizens and our politicians only have a short-range view. Carter tried in the 70’s. Reagan came along as stopped it. It has yet to start up again.
Jerry, that’s the way I see it. That’s why I favor extensive research.
Practical fusion energy has been “twenty years away” since the 1950 and about the most optimistic prediction I hear now is the 2060’s. Making matter worse occasionally some bonehead reporter will publish a story about the magic “break even point” where the same amount of energy is produced as that went into the system but closer examination always shows the story simply wrong or at best misleading. Our best research bet right now is an experimental unit being built somewhere in Europe.
Unless something has changed the last time I heard any real news about switchgrass there was still a problem with getting the cellulose to break down increasing the cost and energy needed for production. Here in glorious South Carolina the idiots (repubs) are still running around on that one seeing dollar signs like biblethumpers see the Rapture.
A lot of people hate me already for writing this but there is no magic bullet that will solve our energy problems in supplying cheap, plentiful, safe, and clean energy. Solar and wind are super duper but the wind does not always blow and solar has issues in large urban environment. My workplace is catching hell right now trying to get one simple bank of photovoltaic cells working properly on the roof of the building.
T. Boone Pickens and others have brought up the possibility of building huge solar array farms in the southwest which is fine regionally but there are transmission problems going across continent say to the Midwest and northeast.
Hate to say and once again I welcome the hate mail but until fusion or some other Holy Grail pops up energy policy is going to require a balance and using and do things that are dirty and dangerous.
Beach I hear you, but one of these years it will be 20 years away, I’m not suggesting that the ultimate solution is around the corner or easy to achieve. That’s why I suggest gas as a bridge fuel and a, early NASA-like research program. For the short term I agree, but we need a long-term view.
I agree – if enough effort were put into this it would be much more attainable. But this country no longer has the will to accomplish anything. It’s very sad.
Thanks Mimi. My point exacvtly.