The word "crisis" in Chinese is composed of two characters. The first represents danger, and the second represents opportunity. President Obama weathered the financial crisis. Today, the President faces his second crisis.
The BP Deepwater Oil Spill will likely be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The President can continue on his current path -- blame BP (it is BP's fault) and deflect questions about how his offshore oil drilling policies are likely to lead to more spills -- or he could free Americans of one of the main drivers of recessions, environmental disasters, and terror strikes.
What would free America from all of this, and put President Obama firmly in the history books, is merely changing the engines of cars. The President should use this crisis as the opportunity to shift America's cars to 30% plug-in electrics and plug-in hybrids by 2020 and 90% by 2030.
Here's why: Oil prices have been a driver behind recessions since the 1970s. Recent studies now reveal that oil price increases were a major driver behind our current recession.
The President was in an embarrassing place in Copenhagen last December, when he had little to offer a world that waited for his promised leadership on climate change. His current policies cut pollution by 10% of what other countries were promising. More creative, strategic leadership is needed from the White House if the world is to have a fighting chance in saving the climate.
The President can prevent future recessions, oil spills, embarrassments at climate treaty meetings, wars for oil, and cut off funding for terror attacks by adopting the moonshot proposal put forward by companies like Cisco Systems and PG&E, who called for the electrification of cars in this ambitious, feasible blueprint.
In giving utilities the new, lucrative business of powering cars, the President should demand that all new electricity is clean or efficient (i.e. energy efficiency, offshore wind, regular wind, solar, geothermal), and that utilities accept a cap that is part of a plan to cut global warming pollution by 40% by 2020 and cuts pollution to 350 parts per million of carbon pollution by 2050. Anything less would be fiddling while Rome burns.
There are many ways to go about this:
Simply implementing the blueprint would cut the emissions associated with transportation by over 50% by 2030. The grid improvements needed to make the grid smart would enable solar, battery storage, wind, and other renewables to play a much more significant part in America's energy production, moving America one more step towards the energy revolution.
The President can remain defensive, pointing fingers at BP, while gambling the health of our communities and economies on more offshore oil drilling, or he can be one of the great leaders of our times.
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Frances Beinecke: Flying Over the Oil Spill, Hearing About the Response Effort
Yesterday I arrived in New Orleans to see firsthand the impacts of the still-uncontrolled, still flowing oil spill from Deepwater Horizon. The first impression I got is that the coast of Louisiana is the work horse for the oil and gas industry.
Jessica Lass: Blood and Oil are Two Things You Don't Want on Your Hands
It wasn't my brightest idea, but after finding oil for the first time, my reaction was to touch it. It stained my fingertips red and made my hands sticky until I could properly wash them and also smelled like a gas station, which is probably obvious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYShvOOgmEk
Might as well buy a Mustang and smoke 'em while I got 'em, before the eco-thugs outlaw anything fun-to-drive.
whats happening with the researches around world for an alternate fuel for transportation...why still the science cannot give us a cheap alternate fuel in these 150 years.. world is suffering from pollution by petroleum products...world economy is dancing on the beats of oil prices...still whats is stopping all these scientists around the world leaving the common man's hard earned money in the clutches of these petroleum companies...
..now think again...
who is against these researches for an effective alternate cheap fuel for the common man to live a decent life...
GAO study: http://www.gao.gov/htext/d07676r.html
Governments and their ........Royalty %
Mexico ......................................... 31%
U.S. ................................................42%
Trinidad & Tobago ..................... 49%
Australia ........................................54%
Egypt ..............................................81%
Venezuela .....................................91%
Iran .................................................93%
Cameroon ......................................11%
Alaska Govt. .................................. 64%
Oil and natural gas produced from federal leases generated over $6.5 billion in royalties in 2009. BP's 1st quarter profit was $5.6 billion. So how about as a first step retaining a greater financial share of the resource OWNED by all Americans and use those proceeds to fuel the renewables revolution. There will be no better time politically to cut the subsidies to oil companies and claiming a sane and equitable return from oil extracted from federal lands. Since we'll continue to use oil in the interim, we may as well control it.
As a federally owned, strategic, finite resource oil and gas should be treated as such and the oil companies should be relegated and regulated into a contracted utility status: drilling and delivering the commodity at a reasonable cost/profit ratio. Along with funding renewable technologies serious deepwater blow-out containment research is needed, since the oil giants do little of the former and none of the latter.
You completely overlook the fact that the U.S. holds 3% or less of the world's available petroleum reserves, yet we consume 25% of global production. It doesn't matter what our 'take' is; the sad fact is that we have to purchase oil on the world commodities ('spot') market and that is not going to change.
Also, every $1 increase in the cost of a barrel of crude ultimately results in a $1.5 billion increase to Iran and it's President, Madman Awkward-dinnerjacket which he then uses to pursue his nuclear weapons program. How dum is that?
FWIW
The real point is that yes, it's finite, but that oil will continue to be extracted from federal lands at globally-meager royalty rates. Raising the rate of royalty payment is simply a change in the profit ratio for the oil companies who drill in many waters with much higher takes than the U.S. The oil would hit the market at whatever the going per-barrel rate and we'd get 80% of the profit and the Oil company would get 20%, say, like Egypt.
Did you know the fed govt takes in-kind payment to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Me neither until this week. The oil co simply transports the crude federal take% to the reservoir and pumps it into the ground. We own that oil extracted from federal land and should be paid at a better rate than 42%
Don't forget Exxon's $35 billion, 0-tax 2009 profits.
FWIreallyW
Not a single one of these Rat B@stards could man up and take responsibility for this disaster that has ruined the entire southern coast of the US...How much longer are WE the people going to allow these CORPORATIONS to destroy our life support system?.......DESTROY THESE CORPORATIONS....Starting NOW !!....No second chances....no 75 mile limit BS,,,,
If this was the policy from the beginning....Safety measures and plans ABC and D would be in place.....the only plan they had was called GREED
.......One coast down ......Two to Go.....Are you willing to take that risk? Make them pay...with a CORPORATE DEATH PENALTY!!!....RETROACTIVE!!
BOYCOTT BP
When you destroy public property, your property becomes public.
But anyone one who tells you we can get off of foreign oil while still using oil is lying because saying that polls well. The cheapest oil is in the middle east. The last drop to be used will be from the Middle East - likely Saudi Arabia. You don't fill your car at your local off-shore oil station. Oil is a global commodity. The only way to get off of foreign oil is to get off of oil. That's why transitioning to plug-in cars and banning off-shore oil drilling is the way to go.
VoteVets.org understands this http://www.votevets.org/index_html