Obama’s Energy Plan – Can the US handle it?
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President-elect Barack Obama’s 30-point energy agenda asks for prominent changes to address carbon emissions, fuel efficiency, renewable power and efficiency.
If Obama acts out the energy plan he laid out during his campaign, American taxpayers will each get a $500 discount check — funded by a windfall profits taxes on big oil companies.
In addition to taxing oil giants more, Senator Obama’s detailed 30-point energy agenda demands big changes to address carbon emissions, fuel efficiency for vehicles, and domestic and renewable power and efficiency.
While many candidates’ platform assures are cast away when political opposition looms, the Obama energy plan seems constitutional to his promise to get the economy restarted, some experts say.
Some of the highlights of Obama’s energy plan includes:
· Putting 1 million plug-in-electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) on the road by 2015 — cars that can get the equivalent of 150 miles per gallon.
· Creating 5 million new green jobs by investing $150 billion over 10 years to stimulate clean-energy infrastructure and manufacturing such as wind-turbine plants and solar panels carpeting the nation’s rooftops.
· Cutting US oil consumption, within 10 years, by the amount currently imported from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
· Requiring 10 percent of the nation’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass by 2012. By 2025, raise that to 25 percent.
· Establishing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program that cuts US greenhouse gas emissions by charging for every ton of carbon dioxide that goes into the sky from coal- and natural gas-fired US power plants.
Can Obama do all that and more — or will governmental and economical obstructions ultimately turn the plan into a much more humble effort? How much was campaign window dressing, and how much energy shift will the US undergo?
Some components of Obama ’s energy plan are costly, but also vital to the rest of the plan. For instance, sales of pollution permits from the cap-and-trade program to limit CO2 emissions across the economy are key to helping fund the plan’s $15 billion per year (for 10 years) expenditure on renewable energy research and development.
But some say rising electric rates — the result of costs involved with greenhouse-gas emissions — could stir political opposition and derail implementation, especially given the economic depression.
While no one has recalculated the cost-benefit for Obama’s official energy plan, some earlier calculations for similar — albeit rosy — plans suggest that the net effect would still be an addition for green jobs and the economy.
The Apollo Alliance, a labor-environmental alignment, has put forward a proposition that contains proposals similar to those in the Obama plan. The alliance calls for a federal investment in clean-energy technology and green building that’s twice as large ($300 billion) as Obama’s. Their analysis calculates more than $1.4 trillion in savings and economic growth.
The pedigree of Obama’s plan also suggests that it is more, not less, likely to be implemented.
Much of the Obama plan accompanies the National Commission on Energy Policy’s (NCEP) 2004 plan, a consensus document in which — as in the SAFC plan — energy-security hawks joined environmentalists and industry. In fact, NCEP director and plan coauthor Jason Grumet is a likely candidate for an energy post in the new administration.
Besides the advantage of having been pre-vetted by energy, foreign policy, and industry experts, the plan also has something of an authorization. Obama often touted the need for a new energy equation during the campaign. Renewable-energy tax credits were blocked regularly in the US Senate this year. So an Obama mandate could help win over a Senate in which Democrats are now just three votes short of a filibuster-proof majority — with three races still in contention.
One of the fastest ways to lower energy costs is efficiency. Obama’s energy plan touts tougher efficiency standards and decries the Bush administration for missing 34 deadlines for improving energy-efficiency requirements for appliances and electrical equipment.
During its term of office, the Bush White House enacted just two new energy-efficiency standards, one for electrical transformers and one for home furnaces, both of which were considered too weak and are now being challenged in court by states and environmental groups.
If all 25 Obama-proposed energy-efficiency standards were acquired, they could economize the yearly equivalent of all the power produced by 57 large power plants.
An early test of the new administration — and its willingness to risk industry displeasure — will come in June. That’s when a new rule on commercial lighting — to improve the efficiency of those ubiquitous four-foot-long fluorescent tubes used in office buildings nationwide — comes up for final approval.
It’s a big deal. If the Department of Energy enacts a tough rule, it could have one of the most significant energy-efficiency impacts in US history, saving the equivalent of $66 billion in power costs over the next 30 years. That’s enough to power every home in the US for one year.
A strong rule could mean that the US could essentially replace 15 large power plants with the energy savings and slash carbon dioxide emissions by 950 million tons. The Bush administration could still propose a weaker rule in its waning days.
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When will funds be available for me to take training in this field. I live in Texas and am a Texas Vet. Is there a program for me?
It’s encouraging to see Obama’s take on alternative energy for the US – let’s hope he follows through. The supply of energy sources such as oil and coal are not infinite and we need to look at cutting down now as well as encouraging greener solutions.