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Obama’s Energy Plan is Full of Hot Air - Unfortunately We Can’t Use it To Solve The Energy Crisis |
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How we will provide energy in the future for our society currently remains one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Solving it will require boldness, imagination and above all action. As the second paragraph of Obama’s energy policy states, ‘Our country can not afford politics as usual - not at a moment when the energy challenge we face is so great and the consequences of inaction are so dangerous’
Unfortunately for us though, Obama’s energy plan is politics as usual, because it seeks more to grab headlines and to capture the votes of the misconceived than it does to provide serious solutions to the energy crisis. Many of the policies he proposes are week or ineffective and find their basis more in the propaganda of the right than they do in the arguments climatologists and economists
Immediately Provide Emergency Energy Rebate
- Ill overlook the oversight of an indefinite article in the title, because this is actually one of the few policies I support, this tax on oil companies is already being tried in Italy, the so called ‘Robin Hood Tax’ and people will need help with their heating bills this winter.
Crack Down on Excessive Speculation
- Ever since biblical times people have been quick to blame the speculators for the high price of commodities. However a report by the International Energy Authority (IEA) this year concluded that speculation had had little effect on the current high oil prices. Supply and demand were the key factors
Release Oil From the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
- The Strategic Petroleum Reserve contains 707 million barrels of oil. Current US consumption of oil is 20 million barrels of oil per day, working on the assumption that the entire reserve would not be released and a significant reserve would be kept, this policy will have little effect on the price of oil
Implement Cap and Trade Programs
- Another good policy that is already being implemented by a number of states
Make the US a Leader on Climate Change
- See below
Invest in Our Secure Energy Future and Create 5 Million Jobs
- In principle all good stuff, but once again the measures are marginal. 1 billion a year for businesses, a small chip in a 14 trillion dollar economy. Consider how much the government subsidises weapons development.
Increase Fuel Economy Standards
- Obama wants to increase fuel economy standards by 4% per year. This in 10 years would ot even bring the US to today’s European fuel economy standards. Today the average US car gets 20.4 miles to the gallon, whereas European cars get 40. The technology is here, we shouldn’t have to wait another 20 years to get it.
1 Million Plug in Vehicles on the Road by 2015
- There are 280 million cars on the road today in the US. A Drop in the ocean.
The Use it or Lose it Approach
- Obama claims that oil companies have millions of acres that they are not drilling on. These lands probably contain marginal wells, which are called marginal for a reason. They are old oil fields that have been exhausted to the point that they are no longer profitable to pump oil from, they typically produce less than 10 barrels a day. Again a drop in the ocean
Promote the responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Gas
- Drilling in the Alaska, responsible?
10% Electricity to Come From Renewable Sources by 2012
- Again, this is far below European standards which have a target of 20% by 2010. How is this making the US a leader in climate change?
Develop Clean Coal Technology
- Why? people in West Virginia arn’t going to vote for you anyway.
There are more measures, many of which are again marginal or vague, but most importantly what about the things that arn’t mentioned. For example solar power. New film technologies are currently being developed that will drastically reduce the price of solar power. Even with current technology California is on the verge of Grid Parity, when Solar power production costs the same as conventional electricity. Wind is another increasingly popular source in Europe, and the EU has set itself the goal of providing 20% of its electricity from wind by 2020. Why did Obama only mention these important renewable and above all clean energy sources in passing? whereas there were specific policies for nuclear, coal and biofuels? Perhaps he was too busy speculating for oil in Alaska
Since when do they tech energy policiy in journalism school?
I didnt go to journalism school, I went to international economics school, where they teach energy policy, with other things.