President Barack Obama
During his State of the Union speech Mr. Obama stated he would double the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources. In 1998, energy consumption in the USA from renewables was ~7.2%, and in 2007 it was ~6.4%.
The energy solution for the USA and Canada certainly includes renewables like solar, wind, geothermal as well as nuclear (not always considered renewable) but the most viable major step towards energy independence and cleaner energy consumption is natural gas.
For whatever reason it seems that Mr. Obama is not being realistic with his energy plans and certainly not placing enough emphasis on natural gas and other resources that will play a vital role in the energy mix. Unrealistic objectives, and more importantly over emphasis on the renewable energy alone will result in wasted time, resources and money. You can not spend your way out of the economy and you can not spend your way out of the energy crisis (which still exists and is real… just taking a temporary back seat).
Mr. Obama needs to take a look serious look T. Boone Pickens playbook – or the “Picke’s Plan” as it has been dubbed. T. Boone Pickens clearly outlines a plan that includes the right balance in his energy mix focusing on wind and natural gas. He calls for more grid power to be provided by wind and other renewables, and more of the transport grid to consumer natural gas. The point is that it is realistic plan.
The lesson that needs to be learned by Mr. Obama should also be learned by other countries worldwide. In Canada, we need to continue the investment currently being made by the BC government so we can tap the huge reserves trapped in shale gas which investing in realistic amounts of renewable energy to generate more power into the grid.
Interesting Read: Energy Tribune – “Obama’s Stumble: Wind Power”
Yes, a “realistic plan,” which means plausible, so this means plausible in the same sense that light-speed is also plausible once we resolve a few trifling, hardly-worth-mentioning technical problems, because without a massive and broad-based tax to burden the use of the cheaper, higher-gain resource, which is still oil, this discussion is academic. The real issue is a policy issue: how to dramatically raise the costs of a cheap, high-gain resource so that people will choose the more expensive and lower-gain resources that we want them to use.
It is the tax part that I oppose.
Develop an energy subsidy that delivers a higher-gain or can be had for less cost, and the problem solves itself as it is no longer a problem. Please call me when that happens.