What Caught My Eye Today - Barack Obama's Energy Plan

Fred's Note: It occurs to me that in recent posts regarding the upcoming U.S. Presidential election that I am guilty of doing the same thing as various media outlets by rendering opinions on statements that I may have taken out of context.  To be fair, I'm not a professional journalist and doubt very much that my blog will ever reach the critical mass that the New York Times does. However, the information is readily available to anyone who truly wants to make an informed decision come Election Day in November. With that in mind, over the next several days and weeks, I'll be posting excerpts from the websites of both the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney and the incumbent Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. It goes without saying that I will be adding some color commentary, but the content will be from the candidates themselves.

Hard to believe, but the day of reckoning is almost upon us (it's about freaking time).  We'll wrap up our comparison of the candidates with foreign policy, but first President Obama's energy policy.

President Obama has a real strategy to take control of our energy future and finally reduce our dependence on foreign oil—an all-of-the-above approach to developing all our energy resources. I'm so glad he makes the distinction that this is a real strategy as opposed to some made up pipe dream. Of course, if you are for the other guy, pipe dream is exactly what this strategy will be interpreted as, but I digress.

• Increasing Domestic Oil Production and Reducing Our Dependence On Foreign Oil: American oil production is at an eight-year high, and we are less reliant on foreign oil than at any time in the last 16 years. New fuel efficiency standards will nearly double the fuel economy of cars and light trucks to 54.5 mpg by 2025, reducing oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day. This sounds lovely, but for those of us that risk cardiac arrest every time we go to the gas pump, this doesn't really address the issue. Domestic refinery capacity is stretched to the breaking point with almost no excess capacity. When refineries go offline, even for just a few days, gas prices go through the roof. Increases oil production, whether at home or abroad isn't really going to offer any consumer relief if we don't increase our capacity to refine the stuff.
• Increasing Natural Gas Production: Domestic production of natural gas has increased every year since President Obama took office, and is now at an all-time high. The Obama Administration supports responsibly tapping our near 100-year supply of natural gas, which could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. What he doesn't say (nor does Romney) is that we have so much natural gas, that we are looking to sell the stuff to Europe and that some prices have bottomed out so much that some natural gas producers are starting to operate at a loss.
• Investing in Clean Coal: President Obama has set a 10-year goal to develop and deploy cost-effective clean coal technology. The Recovery Act invested substantially in carbon capture and sequestration research, including 22 projects across four different areas of carbon capture-and-storage research and development. No difference at all with Romney's energy plan.
• Increasing the Use of Biofuels: The Obama Administration has promoted the use of cleaner fuels in our vehicles, increased the level of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline, and implemented a new Renewable Fuel Standard that will save nearly 14 billion gallons of petroleum-based gasoline in 2022. This one is rather misleading as well. Both Obama and Romney are pimping the heck out of biofuels, but what they don't tell you is that the most fuel efficient blends are the ones that contain the least amount of ethanol.
• Harnessing Wind Energy: Under President Obama, electricity generation from wind has more than doubled between 2008 and 2011. The Obama Administration approved the nation's first-ever offshore wind project, and is supporting development of the world's largest wind farm in Oregon. I suppose the wind mill companies are thrilled about this. Problem is, I think they are the only ones who care.
• Expanding Solar Energy Production: Under President Obama, electricity generation from solar has more than doubled between 2008 and 2011. The Obama Administration approved the construction of 16 utility-scale solar energy projects. These projects are expected to create nearly 12,500 new jobs, and will produce enough energy to power 1.3 million American homes. I think this is one of the more promising sources of renewable energy (sorry wind guys). Alas, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Obama and solar energy in the same sentence is that Solyndra fiasco. Sure, that might be unfair (and probably is), but who ever said politics was fair?
• Expanding Nuclear Energy: President Obama and his Administration are supporting the construction of the first new nuclear power plant in decades, which will provide clean electricity for nearly 1.4 million Americans. Over the past three years, the Obama Administration has invested in grants at more than 70 universities for research and development of nuclear technologies to improve reactor design and safety. Sounds great. I'm all for nuclear energy. So what if half of Japan still glows in the dark, and so what if we still don't have any idea how to dispose of spent rods. I mean really, what could possibly go wrong?