In the president's state of the union address this week a number of topics were covered as is the way these kind of speeches goes, but President Obama focused a good portion of his speech on alternative energy. In the address he challenged the nation and the alternative energy sector to reach the goals of having a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 and 80% of our energy consumption being supplied by renewable energy sources. These goals are highly ambitious and in all likelihood not entirely achievable, but merely proposing that drastic measures be taken to improve the way we consume energy is a leap in the right direction. President Obama also played to the republican congress by proposing that these measures are about increasing american jobs and decreasing our dependency on foreign oil. He took quite a jab at the oil companies in saying that "Instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's." This is a clear declaration that Obama is ready to rip off the band-aid that the federal government has been slapping on rising oil prices from the middle east and putting that money to a american-centric economy. Because, honestly, who can argue with a proposal about creating new jobs, especially with our highest rates of un-employment in decades occurring? It is clear that improving our methods of energy consumption and production are a high priority for President Obama, and it's about time we took real initiative to live up to our "Sputnik moment".
http://www.energydigital.com/node/89464
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/01/27/obamas_clean_energy_plan_wins_applause_in_mass/
1 comment:
This blog was very well written and gives me hope that the nation will be able to make a slow, but achievable turn around in our dependency on nonrenewable resources. However, this blog was written from the United States perspective. I'd like to know how this affects the world. Nicely done but the audience is left hanging.
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