Climate change and energy update

Obama's clean-energy goals have industry questioning feasibility

President Obama has grand plans for a green nation — 1 million electric vehicles on the road within four years and clean power sources providing 80% of the nation's energy by 2035.

But a day after getting a surprisingly extensive shout-out in Obama's State of the Union address — he sees clean tech as the country's best chance to seize its "Sputnik moment" — industry officials were less than enthused and questioned whether the ambitious targets were even attainable.

"It's a lofty goal, but it's like the race to the moon in that it's generally achievable," said John Cheney, chief executive of solar project developer Silverado Power. "The issue is whether we have the political will and ability to pull together and actually do it."

Obama’s 80 percent clean energy goal: Who’s he kidding?

Let's quickly evaluate the 80 percent electrical generation goal. To achieve 80 percent clean energy generation essentially means replacing at least 500 gigawatts of conventional coal-fired generation with cleaner alternatives. In essence, the U.S. would have to nearly completely rebuild its electrical generating infrastructure, which last year had about 940 gigawatts of electricial generating capacity. By 2035, according to Department of Energy projections, electrical generating demand in the U.S. could grow to 1,200 gigawatts. Today, less than a quarter of electrical generating capacity is supplied by nuclear power, hydro, wind, and geothermal in the U.S -- roughly 225 gigawatts.

To date, the nation has indicated no proclivity to launch a crash program for clean energy investment. The $100 billion provided in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, now threatened by the Republican House majority, is merely a down payment. In fact, the largest energy investment in the nation is being made to drill, mine, process, and transport the unconventional oil and gas reserves being tapped in the middle part of the country.

Moreover, while the right discounts the science of climate change and expresses skepticism about the costs of clean energy subsidies, the grassroots left is digging in to fight clean energy projects of scale.Opposition campaigns are occurring in at least 35 states and focus on every available alternative -- wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and nuclear. Here in Benzie and Manistee counties where I live in northern Michigan, a $330 million proposal by Duke Energy to build 112 wind turbines is the focus of a fear-based opposition campaign that includes scientifically unfounded assertions that the turbine blades generate dangerous sound waves that can cause farm animals to spontaneously abort.

Big breaks for Big Oil

Analysts are expecting a bonanza when Exxon Mobil Corp.announces its fourth-quarter earnings on Monday; the company's stock has jumped by nearly 20% during the last year, and in the first three quarters of 2010, its profit was$21.2 billion — not a bad haul during a worldwide recession. Other oil companies have had similar success, thanks to growing demand in India and China. Yet U.S. taxpayers subsidize this industry to the tune of $4 billion a year.

This kind of largesse toward a hugely profitable business seems bizarre, especially at a time when the federal deficit is reaching alarming proportions, yet efforts to end the tax deductions and credits for companies that don't need them have gone nowhere. That isn't stopping President Obamafrom trying. In his State of the Union address, he proposed an uptick in federal spending on clean-energy research and development, to be paid for by ending subsidies for 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," Obama said.