From Obama’s State of the Union address:
“With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric 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 currently 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.”
Innovation takes on many forms other than biofuels and electric cars. Electricity comes from somewhere, and right now most of it in America comes from coal (in the Northeast, where I live, it’s from nuclear, natural gas, oil, and hydro).
Obama went on:
“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.”
Some folks right now want none of it, so this will require a sense of urgency that we so far haven’t seen in America but which we will eventually see, I believe, as people begin to worry more about sticking with traditional sources for the longterm.
