The State of the Union speech given yesterday by President Barack Obama might well stay in the History books like John Fitzgerald Kennedy moon shot speech that sent Americans on the moon in less than a decade.
Indeed President Obama asked for 80% of America’s electricity from ‘clean energy’ by 2035 (including clean coal and natural gas, nobody’s perfect) and for more than one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
Even more, he called for the suppression of the billions worth of subsidies to Big Oil companies. Let’s hope Congress will give him the means to do all this.
Here is an extract I really enjoyed :
“With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million vehicles on the road by 2015.
“We need to get behind this innovation. and to help pay for it, I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we current give to oil companies. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.
“Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.
“Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”
I don’t think we can call biofuels, natural gas and clean coal (the best oxymoron ever if you ask me) good solutions, but I believe President Obama included these to gain support from the farmers and miners and their associated interests.
I don’t know if energy efficiency, the panacea to all our problems, was mentioned, but I know that climate wasn’t. I believe it was done to avoid upsetting some Republicans and deniers…
To read out more : TreeHugger.