Obama's energy plan leaves much to be desired

Submitted by scharrison on Thu, 02/04/2010 - 11:08am

At first glance, it doesn't appear to be much different from Bush the Younger's:

With the climate legislation stalled in Congress, however, many of Obama's allies find themselves divided by the president's push for new offshore drilling, his budget's tripling of loan guarantees for nuclear power plants, and his repeated use of the phrase "clean coal," which the coal industry uses as shorthand for still unproven and uneconomic technologies that could limit carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants.

Particularly troubling for me is the potential increase in corn-based ethanol:

The new renewable-fuel standard issued by the EPA drew criticism from some environmentalists as well as oil industry representatives, who accused the Obama administration of catering to farm interests. In an earlier draft of the standard, the administration had said that corn-based ethanol output should be limited because its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions exceeded renewable fuel standards.

The emissions calculations are important, but the impact on food prices/supply by using food crops for feedstock should be the primary concern. In this hemisphere at least, maize is the primary daily staple for the vast majority of the tens of millions teetering at the brink of malnutrition and starvation, and corn ethanol has already pushed many over that brink.

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Climate legislation vs. energy legislation

Submitted by Dan Besse on Thu, 02/04/2010 - 12:06pm.

I share your wariness regarding the new energy proposals coming forward. I recall that with the North Carolina legislation three years ago, the bill ended up being fatally compromised by inclusion of the language repealing the restrictions on CWIP ("construction work in progress" financing mechanism for power plants). In return for a weak renewable energy portfolio standard, we removed critical market restraints on the financing of dinosaur power plants like Cliffside and Duke's proposed new nuke in South Carolina. Not a good deal.

At the federal level, I'd be prepared to tolerate some fairly foul-smelling details in return for a comprehensive carbon control apparatus like cap-and-trade. That would be real climate legislation.

For just another energy bill? Sorry, more loan guarantees for unaffordable new commercial nuclear plants and more offshore drilling nonsense is too damn much to give away in return for another round of dollars for wind power. (And I like wind power; I think it's going to be an important source of electricity over the long haul. But the point of developing more renewable sources like wind power is so that we don't have to develop more problematic fossil fuel and nuclear power.)

Unlike comprehensive health care reform, we get new energy bills passed every year lately. There's no need to give away the farm this year on dirty power if we're not going to get something truly game-changing in a positive fashion in return.

Dan Besse