Obama’s energy plan costs $150 billion for clean technologies. This funding will be spread over a period of 10 years. The keywords are energy efficiency, low-carbon fuels, renewable energies, and dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. His administration will initially tackle smaller measures since the energy legislation will take some time to pass. The US lawmakers are busy rattling their brains, perhaps, on how to solve the financial slump. Obama, however, is sure to immediately roll up his sleeves starting January 22 next year and push for efficiency and renewable energy mandates. The truth is that Obama’s energy plan (like all political promises that stem from grandstanding impulses, and what political promise isn’t?) costs a helluva lot of dollars. Money, or the lack of it especially in American terms at the moment, might shake up Obama from all that dreaming.

It’s the thought that counts, however.

At least, Obama knows for a fact that economy is closely tied up with clean technology and renewable energy. You just can’t have a stable and sustainable economic development if you continuously woo Middle Eastern oil and their spoiled precious owners. Neither can you have it if you send your Navy fleet to anchor in the Atlantic just to send the message to Brazil that you’re interested in its newfound oil reserves. Obama is smart enough to realize that if American economy is to rise up from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, it has to be nothing less than a new energy economy. He might, just might, be the first US president to realize that American dependence on oil is what’s eating away America itself. But Obama is also quite smart to know that investing in the infrastructure needed for his energy plan may cost further deficit spending, but will be more economically sustainable over the long haul. Did he also suspect that clean energy and technologies will be a profitable business in the future?

Under an Obama administration, renewable energy will account for 10 percent of the national energy provision by 2012, and clean energies will cover 25 percent of it by 2025. Solar power and wind power will continue to have federal tax credits. The national power grid will be modernized. Biofuels such as ethanol will continue to be produced, but this time not from grain that robs feedstock supplies but from wood chips or algae. Plug-in hybrid cars will get more tax credits and loan guarantees. Nuclear energy will get government support. A federal cap-and-trade system will reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent on or around 2050. Some parts of Obama’s energy plan may sound drastic, some extreme. However, aren’t those words also apt to describe the US economy at the moment?

Via DeviceDaily