Maine Owl

Gore


He's right. "The future of human civilization is at stake." We must think big on energy.

I wrote this in a private list a few days ago:

The Owl: The oil price is inflating at a 100% rate. That can't go on for long before a lot of people really start getting hurt. It's a F---ING EMERGENCY! Big, bold, massive solutions are needed, both short and long term.

FOR GOD SAKE, the DEMOCRATS just passed $165 billion for war. How much do you think it would take to give 4 kilowatts of photovoltaics to every household in America? $3 trillion. You could probably do that with plenty of extra money left to jumpstart a plug-in hybrid industry. In 20 years the transport fleet could run 40-60% on solar energy and only need a gallon of gas for every 200 vehicle-miles. Sounds expensive, but that's the overall cost of just Iraq and they're doing that.

The Democrats still aren't thinking big enough. But that might change.

I hope so, but I remain skeptical despite some signs that Obama may be starting to "get it." I cited THIS recent swing state ad attacking the Republican drilling bromide, released by the Obama campaign ten days ago.

My problem with Obama is stuff like these quotes from his energy issue page:

Foreign Oil: America's 20-million-barrel-a-day oil habit costs our economy $1.4 billion a day, and $500 billion in 2006 alone. Every single hour, we spend $41 million on foreign oil. ...

[Obama would] Invest in a Clean Energy Future
Invest $150 Billion over 10 Years in Clean Energy: Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe. ...

Sounds good, eh? WELL LOOK AT THE NUMBERS! Obama is a PIKER! He correctly gives the scale of the current foreign oil bill (inflating at a 100% rate), then gives and absolutely puny number for alternatives investment in response, $15 billion per year, not even ten days of the nation's gasoline bill, now almost $2 billion per day.

Al Gore's figure, on the other hand, "$3 TRILLION", well, that's my idea too of the scale of investment needed. (Note- I'm extremely wary of "biofuels" and "low-emissions coal plants", but those critiques will be for other posts.)

So, thanks, Al Gore, for giving some profile to the "energy tsunami" that a recent letter from of "27 former Cabinet members, White House aides and lawmakers" called the situation. I hate to agree with any panel that had Henry Kissinger as a member. But I do have to. It IS that serious.