Huge day for the Obama Administration, Clean Energy, and EVs

Despite taking place in the heart of tea party country, President Obama braved the handful of teabaggers protesting everything from cap and trade, to solar power to yes, health care reform for the opening of Florida Power and Light's new solar energy power plant in Arcadia, FL. The 40 megawatt 90,000+ solar panel plant, which have been installed across 180 acres of the 5,000 acre FPL property, is expected to generate enough clean electricity to power 3,000 homes. So far the FPL plant is the largest operating solar power plant in the US. During the event President Obama also announced the largest stimulus fund award to date - grants of $3.4 billion awarded to one hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners for development of smart grid technologies. Below is the official White House press release.

“The $3.4 billion in Smart Grid Investment Grant awards are part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, and will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. Applicants state that the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs, and consumers in 49 states will benefit from these investments in a stronger, more reliable grid.

Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. The end result will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. "

Not to be outdone, Vice President Biden was in Wilmington Delaware today to announce Fisker Automotive's purchase and reopening of a GM auto plant that was recently closed down. The electric vehicle manufacturer, an EV competitor of California's Tesla Motors, is expected to manufacturer moderately priced sedans at its new Wilmington location. The new Fisker plant is expected to employ 2,000 workers, up from the 450 workers there when GM closed the plant down last summer. This is huge news for not only electric vehicle enthusiasts but our nations's beleagured automotive industry and manufacturing base.

G20 Outcomes

So now that everything is back to normal, what did the G20 actually accomplish and what did it not (from the Green perspective)?

Done:

1. Replacing G7/8 with the G20
Since 1975, the Group of 7 richest countries in the world has met to discuss the fate of the world. The less rich countries and the emerging nations have long been ired at this totalitarian governance. The first G20 occurred in November of 2008 in Washington, DC. It is a much more inclusive group representing both developing and developed nations. The heads of state have decided that this group in addition to being more representative is also better. Win for all. As I blogged about earlier, many of these developing nations are very serious about addressing climate change.

2. Fossil Fuel subsidies to be eliminated... sometime
The heads of the G20 have committed to eliminating fossil fuels. It's great to see a unanimous front on this issue. It's a joke to claim that clean energy is a goal while giving developing countries incentive to use dirty energy. Unfortunately, the process of eliminating the subsidies still needs to be ironed out and will take many studies both here and abroad to even figure out the many ways fossil fuels are subsidized in developing countries.

Not Done:

1. No firm footing on subsidies for developing nations to invest in clean energy.
In July, United States President Barack Obama asked the G20 finance ministers to take up climate financing issues and report back at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. The ball was dropped and no clear plan emerged from the finance ministers. The number one argument by developing nations against Climate Change action is that they are being affected by climate change already but are neither causing it nor prepared financially to respond to it. It is imperative that if the richest nations (and most carbon-producing nations) in the world want to address the issue of climate change that they start by reaching into their pockets.

What's Next?

1. G20 meets in November in Scotland
The finance ministers are to report back at the next G20 meeting. Hopefully with more solid ground.

2. The last meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is in December in Copenhagen
This group has been charged with having an environmental treaty in place to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. If financing is not in place by then, many people believe that a new treaty will not be viable. The United States was conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol agreement. Hopefully, we will not have a repeat of that.

Sierra Club pleased with the Stimulus Bill, President Obama's first month in office

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope hailed the passing of the Stimulus Bill as the "biggest victory" by an American President in his first month in office. I'm sure his comment there is debatable, but one thing that is certain of President Obama's first month is that White House policy on clean energy and the environment is a complete 180 from the previous administration. If the Obama EPA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior can continue to make the kinds of changes they have made this first month over the next 11 months, this will indeed be the green-energy revolution, and the change, that we need and have been waiting for.

A recent Sierra Club email touted The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which contains approximately $80 billion in funding for promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, and higher-mileage cars. This includes:

• $25 billion for energy efficiency
• $20 billion for renewable energy incentives
• $11 billion in grants and $6 billion in loans to modernize the electric grid and increase its capacity to deliver power generated by renewable sources, and
• $17.7 billion for mass transit, Amtrak, and high-speed rail.

Here are Carl Pope's Stimulus Package highlights, which are listed on his blog:

The signing a day earlier of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is, as far as I can recall, by far the biggest victory mustered by an American President in his first month in office. Environmentally, the bill is the most important piece of legislative support for clean energy ever adopted. Its provisions include $80 billion for a wide variety of environmental programs. The President, before he signed it in Denver, visited a solar-energy manufacturing facility. It was a nice bookend to the visit he made to a Ohio wind-turbine factory last month, when he launched his campaign to get Congress to pass the bill.

In addition to directly funded investments, the bill also contains important, if little commented on, incentives to industry, states, and local government to go even further. Some of the second-year funding for energy efficiency, for example, is contingent on states following California's lead in giving their public utilities as much incentive to save energy as to increase electricity generation.

So far the Stimulus Bill looks like a major disappointment

Change may have happened at the top, but both the lower and upper houses of our Congress still suck. If you peruse The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 you will see many pork projects brought to you by House Democrats and a huge amount of the bill dedicated to tax cuts, brought to you primarily by Republicans, who year after year fail to provide any ideas for our economy beyond tax cutting. According to Talking Points Memo, the Senate draft looks even more disappointing.

Here is brief summary of my problems with the House Stimulus Bill:

• Too much pork!! Way too much going towards pork projects and programs that have nothing to do with economic stimulus (billions for student financial aid, energy assistance for seniors, and a number of pork projects like the $200 million revitalization of the National Mall)
  
• Too much (approx. $300 billion) going towards tax cuts or credits, most of which will not creates jobs or stimulate the economy
  
• Far too little going towards rail and public transportation projects (only $10 billion) and a disproportionate amount going towards highways ($30 billion)
• Only $18.5 billion going towards the DOE's energy efficiency and renewable energy projects
  

Okay okay, so are there any good parts to the House Bill? Sure. Energy wise, despite such a small portion of the bill going to the DOE and renewable energy, there are some good projects that will advance our clean energy economy, and even help clean up our producers of dirty energy. Here are the highlights

• $8 billion for the DOE's Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program
• $4.5 billion for modernization of our electricity grid (smart grid!)
• $2.4 billion for Carbon Capture and Sequestration demonstration
• $2 billion for the DOE's Advanced Research Projects
• $1 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program
• $600 million for Plug-ins and Hybrid vehicles for the Federal Government's Vehicle Fleet
• $600 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate sensors and climate modeling technology
• $350 million for the R&D and evaluation for improvements in energy generation, transmission, regulation, use, and storage, for military installations, military vehicles, and other military equipment (An energy independent Military?)

Total for energy related projects: $20.7 billion

Sunlight Labs extracted the appropriations from the bill into a spreadsheet, where you can view the stimulus funds appropriated to each department. They were baffled that they were only able to find $356.4 billion in appropriations within the text of the bill. Where is the other $475 billion? Well, $300 billion of it is going towards tax cuts for individuals and businesses. I think some tax cuts for small businesses makes a lot of sense, but additional tax cuts or tax rebates for individuals? Last year's tax rebate showed that the any positive impacts due to the fiscal stimulus checks were both minimal and temporary, and now we are going to try to tax cut our way to prosperity again? We need to start building things again!

***Please note that Obama has stated to House Republicans that he "had no pride in authorship of the current bill. " THANK GOD Obama isn't as clueless as some of the idiot House Democrats. Good god - don't these people realize that it is time for change instead of the same old bullshit in our politics and legislation?!

Obama could bring us this stimulus package, the first major piece of legislation during his presidency, in two ways. He could pull a George W. Bush and simply rubber stamp a bill produced by his own party. The other option is to do the right thing. He could make both parties put country first by working together to draft a bi-partisan bill that will create jobs, improve our infrastructure, and put us on the road to energy independence. That is the kind of change we need! If Obama wants to turn this stinker around, and improve his already high approval rating, he will do something audacious. He will veto this dog shit of a bill when it gets passed in both the House and Senate. He will piss off the members of his own party by demanding that they remove the funding for the pork projects, and he will ask them to replace some of the tax rebates /cuts with tax cuts for small businesses, which will show some love to the Republicans.

NOTE: Pennsylvania is slated to receive $22.07 billion of the stimulus money, with a little over $2.3 billion going towards the state budget shortfall. I would bet that Governor Rendell makes sure that the North Shore Connector gets that $120 million it needs in order to be completed.

The Washington Post has a good story on the Democrats who oppose the stimulus plan as is.

Will 2009 be the year of the railroad?

One of my predictions for 2009 is that this will be the year that passenger rail transport is finally brought back from the dead. I've you live or have lived in cities like Chicago or Philadelphia, you may be thinking that the railroads have never went away. But here in Pittsburgh, in Atlanta, and in a number of other cities across the country, the transformation of freight railroads to passenger/commuter rail lines have already been proven feasible, and may only be months away from the first phase of their implementation, as the President-elect has made a point that he intends to stress the utilization of railroads to ease congestion and reduce our reliance on fossil fuel-centric transportation of the highways and airways.

Here is a May 2008 quote from Obama on his transportation priorities:

The irony is with the gas prices what they are, we should be expanding rail service. One of the things I have been talking bout for awhile is high speed rail connecting all of these Midwest cities -- Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis. They are not that far away from each other. Because of how big of a hassle airlines are now. There are a lot of people if they had the choice, it takes you just about as much time if you had high speed rail to go the airport, park, take your shoes off.

This is something that we should be talking about a lot more. We are going to be having a lot of conversations this summer about gas prices. And it is a perfect time to start talk about why we don't have better rail service. We are the only advanced country in the world that doesn't have high speed rail. We just don't have it. And it works on the Northeast corridor. They would rather go from New York to Washington by train than they would by plane. It is a lot more reliable and it is a good way for us to start reducing how much gas we are using. It is a good story to tell.

So, I think anyone reading this blog will agree that having a President who wants to move our national transportation infrastructure into the 21st century is a good thing, is it not?

Also on the list of transportation initiatives that should interest anyone who is a fan of being able to get from point A to B without the hassles of the airlines - 2009 should be the year we finally learn which region will be the recipient of our nation's first MAGLEV train line. Funding for the nation's first 310 MPH MAGLEV train, which was initiated in the 1990's, was shelved following the 9/11 attacks, but the initiative has been revived in recent years, and despite having a federally funded tunnel to nowhere project already underway our US Senators are still working on bring the first federally funded MAGLEV track to the Pittsburgh region. In addition to the Pittsburgh MAGLEV project, MAGLEV train lines have been proposed for the Los Angeles - Las Vegas corridor, and the Chattanooga-Atlanta corridor (The Chattlanta line). Last but not least, the California High Speed Rail initiative got the approval of voters this past election. The high speed rail will link all of California's major cities and should become the model of how we can implement high speed rail throughout the country.

As you can see by the passenger rail map I have provided below, I think the Pittsburgh region has a number of good commuter rail options on the table. The combination of just a few of them would improve region's mobility by leaps and bounds without a multibillion dollar 54 mile long high speed train that goes from Greensburg to downtown to the airport. But, while I think a high speed rail line around one city, especially one as small as Pittsburgh, would be underutilized, I still think that a MAGLEV train connecting bigger cities or regions (ay the east coast to the Midwest, or New York or Philadelphia to Chicago) to one another, bypassing the highways in a manner similar to the California initiative, would be a good step towards reaching the goal of building President Obama's national high speed rail network. Pittsburgh, with its relative proximity to such a very large chunk of the US population, would be a logical place to start building the Northeast to Midwest line. Starting with a line between Cleveland and Pittsburgh or Pittsburgh and Philadelphia would provide a lot of benefits for the region and those professionals who would now have the mobility that would permit them to live and work in different cities.

I create the Google map below with an assist from The East Busway Blogger, and also the Southwestern PA Commission's report on regional transportation alternatives. The SPC's report has some great statistics on projected ridership and the cost of implementing and operating some of the Pittsburgh region's commuter rail options. Some of these options have already made it into the Pittsburgh Regional Integrated Transportation Plan, or the Pittsburgh Transportation Wiki Project for short. If you have additional ideas please feel free to add them to the wiki plan, and if you would like to include additional ideas for passenger rail lines please create them in Google Maps and email me or leave the URL or your idea in the comments section.

After years of hearing about the wonderful high speed rail lines throughout Europe and Asia, and feeling as though we'll never move beyond highways and air travel, it seems as though we are on the verge of turning a corner, and it feels good.


View Larger Map

The Mayor's Infrastructure Stimulus Wish List...prepare to be Underwhelmed

Pittsburgh's mayor Luke Ravenstahl released his list of projects for the Obama administration's massive infrastructure program, which should should go into effect as early as Obama's first month in office.. The mayor announced his plan amid criticism from members of Pittsburgh city council, who were upset that the mayor did not submit the city's wish list to the US Conference of Mayors in time to be included in the group's Jobs and Infrastructure Report, although 427 other cities were able to do so. You can view that report here.

My first reaction after looking over the list of 110 projects was "Where is the green?" and "Where are the transit projects?" Where are the big and bold ideas for light rail and commuter rail, like the things we have proposed as part of CityLive's Transportation Wiki? I've compared Pittsburgh's list to the wishlists of other cities, such as Miami, which asked for funding for $3.4 in projects, including $280 million on a new streetcar system, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which requested $2.3 billion in funding, with over $1 billion of that money being earmarked for renewable energy projects. Below is a list of the ten cities which requested the most money for infrastructure projects. (The jobs figures are so inflated that you shouldn't even pay mind to them)



Again, the mayor's plan left me asking for plans to expand the light rail to Oakland, or a massive plan for citywide energy efficiency initiatives, like Councilman Peduto's LED lighting plan. To be fair, a lot of the projects on the mayor's list are essential and are long overdue. Our sewer systems should have been upgraded decades ago, and Pittsburgh is not alone as many cities across the US are asking for money for water and waste related projects. But when looking for true green projects I only found a handful that even come close to being considered "green". These projects included bike trails, LED lighting along the trails, and new parks and green spaces. These 10 projects, listed below, represent $38 million of the $1.02 billion in requested funds, meaning only 3.3 % of the total that Mayor Ravenstahl is requesting is going to projects that will make Pittsburgh a greener city. This is a joke when stacked up against other cities, both larger and smaller than Pittsburgh, who realize that projects focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency, not to mention CO2 reductions, will be at the top of the Obama's administration's list of priorities.




A friend, who had reviewed the list earlier today, sent me an email with the following:

Where’s the leadership? Where’s the innovation? The imagination? Where’s the $%@$ creativity or inspiration?

That’s just a rote $%#@ laundry list of stuff that came out of the backs of reports that have been filed away in the City-County Building for years.

My thoughts exactly. As I said earlier, the mayor's plan does address some essential fixes to things which are in dire need of upgrades, but anyone who has been living in Pittsburgh for a few years could have recommended those projects. These are not the big bold ideas that we need to "move Pittsburgh forward", as the mayor likes to say often. Obama's stimulus plan will be an unprecedented opportunity to improve our transportation system and finally build out our light rail network, which still only serves the South Hills and downtown Pittsburgh. Other cities have put forth bold ideas that will make them more competitive not only here in the US but on a global scale as well. Like every other issue, this one shows the glaring weakness of Pittsburgh : the lack of bold leadership from our top public officials.

The complete list of projects can be viewed and downloaded to a spreadsheet from Swivel.com

Obama's National Security Adviser "Puts Energy First"

The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog has a story on President-elect Obama's choice for our National Security Adviser, General Jim Jones. Gen. Jones has been on record stating that energy is a national security issue. This should be a no brainer, but it is a 180 from the Bush administration, which has talked the talk but failed to walk the walk when it comes to taking action on climate change and energy security. Here is an interesting quote from Jones, provided by Environmental Capital:

“We are in a race against the clock and complacency is our greatest enemy. If we do not take this challenge seriously, America’s economic prosperity, national security, and global standing will be at risk. The status quo is not only an option, it is a recipe for failure.”

Can I get an Amen!? This is another sign that energy independence will be at the top of Obama's list of priorities. My friends, the closer we get to PE Obama's inauguration the more I can sense that change to our backwards energy policy is around the corner. How about you?

A Green Wishlist for Obama

Renewable energy trade groups came together on a conference call last week to submit their wish lists for the Obama administration. Here is the summary courtesy of the Green Wombat blog:

• A five-year extension of the production tax credit for the wind industry (it currently has to be renewed every year) to remove uncertainty for investors.
• A major infrastructure program to upgrade the transmission grid so wind, solar and geothermal energy can be transmitted from the remote areas where it is produced to major cities. Obama advisor Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google (GOOG), recently joined with General Electric (GE) chief Jeff Immelt to launch a joint initiative to develop such smart grid technology as well as push for policy changes in Washington to allow the widespread deployment of renewable energy by rebuilding the nation’s transmission system.
• Impose a national “renewable portfolio standard” that would mandate that utilities obtain a minimum 10% of their electricity from green sources by 2012 and at least 25% by 2020. Two-thirds of the states currently impose variations of such requirements.
• Mandate that the federal government - the nation’s single largest consumer of electricity - obtain more energy from renewable sources.
• Enact a cap-and-trade carbon market.

I am supportive of all of the above, but here are a few things I would add to that list:

• A green bailout for the auto industry. If we're not building cars here in America then that means we no longer build anything - period. If all it takes is $25 billion of the remaining $350 billion that the Treasury dept. will have left to its disposal in 2009 then I say we bail out the big 3 with the following conditions: they must manufacture enough plug-in electric hybrids to meet President-elect Obama's goal of 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015. They must also raise the average fuel economy of the fleets and they must do so by 2020. Joseph Romm of Climate Progress, and a former employee of the Dept. of Energy, lists some additional reasons for the green bailout over at Salon.com. The following is his bottom line for the bailout:
  

If we are going to bail out Detroit, the deal has to be based on meeting the new fuel economy standards of 35 mpg by 2020, and meeting them increasingly with hybrids. The deal has to be for multiple plug-in hybrid car models. And most important, the deal has to include a management team that is wholly committed to that inevitable transition, a team that will not waste a penny of the taxpayer-funded bailout lobbying against the even tougher standards and regulations that will be needed to avoid the harsh consequences of global warming and peak oil.

• The introduction of feebate system for all new automotive purchases from 2010 and beyond. Allow people to purchase 10 mpg SUVs but only with a gas guzzler fee attached to it. The gas guzzler fees will go towards paying incentives in the form of rebates to purchasers of hybrids and other fuel efficient vehicles. For more information on recent legislation please read this article on the bill proposed in California.
  
• A new New Deal - a massive infrastructure program for new roads, bridges, and network of high speed rail. If we have to spend $200 billion then great, spend $200 billion, but the total cost of current infrastructure needs has been estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. China is planning on spending close to $600 billion on infrastructure projects over the next 2 years.
  
• A National Infrastructure Bank like the one proposed by Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel, so we have a systematic way of awarding taxpayer money for roads and rails to somewhere and not bridges to nowhere.
• Is clean coal for real or are we going to continue to waste billions on research and pilot CCS plants? If clean coal is viable then let's go for it, but if its BS then let's stop wasting our time and money and move on.
  

More on President-elect Obama's Energy Priorities

The New York Times posted a Q&A with a number of energy and enviromental gurus over at their Green Inc. blog. Note the pessimism of the first expert, Vaclav Smil, who tells us not to get our hopes up for some type of overnight changes from the Obama administration. I see his point, but I think the differences between the Obama administrations approach to energy policy and the current administration's approach will be night and day. Oil executives will no longer drive the agenda of the White House when it comes to energy policy. That major change right there is reason to be hopeful that we will start to see progress towards energy indpendence and reasonable policies addresssing climate change. We are not expecting President-elect Obama to make us energy self sufficient by the end of his second term, but we are expecting him him to put us on a path towards energy independence. This blog will be cheering him but we will be critiquing his decisions as well.

Vaclav Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba who has authored numerous books on global energy issues, told us informally that anyone expecting Mr. Obama to “transform the world” will be quickly disabused of the idea — particularly when it comes to energy policy. “The degree of disappointment that must follow such a gross naivete will be phenomenal,” Mr. Smil wrote.

“There will be precious little of any rapid change,” he added, “as
energy systems are inherently inertial and as energy transitions take decades to
accomplish. Besides, he will preside over a bankrupt nation.”

Also participating their Q&A:

Roger Ballentine, the chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force during the Clinton administration and now the president of Green Strategies, an energy and environmental consulting firm in Washington.
Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate change strategy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy research organization in Washington.
Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an association of shareholder-owned utilities.
Carol Raulston, senior vice president for communications at the National Mining Association, a trade group in Washington.
Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Below are the list of questions that the experts answered via email. The URLs will take you to their answers.

1) What should the new administration’s top three energy priorities be? What can and should the administration push in terms of energy in its first 100 days?
2) What do the election results signify for the future of renewable energy?
3) How likely is it that a meaningful cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon-dioxide emissions will pass Congress and be signed by the President in the next year?
4) After 4 years, will the new administration have moved us closer to severing our dependence on foreign oil?

The First Green President of the United States

With regards to Obama and his strategies for greening American, his policies may not be perfect, but when it comes to the big picture Barack Obama gets it. The following candid statement of his on the ridiculousness of some of the debate questions gives us an inside look at his approach to solving the climate crisis.

When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

With our economy and financial markets in shambles, it is fair to ask what could a President Obama realistically achieve early in his first term in the White House to put us on the track to energy independence and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. My friend Costa beat me to the punch and wrote a nice summary of the potential green measures taken by the new Obama administration over at Sustainable Research.

The following sites also detail Obama's energy and environmental policies.

Earth2Tech: FAQ: The Obama Energy Plan
Gristmill: Is Obama's energy plan change we can believe in?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Obama's Energy Plan will create green gold rush
Reuters: Obama's Energy Plan may be Curbed but not Halted

In addition to some of the action items listed in Obama's policy papers and the aforementioned websites I have a short list of the top priorities that I think the Obama adinistration will address starting during its first 12 months.

1. Launch the $150 billion clean tech venture fund ($15 billion in clean tech investments and grants each year)
   
2. Work on a detailed plan that incentivizes American automakers to retool their factories and start building more hybrid electric and plug in hybrid vehicles. Back in 2006 Obama co-sponsored legislation called "Health Care for Hybrids" where the government would provide assistance for the automakers' employee health insurance in exchange for a commitment and investment by Detroit automakers in more fuel efficient vehicles.
3. Create a National Infrastructure Bank which would be in charge of distributing funding for billions in dollars of new infrastructure and infrastructure improvement projects. My friends - this would be real fiscal stimulus we can believe in.
4. Create the ground work for a national cap and trade system - this probably will not come into effect until at least year two or three of his first term
5. Create an incentive program to reach Obama's goal of 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the road by 2015
6. Re-launch the federal initiative for a carbon sequestration pilot plant (FutureGen 2)

The following details are from the Obama campaign's New Energy for America Plan:

The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

• Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
• Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
• Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
• Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

ENERGY PLAN OVERVIEW:

Provide Short-term Relief to American Families

• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families.
• Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation.
• Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.

Learn More...

Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years

• Increase Fuel Economy Standards.
• Get 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015.
• Create a New $7,000 Tax Credit for Purchasing Advanced Vehicles.
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
• A “Use it or Lose It” Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases.
• Promote the Responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Natural Gas.

Learn More...

Create Millions of New Green Jobs

• Ensure 10 percent of Our Electricity Comes from Renewable Sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
• Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source – Energy Efficiency.
• Weatherize One Million Homes Annually.
• Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology.
• Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.

Learn More...

Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050

• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
• Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.