Senator Obama Energy Plan
The Obama for President Campaign today released a comprehensive viable energy plan. It could be more aggressive but it is better than we have seen before and far superior to The McCain plans which relies on expanding the production and burning of fossil fuels. Senator McCain’s plan would actually subsidize Oil Corporations with 5 Billion U.S. Tax Payer dollars. The Republicans are trying to put themselves in the light of fighting for lower fuel costs, but what they are really fighting for is to keep the fossil fuel suppliers as the only energy source for Americans. Read the Obama plan below as published by the Obama for President Campaign for a real beginning to changing America’s Energy Future. Read the full article >>
I’m not one to publicly endorse candidates, and I’m not doing so here, but there are some very cool parts of the Obama Energy Plan that I think are really relevant to what’s happening around the movement toward Smart Utilities, Smart Grids, etc… In particular I’m talking about the section titled “Invest In A Clean Energy Economy and Help Create 5 Million New Green Jobs”. First off, I like the idea of the Government creating a funding source and imperatives to be invested in the Energy industry domestically. The combination of government mandate coupled with the availability of capital will undoubtedly speed up the adoption and deployment of smart technologies. The feds could really shorten many of the state level conversations between Utilities and regulators and get the train moving. This not only speeds up energy efficiency programs, which are good economically and environmentally, but it will have a real positive impact on the domestic economy in a number of ways. First of all, smart technologies are largely being delivered by domestic technology firms. One of the key areas of advantage we have left from a global competitiveness standpoint is in high technology, communications, and high tech manufacturing. I love the example of Itron, who is arguably one of the top 3 meter manufacturers in the world. Itron manufactures all its equipment here in the US of A! Most of the software and telecommunications technologies that go into these solutions are from US companies. If you really look at just the equipment side of a smart grid and smart metering, there are probably somewhere north of 500 Million to 1 Billion dumb devices that need to be replaced or retrofitted in order for the US to have a ‘digital grid’ across homes and business. Think about that economic stimulus package! Capital spent at home, jobs created at home, new tax revenue generated…what am I missing? Now, I’m not sure about some of the other parts of the Obama plan (like the Oil company windfall tax for example), so I’m not going to comment on those.
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