We Need The Entire elephant

Robert Samuelson's Washington Post op-ed "The Bias Against Oil and Gas" articulates a divide on how we see our energy future: oil versus clean energy. Samuelson draws an implied "choice between promoting renewables and relying on oil" from Obama's statement that "we can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy." But really there is no divide. Really, each is focusing on separate elements of the same, integrated challenge. Like blind men calling out their impressions of the elephant, Samuelson has his arms wrapped around a sturdy leg; Obama, the trunk. Getting from here to there relies on legs and trunk. We need both.


Oil is both the key to getting to where we are going, and it is not where we are going. Oil is a key component, it's a big, sturdy leg, of the way we transition to clean energy. From the opening of the last century, it has developed into a backbone of the way we live our lives, and we need oil to create an orderly transition to the future; we need oil to make and haul the stuff of clean energy. We need oil to move beyond oil. Our policies should acknowledge this, and make a place at the table for Chevron, and Exxon and Beyond Petroleum, and all their smart geologists and petroleum engineers, so that they continue to find and bring the oil we need.


But clean energy is the end vision, and a thing in its infancy. While Samuelson sees an Obama administration "fixated on 'green jobs' and wind and solar energy," the fixation makes sense if you apply the law of inertia to the economics and politics of the energy industry. Oil is a mature industry, a body in motion that will tend to stay in motion. But inertia requires adding energy, it begs a certain fixation, to get the clean energy industry moving. While this might read as a bias against oil and gas, it's nothing more than doing what is needed to get us where we're going. It's leading the elephant by the trunk towards the road we want to go down. We are all riding the same elephant here, and getting down the road is a far sight better than trying to hack the thing into legs and tail and trunk.


Photo: Vladimir Zivkovic on flickr

Obama energy plan

The Obama-Biden Plan
The energy challenges our country faces are severe and have gone unaddressed for far too long. Our addiction to foreign oil doesn't just undermine our national security and wreak havoc on our environment -- it cripples our economy and strains the budgets of working families all across America. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a comprehensive plan to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

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

•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
•Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation.
•Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.
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.
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.
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