McCain makes a use of wind turbines, solar panels, and soundbites about how the Us needs to focus on energy independence in several of his ads (all photos in this post are from his current and recent ads) but he is sticking with the majority Republican party line and letting his absenteeism act as Nay votes for legislation that would further the goals he espouses in his TV and web based ads.  If you feel a tickling sensation in your nether regions while watching his ads, its nothing to be concerned about.  It’s just John McCain blowing smoke up your ass.

US Senate Votes on S. 3335

As Thomas L. Friedman pointed out in The New York Times, McCain has missed every single one of the votes on this bill. Sometimes he was out campaigning, but on at least one occasion he was in his Senate office and just could not be bothered to go vote. A no show like that counts as a Nay and McCain clearly knows that.

Eight Strikes and You’re Out

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.

“McCain did not show up on any votes,” said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain’s campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines — the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.

Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either — which is equally inexcusable in my book — but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits.

The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either don’t want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply don’t believe in renewable energy.

This bill is crucially important for anyone who feels we need to transition our energy needs away from fossil fuels and over to cleaner, more sustainable sources of power.

In addition to addressing alternative energy issues the bill also makes permanent the authority for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disclosure of tax information relating to terrorist activities and IRS undercover operations. McCain also claims to be the best candidate when it comes to the War on Terror so you’d think he’d show up to vote on that aspect of the bill at least.

The bulk of the bill extends the tax credit for producing electricity from wind facilities through 2009 and the tax credit for closed and open-loop biomass, geothermal, small irrigation, hydropower, landfill gas, and trash combustion facilities through 2011.

It includes marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy as a renewable resource for purposes of tax credits. It also extends the energy tax credit for solar energy and the residential energy efficient property tax credit through 2016 and extends the energy tax credits for fuel cell and microturbine property through 2017. The bill creates a new investment tax credit for combined heat and power system property. In addition, the bill provides funding for new clean renewable energy bonds to finance electricity production from certain renewable resources and for qualified energy conservation bonds.

Its well worth the read

Obama Gets High Marks for New Energy Plan By Joseph Romm, Huffington Post. Posted August 5, 2008.

Dear Friend,

I am writing to update you on my recent efforts in Congress to help lower gas prices. At over $4 per gallon, there is no issue that I hear about more frequently than the price of gasoline. The rising price of gas is putting an undue economic burden on hardworking Americans. It is an issue that demands the full attention of the President and the U.S. Congress.

One way that we can lower prices is by increasing domestic oil production through additional drilling and exploration. Over the years, oil companies have been given the right to drill on 68 million acres federal land. While we are rightfully demanding more domestic oil production, oil companies have allowed these leases to remain idle. That is why on July 17, 2008 I voted for the Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act.

This common sense and bipartisan proposal would require oil companies to start using these leases or turn them over to someone else. And I believe that the record windfall profits the oil companies have seen in recent years make it clear they can afford to drill on this available land. This bill would also expedite leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, which holds 10.6 billion barrels of oil. These two actions would almost double the current U.S. oil production and bring much needed energy to the marketplace. Drilling alone is not a silver bullet that will end high oil prices. The reality is even if we started drilling right now it would be ten years before this oil made it to the market.

I believe the fact is the failed energy policies of the Bush administration along with increased demand for oil from nations like China and India have contributed to this crisis. It is very clear that we cannot drill ourselves out of an energy crisis – we have to innovate and lead the way toward new sources of domestic energy.

Over the past year, my Democratic colleagues and I have sought to create a new direction for our national energy policy. These new laws reduce oil consumption through improved efficiency and help our economy transition to sources of renewable energy. These include:

• The first increase of fuel efficiency standards in 32 years (The Energy Security and Independence Act, P.L. 110-140)
• The temporary suspension of oil deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act, P.L. 110-232)
• The expanded use of bio-fuels and improved ability of the federal government to detect energy price manipulation (The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, P.L. 110-234).

These new laws are changing the way that we do business in the United States. In the years ahead they will lessen our dependence on foreign oil. There is more that needs to be done and we are fighting to expand federal investment for passenger rail and mass transit, provide the Federal Trade Commission with the authority to investigate oil companies and how they gouge consumers at the pump, and provide tax incentives for the production and use of renewable energy, and policies to promote energy efficient technologies.

I want to assure you that energy remains an important priority for me and Congress. I will keep working to diversify our sources of energy, make energy more affordable, and our nation more energy independent.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with additional questions or concerns, or if my office can ever be of any assistance.

Sincerely,

Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz

According to Newsweek, the RNC spent about three million dollars to air a thirty second TV spot in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The advertisement is (ironically) titled “Balance”.

The announcer speaks over a series of images and has this to say:

Announcer: “Record gas prices. A climate in crisis. John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan: Alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He’s pushing his own party to face climate change. But Barack Obama? For conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions. Barack Obama: Just the party line. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.”

The Newsweek story takes a little time to explore the misleading claim about Obama’s position on nuclear energy and goes on to point out that while Barack Obama does tend to vote with his party (97% in 2007), John McCain voted for President Bush’s position on Senate matters 95% of the time in 2007.

The people at FactCheck.org at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania go further and analyze the ad’s content line by line and claim by claim.

No to Lower Gas Taxes

Yes, its true that Obama, like many independent energy analysts, opposed the Memorial Day to Labor Day “Gas Tax Holiday” that McCain supports. Obama looked to the experts who pointed out that this “solution” would not do much to help American consumers in the near future and could quite likely create higher prices down the road as a result of the increased consumption and demand that typically accompanies reduced prices. The ad fails to mention that McCain’s “lower gas taxes” credentials are based on a three month period and will probably leave some less news junkie viewers feeling that McCain’s proposal to reduce gasoline taxes are meant to be permanent.

No to Nuclear

This claim by McCain and the RNC was already debunked in Distorting Obama but FactCheck goes into more detail in this analysis. Obama has clearly stated supports nuclear energy as long as its safe and clean and the industry addresses the long term storage of its waste products. In his comprehensive Energy plan he says “it is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table.” McCain is more aggressive about building nuclear power plants but does not address the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency that show that the price of uranium has also increased fivefold since 2001 and will continue to increase with increased demand for nuclear energy. The IAEA does expect that supply will be able to keep up with demand for the next seventeen years, but there is a lot of doubt beyond that point.

No to More Production

While it is true that Obama opposes new drilling Outer Continental Shelf the ad does not mention that both McCain and Obama oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The offshore drilling debate is a HUGE red herring in this debate. FactCheck and other sites have pointed out that lifting the ban put in place by Presidents Reagan and Bush would not help American consumers. The potential harm – both economically in terms of tourism money and environmentally – to coastal communities aside, any new drilling would not bring more oil to market before 2017.

The Department of Energy itself says:

The The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher—2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case. Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.

Ignoring all that, the fact is we couldn’t drill for oil off shore right now even if 100% of American citizens and 100% of American politicians and 100% of American oil companies wanted to begin immediately. The NY Times reported last month that a Dearth of Ships Delays Drilling of Offshore Oil and says “Demand is so high that shipbuilders, the biggest of whom are in Asia, have raised prices since last year by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars.” This increased demand is spurring shipbuilders to construct more drilling ships but thats not going to solve the problem.

The NY Times article says: “Robert L. Long, the chief executive office of Transocean, the world’s largest drilling company, said he has nine deepwater rigs under construction, eight of which are already under contract for periods ranging from four to seven years once they leave the shipyards. He expects to receive the ships between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2010.”

No New Solutions

The claim that Barack Obama has “no new solutions” for energy is an attempt to keep the Republican spun taking point alive that claims that Obama’s call for change is all frosting and no cake. This has been a central theme of the RNC ads and press releases since it became clear that Senator Obama would get the Democratic party nomination.

The FactCheck.org analysts saw this as the most misleading claim in the entire ad, saying:

The ad’s most misleading claim is that Obama proposes “no new solutions” to the intertwined climate change and energy crises. In fact, Obama has an entire Web page dedicated to his proposals for the future of energy policy. One is a 10-year, $150 billion spending plan that would go toward clean coal technology; further development of plug-in hybrid cars; and commercialization of wind, solar and other renewable fuels. The RNC and McCain may not like all of Obama’s ideas, just as Obama may not support all of McCain’s, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. While McCain recently proposed The Lexington Project, which includes spending $2 billion annually toward clean coal technology advancement, McCain doesn’t have a plan comparable to Obama’s in scale of spending. In addition, Obama’s spending proposal predates McCain’s Lexington Project by over six months.

One of the most depressing aspects of American politics for me is the basic fact that many people assume that campaign ads on TV must have some basis in fact. There are laws preventing Johnson & Johnson from claiming that, in addition to not causing tears, their baby shampoo can also cure cancer and reduce your home heating bills. The Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. has a team of lawyers who will keep thier marketing department from stepping over the line and making the company vulnerable to lawsuits.

When it comes to political ads, like this one from the the Republican National Committee under the leadership of President George W. Bush, there is no such team to slow things up when the truth gets thrown out the window. Unlike J&J, with a brand name and reputation to maintain to guarantee future earnings, the twin brands of “George W. Bush” and “Republican party” have been so devalued over the last 7 years that there is no real incentive for the RNC and other party bodies from throwing bull manure in every direction and hoping some sticks.

• Forget the fact that the US invasion of Iraq reduced its oil exports.
• Forget that our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has introduced far more instability to the energy rich Persian Gulf region than was present when Bill Clinton left the presidency.
• Forget the fact that a 1997 provision in the U.S. tax code (Section 179) provided small businesses with a tax write-off of up to $25,000 for a vehicle weighing more than 6,000 pounds- used 50% of the time for work purposes and only a $7,000 deduction for smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
• Forget that in 2003, the Bush administration proposed increasing the tax deduction to $75,000 but the Republican legislators in Congress responded by expanding it to a whopping $100,000 as part of the $350 million tax cut package.
• Forget that Jimmy Carter warned us 30 years ago that over reliance on foreign sources of energy makes the US economy as a whole subject to market spikes like the one we are all living through now.
• Forget that Vice President Dick Cheney said “conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy” and refused to use his position as head of the President’s Energy Task Force to include conservation and higher efficiency standards as part of the task force’s recommendations.

Its much easier instead to blame OPEC. After all, they are the ones with the oil and we need that oil. Doesn’t that mean they must pump as fast as they can to keep up with the ever growing demand from the US and China and India and Europe and everyone else who wants it? Saudi Arabia did not play a role in the “Green Revolution” in which we turned over vast portions of our food supply chain to industrial farming that is so dependent on petroleum and natural gas that corn wheat, and rice are hitting record highs when oil prices are doing the same.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez may call our president names, but help expand the “Hummer Loophole” in the US tax code that encouraged Americans to buy the biggest, heaviest, and most inefficient behemoths that Detroit could conceive.

OPEC nations are not huge recipients of non-military US foreign aid. Our “aid” to Saudi Arabia involves congress giving them permission to pay our defense contractors vast sums of money. Knowing all this, why do we feel entitled to dictate how quickly other soveriegn nations sell off a natural resource that is often their only source of wealth?

OPEC is not the US’s biggest source of oil. For that we need to look to our parters in NAFTA. Despite the vilification of OPEC in the news, they are not our biggest supplier. The problem right now is that NON-OPEC oil exporting nations are going to fail to keep supplies up with demand for the foreseable future as noted in the Financial Times story below.

Non-Opec producers face stalling output

By Carola Hoyos in Madrid and Javier Blas in London
Published: Jul 02, 2008

Countries outside the Opec oil cartel will barely be able to increase their production of crude oil over the next five years for the first time in the industry’s history, the western countries’ energy watchdog warned yesterday.

The International Energy Agency’s dim forecast to 2013 suggested record oil prices have yet to balance sluggish supply with relatively robust demand.

“Structural demand growth in developing countries and ongoing supply constraints continue to paint a tight market picture over the medium term,” the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report.

Despite billions of dollars of investment, the challenge of pumping ever more oil out of ageing fields is proving so great that non-Opec countries will, in the next five year, have to rely on bio-fuels, such as corn-based ethanol, for 50 per cent of their growth in overall fuels.

The IEA said annual non-Opec supply growth, including biofuels, would slow to 0.5 per cent between 2008 and 2013. But demand, supported by rising incomes in developing countries such as China, would grow by 1.6 per cent a year.

Analysts warned the new forecast meant the world economy would rely more on Opec and oil prices were likely to remain elevated.

“Poor supply-side performance . . . in the face of strong demand pressures from developing countries has forced oil prices up sharply to curb demand,” said the IEA.

Crude oil prices moved more than $3 higher to $143.33 a barrel as the market digested the forecast. The IEA said that current prices, which hit a record high this week of $143.67 a barrel, were “justified by fundamentals”.

The fast decline of fields – especially in the North Sea and Mexico, where production is shrinking by more than 20 per cent each year – means that 14.8m of the 16m barrels of new supply from non-Opec countries over the next five years will only go to make up for losses from old fields producing less each year. Stagnant oil output in Russia is another key factor in lower non-Opec supply growth.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, said in an interview: “In non-Opec countries we want to see more access to resources and more transparency of the legal system because we believe that . . . the underground resource is still there; the problem is above ground.”

Opec, meanwhile, is also struggling, with project delays constraining its ability to add new capacity. The IEA substantially downgraded its expectations for Opec crude capacity from 2008-2013, cutting earlier forecasts by 1.2m b/d.

The IEA said it believed Saudi Arabia was having bigger problems than the kingdom, the world’s largest exporter, was willing to admit to.

These fluctuations in oil supply come as demand growth is continuing, especially in the developing countries, whose oil needs are expected to have almost caught up with those of the rich world by 2013.

FactCheck.org

I wonder if that inclusion has anything to do with the fact that Gamesa Corp. is creating jobs and tax revenue here in Pennsylvania.  This Spanish wind energy company is investing $84 million to locate its U.S. headquarters and four manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania.

These facilities are going to make Pennsylvania the top wind power generation region in the United States.

Contradictions and misstatements short-circuit McCain’s energy policy pronouncements.

Summary

McCain has spent the week focusing on energy policy, making some surprising, and inaccurate, statements.

Among them:

• He said that ending a moratorium on offshore oil drilling “would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.” But according to a government report, offshore oil wouldn’t have much of an impact on supply or prices until 2030.
• McCain tried to paint Obama as an opponent of nuclear power, yet Obama has said he is open to nuclear energy being part of the solution and has supported bills that contained nuclear subsidies.
• He has soft-pedaled the “cap” portion of his cap-and-trade proposal for greenhouse gases, even denying that it would be a mandate. The cap is a mandatory limit, however, and McCain even says so on his Web site.
• McCain’s new ad, running this week, rightly says that he bucked his party in supporting action on climate change years ago. But its images of windmills and solar panels are misleading in that he supports subsidies for nuclear power, which isn’t pictured, and opposes them for wind and solar energy.
• McCain continues to say that a suspension of the federal gas tax will lower prices for consumers, though hundreds of economists say he is wrong.

To read the full analysis visit the FactCheck.org report.

U.S. – European Cooperation to Pretend to Address Climate Change.

The U.S. and Europe both recognizes climate change as a serious challenge hoax or naturally occurring problem having nothing to do with humans and share a common goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the industries that create the bulk of the pollution feel like doing so voluntarily. We are committed to negotiating a new post-2012 climate change framework under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by the end of 2009 to take effect after oil becomes so valuable and scarce that it is no longer as large of a factor in the world economy and working with all international partners, including the major economies polluting nations, to reach agreement on this post-2012 long overdue and by then vaguely irrelevant framework.

During the April 2007 U.S. – EU Summit in Washington, the leaders agreed to a series of “commitments“ to ensure secure massive record breaking energy industry profits affordable, and clean supplies of energy, while creating the illusion of tackling climate change. Starting in 2006 a series of working groups on biofuels and energy efficiency have been held to help advance work on common biofuel standards despite the fact that biofuels divert much needed food from the marketplace while pollution and greenhouse gases are produced on a massive scale in the production of grain used to produce the fuel and efficiency measures like Energy Star while ignoring the fact that more energy use and pollution results from manufacturing new products than results from keeping existing goods in use and out of landfills.

The U.S. and EU are also engaging bilaterally on nearly every policy level; centerpieces are the U.S. – EU Strategic Energy Review and the High-Level Bureaucratic and ineffectual Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, which met most recently on March 3 and March 7, 2008, respectively.

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If you would like to read more US Government propoganda please visit the “real” newsletter page.

The best I could find is from Grist’s Election ’08 series. They have a nice grid where you can Compare the Candidates. Clinton, Obama, and McCain are very similar in their positions.  The one that stood out to me most was Ron Paul.  Decades of letting the market determine US Energy policy have gotten us into the situation we find ourselves in today.  Out of all the candidates, only Ron Paul wants more of the same.  He opposes subsidies for both renewable energy and biofuels.  Dr. Paul is also the only remaining candidate who does not support a cap and trade system to limit and rollback emissions.  The EPA website has a page on Cap and Trade but you should be aware that the EPA explanations have drawn criticism for ignoring the negatives associated with the concept.

The CNN site has a page that summarizes each candidates position on energy issues. Another site worth checking out is Popular Mechanic’s geek the vote ’08  section.

About geek the vote ’08

Popular Mechanics compiled these links to make it easier to compare leading presidential candidates on several issues of interest to our readers, primarily in areas of science and technology. We did not analyze any of the proposals, and we do not necessarily endorse them.

Here was the methodology: We thoroughly reviewed the campaign Web sites of leading candidates from each party for position papers and press releases that spelled out policy proposals. (This involved judgment calls; campaigns don’t all group their proposals using the same language. In particular, automotive, environmental and energy policies tend to cross category boundaries.) We did not examine speeches, debate transcripts or interviews with journalists. We called or emailed each campaign at least twice to invite staff members to provide documentation on subjects that weren’t addressed on a candidate’s site. In many instances, we quoted campaign literature directly. In others, we paraphrased proposals. In all cases, we link to where we found the information.

I wasn’t sure I would have time or the inclination to do today’s Ideas Matter! post because of the Super Tuesday primaries yesterday.  But someone directed me to what may be one of the most important documents ever released by a major energy company.  Every three years or so The Shell Group group of companies produces what it calls "scenarios".  A scenario in this context is an alternative view of the future. A scenario identifies some significant events, main actors and their motivations, and they convey how the world functions.

 Building and using scenarios can help us explore what the future might look like and the likely changes of living in it. Shell has been using scenarios for 30 years. The  audience for these scenarios do not only consist of businesses and governments but all people who are curious by nature, and who are highly motivated to acquire a deeper understanding of the world around them.

Shell’s release of a new scenario is always news worthy on its own, but this scenario is more candid and important than most.  It has received more media coverage in mainstream U.K. and Australian news than it has in the US.  As this Google News Query shows, its been covered in the US but only on a limited niche media way.  This report contains, in clear and direct wording, the acknowledgment of the validity of one of the basic principles of Hubbert’s Peak in the business planning of a major energy company.

Shell traditionally uses its scenarios to prepare for the future without expressing a preference for one over another.  This time however, there is a clear preference.   As Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer explains in this introduction to the new scenarios, only one of the scenarios produces a desirable future that leaves the earth in relatively better shape for both corporate investors and future generations of humans.  

The two scenarios Shell has produced are called "Scramble" and "Blueprints".  Scramble is described as: "Like an off-road rally through a mountainous desert, it promises excitement and fierce competition. However, the unintended consequence of "more haste" will often be "less speed", and many will crash along the way."  Blueprints, on the other hand, is described as resembling "a cautious ride, with some false starts, on a road that is still under construction. Whether we arrive safely at our destination depends on the discipline of the drivers and the ingenuity of all those involved in the construction effort. Technological innovation provides the excitement."

Shell breaks with tradition and endorses the Blueprints scenario.  The summary says "… faced with the need to manage climate risk for our investors and our descendants, we believe the Blueprints outcomes provide the best balance between economy, energy, and environment. For a second opinion, we appealed to climate change calculations made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These calculations indicate that a Blueprints world with CO2 capture and storage results in the least amount of climate change, provided emissions of other major manmade greenhouse gases are similarly reduced."

The full report as well as information about how the scenarios are created and what they really mean are available on Shell’s website in the Looking Ahead section.  If you have the time, I would suggest that you reading Jeroen van der Veer’s  full summary at Two Energy Futures before going on to today’s candidates quotes on Energy.

Energy policy and Climate change are inextricably linked.  So these quotes will touch on both issues.  Ideas about energy matter a great deal,  and these are the ideas of one of our current presidential candidates:

 Suppose that climate change is not real, and we do adopt green technologies, which our economy and technology are capable of. Then all we’ve done is given our kids a cleaner world. But suppose that climate change is real and we’ve done nothing. What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation? It’s real. We’ve got to address it with technology, with cap-and- trade, with capitalist and free enterprise motivation. We can pass on to our children and grandchildren a cleaner, better world.

---

[We need to] stop the contamination of our atmosphere. Climate change is real & is taking place. We have now a confluence of two national security requirements. One is to address the issue of climate change, and nuclear power is a very big part of that. And it’s also a requirement to not allow Chavez in Venezuela, Putin in Russia and the president of Iran to dictate world events and use oil as a weapon which would probably further terrorism and endanger this nation’s national security.

---

Q: Do you have a problem with Big Oil companies making these huge profits?

A: Sure, I think we all do. And they ought to be reinvesting it. And one of the areas that they ought to be involved in is nuclear power. Nuclear power is safe, nuclear power is green–& does not emit greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is used on Navy ships which have sailed around the world for 60 years without an accident. And of course we ought to be investing in alternate energy sources.

---

Q: You said: "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality." And after you said that, you acknowledged you might pay a political price for that view. You said:  "My opposition to ethanol obviously would hurt me. But I’ve got to do what I think is right. And if it offends a certain political constituency, I regret it, but there’s really nothing I can do about it."

A: When oil is $15 a barrel, ethanol does not make sense. When oil is $60-plus a barrel, then ethanol does make sense.

Q: So you’ve changed your mind.

A: No, I haven’t. I have adjusted to the realities of the world we live in today.

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"National security depends on energy security. Al-Qaida must revel in the irony that America is effectively helping to fund both sides of the war they caused. As we sacrifice blood and treasure, some of our gas dollars flow to the fanatics who build the bombs, hatch the plots, and carry out attacks on our soldiers and citizens.  The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey."

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Oil is often called the lifeblood of our economy-the indispensable commodity that keeps commerce humming and America on the move. But, in today’s world, our dependency on foreign oil and the way we use hydrocarbons is a major strategic vulnerability, a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well being of our planet.

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The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God’s creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over water, arable land and other natural resources under strain from a warming planet. The problem isn’t a Hollywood invention nor is doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security challenge.

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Answering great challenges is nothing new to America. It’s what we do. We built the rockets that took us to the moon not because it was easy but because it was hard. We’ve sent space probes into the distant reaches of the universe. We harnessed nuclear energy, mapped the human genome, created the Internet and pioneered integrated circuits that possess the computing power of Apollo spacecraft on a single silicon chip you can barely see. In twenty years we’ve gone from using this cell phone (SHOW), a $4000 toy for the wealthy, to this cell phone (SHOW), an inexpensive and virtually universal means of communication. We can solve our oil dependence. You can’t sell me on hopelessness. You can’t convince me the problem is insurmountable. I know my country. I know what we’re capable of. We’re capable of unimaginable progress, unmatched prosperity, and vision that sees around the corner of history. We’ve always understood our times, accepted our challenges and made from our opportunities, another better world. My people are Americans. Our time is today. That is the country I ask to lead.

The twentieth century produced massive changes in how we live our lives.  Changes in transportation, manufacturing, communication, and information management and sharing have created a world that would be virtually unrecognizable to someone who died in the late 19th century.  The 21st century will see another massive shift in the way we live our lives.  One of these possible shifts would send a big portion of the world’s population back to a 19th century lifestyle while other shifts will create a future that balances the best of the past with new technology that helps us achieve a stable, sustainable way of life.