Arno's EnergyIdeas (25)

Transitron to Power: "America, yours is a better lot, now?"*

Evers was in Ariozona, USA, during the U.S. presidential election and reports about his impressions there with these "EnergyIdeas".

Transitron to Power: "America, yours is a better lot, now?"*

* Litteraly quoted from Johann Wolfgang Goethe: "To the United States" (1827)

Barack Obama - President-Elect, on November 4, the day of his election. Photo: Arno A,. Evers, Courtesy CNN Network

Barack Obama - President-Elect, held a great "winners speech" on November 4 2008, but what do Obama and his Team really have in mind for the future of American energy policy?

Here are some excerpts from Barack Obama's official website "Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy Plan for America "(see link).

The plan is proposing, among other ideas, a short-term emergency measure for American families that can barely afford the high gasoline prices at the filling stations (pain at the pump). Obama wants to create five million new jobs by "(...) strategically investing 150 billion U.S. dollars for private efforts in building a clean energy future (...)" . Within ten years, more oil shall be saved as currently is imported by the U.S. from the Middle East and Venezuela together. Until the year 2015 there should be one million plug-in hybrid cars on the road -- that means, as Obama`s website explains, vehicles, which can drive up to 150 miles per gallon [which corresponds to 1.57 liter/100km, maybe someone has miscalculated something here?]. But he added that they are going to work on: "(...) that these vehicles are manufactured here in America (...)". The aim seems to be not too high, when you consider that Toyota alone has built, within ten years, one million Hybrid vehicles alone. And in the "good old days ..." (2007) worldwide 53 million new cars were produced. (thereof: Japan: 9.9 million, China: 6.4 million, Germany: 5.7 million)

Obama has on his program also points like: the "guarantee" that ten percent of U.S. electricity by 2012 has to come from renewable sources, till 2025 it will be 25 percent. Furthermore, an economy-wide cap-and-trade program should reduce greenhouse gas emissions on / by [not precisely defined, note from the author] 80 percent in 2050. Additional items such as the "restriction of energy speculation" and tapping into /strategic oil reserves/ to provide relief from high prices are intended.

These will be in parallel to a new 7,000 U.S. dollars tax credit for supporting the purchase of "Advanced Vehicles". In the U.S. these are heavy vehicles, whose huge combustion engines are able to run on biofuels. Planned are the creation of national low-carbon fuel standards and a "use-it-or-lose-it" approach to the existing oil and gas leases of oil companies, which also should be encouraged to a "sensible" domestic production of oil and gas. [???]

Obama's' plan also provides to implement and improve energy-efficiency as the "cheapest, cleanest, fastest energy source." Moreover, he wants to support the weatherizing of a million homes annually. The best comes at the end: Clean Coal Technology will continue "(...) to be developed and deployed (...)", and the construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline should be prioritized. The target is that the United States will become "the leader against climate change".

That's it, tough, at least until the end of this newsletter editorial yesterday on Monday, November 17. Please note: Neither hydrogen nor fuel cells, nor the word primary energy are mentioned. That means, we will probably have to wait at least one other American legislature to the real Transitron of Power, to the "The breakthrough of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells".

Especially, as in the U.S. are still more problem areas waiting for a "Transitron to Power" with a new President and his new adminsitration - these are areas such as finance and banking, healthcare, automotive, internal and external security and many more. We have to wait now until the official government statement at the end of January 2009 will appear, to find out, which of the above mentioned energy bullet points will survive.

Addendum to Obama: It should be noted, that we (FAIR-PR-site) are also active in the election campaign - Professor Arief Daho from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK, has set a link at my.barackobama.com to our "Energy Images ".

Impressions during take-off in Los Angeles:
Here they stood ,side by side on the Los Angeles LAX airport - the the first Airbus A380 from Qantas Airways with extremely elegant lines in the wings at a wingspan of 261 ft 10 in (79.80 meters) - a magnificent piece of European engineering - on it`s way to Sydney, next to the Airbus A340-600 from Lufthansa heading to Munich, Germany, and the meanwhile somethow "old-fashioned", but still impressive-looking Jumbo Jet Boeing 747-400 from Philippine Airways, departuring to Manila. A whiff of insight proude in the obviousness of their own work showed up within an old Airbus employee.

Photocaption: Barack Obama - President-Elect, on November 4, the day of his election.

Photo: Arno A,. Evers, Courtesy CNN Network

Links to news:
http://www.barackobama.com
http://www.americaspower.org
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/ariefdahoe

Date: 18.11.2008