• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 3 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 7 days If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 21 hours How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 11 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs

Breaking News:

Hess Board Recommends Merger With Chevron

Gloria Gonzalez

Gloria Gonzalez

Gloria is a writer for Environmental Finance.Environmental Finance is the leading global publication covering the ever-increasing impact of environmental issues on the lending, insurance, investment…

More Info

Premium Content

Obama Sets Goal of 80% Clean Energy by 2035

President Obama set a goal of generating 80% of US electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, but renewable energy advocates were dismayed by his inclusion of clean coal and nuclear power.

“Some folks want wind and solar,” Obama said. “Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”

Obama’s stated goal falls in line with a shift in the discussion in Washington, DC from a pure renewable electricity standard to a clean energy standard (CES). But his willingness to include non-renewable sources drew swift opposition.

“I do not agree with the president,” said Scott Sklar, president of the Stella Group, a Virginia-based clean energy consultancy. “The president is bending to the realities of politics.”

Many parties in the renewable energy and energy efficiency communities would ask Congress to vote against a CES that includes coal, nuclear power and natural gas from hydraulic fracturing operations, commonly known as fracking, even if the targets for those sources were relatively low, Sklar said.

“President Obama’s vision for clean energy is commendable, but we need to commit to truly clean energy like solar, wind and energy efficiency, which don’t threaten our public health or our environment,” said Nathan Willcox, federal global warming programme director for Environment America. “So-called ‘clean coal’ and nuclear power in fact create more pollution and put our environment and our health at risk.”

While it is understandable that Obama has political considerations to address, the real health problems posed by these technologies should not be ignored, said Alan Lockwood, professor of nuclear medicine and neurology, University of Buffalo. The most important step is to retire as many older coal-producing facilities as possible, he added.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as clean coal,” Lockwood said. “Coal is dirty at every step. It’s really a myth.”

Obama’s electric vehicle target welcomed

There was more praise for Obama’s goal of putting a million electric vehicles on the road in the US by 2015, particularly because he asked Congress to help pay for this goal by eliminating billions in taxpayer dollars given to oil companies.

“It is true that fossil fuels receive five times more in federal incentives than renewable energy,” said Denise Bode, American Wind Energy Association. “We don’t believe that is in line with Americans’ current priorities.”

“We are looking forward to driving our cars on wind,” Bode continued. “With plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles headed for showrooms, that has finally become a reality."

Unlike fossil fuels, the renewable energy sector also suffers from the inability to predict whether incentives will be extended every year or two, she said. 

ADVERTISEMENT

“It’s time to reorient the tax code to predictable policies that allow energy sources that will never run out, to thrive instead of keeping renewable energy on a constant one-year footing,” Bode added.

By. Gloria Gonzalez 

Source: Environmental-Finance


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Anonymous on January 28 2011 said:
    Let me tell you how this works. Wind and solar are non-starters, but the good president cant say so. Clean coal is going to be dirty coal, but he cant say that either, and so like the electric deregulation crooks in Europe he pretends that it is possible to clean coal. His experts - meaning Dr Chu - has told him that without nuclear the US economy goes into the can, and so he has to accept nuclear.2035 is a long time in the future, and Mr Obama may not be around for more than a couple of years, but he probably doesn't want people saying that his energy policy is as nutty as the two stupid wars he inherited, and decided to keep going.
  • Anonymous on January 28 2011 said:
    Solar and wind are great but they do nothing to provide an adequate base load. The only option is for nuclear to replace coal immediately. It is clean and safe. Most people fear nuclear for the wrong reasons. Read "Power to Save the World" for a good background on nuclear and why it is the only way forward.
  • Anonymous on January 28 2011 said:
    The grid needs baseload power plus it needs load-following (dispatchable) power for both unpredictable loads and predictable loads such as daily peak loads.Neither wind nor solar can provide any of those requirements reliably. Only naive wishful thinkers such as Mark Jacobson, or in-the-pay-of insiders such as Scott Sklar, Nathan Wilcox, Alan Lockwood etc. continue to argue for huge commitments to solar and wind.Both nuclear and coal -- preferably IGCC plus CHP -- are vital for now. Coal, with the aid of gas, provides a bridge to newer, cleaner, cheaper, more efficient generations of nuclear reactors over the next 2 or 3 decades."Environmentalists" seem determined to kill us all with their schemes of energy starvation.
  • Anonymous on January 29 2011 said:
    The grid doesnt need baseload power Alfonso. It's we consumers who need it. A gentleman who is a professor in London once wrote an article in New Science in which he explained how wind should provide the base load. Completely nuts, but the rest of the profession evidently thought that was cute, because they didnt say anything about it.

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News