Entries Tagged 'Oil' ↓
October 21st, 2008 — 2008 Presidential Campaign, Appropriate Technology, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Cogen, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, GreenTechnology, NBC (Nuclear Biological and Chemical) weapons, Nuclear Power, Oil, Oyster Creek, Shelter, Solar, Three Mile Island, Wind Power
John McCain and Barack Obama both talk about energy independence. Both also talk about the need to drill for oil offshore. Obama says oil companies should use their leases, or lose them. McCain once put the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, off-limits, “for now.” But that was before he picked Sarah “Drill Baby Drill” Palin for V. P., Now he calls her an “Energy Expert” and says “Sarah Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in America.”
Palin wants to drill in ANWR. She also doesn’t understand the science that has been used to study global warming, preferring to believe that it doesn’t exist.
Obama reminds us that drilling won’t help much and won’t help at all in the near future. Obama and McCain also talk about solar and wind - but Obama talks about about building a new energy economy. And McCain has a history of voting against solar and wind because he’s against subsidies. He’s for nuclear power, even tho the nuclear industry relies on subsidies. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that Obama knows what he’s talking about.
McCain says nuclear power is safe, nuclear submarines are safe. He wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2035, and another 55 after that. He wants to plan and build a total of 100 new nuclear plants. Continue reading →
August 17th, 2008 — 2008 Presidential Campaign, Al Gore, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Energy, Nuclear Power, Oil, Solar, Wind Power
With gasoline prices between $3.38 and $4.06 per gallon, and electricity increasing 15% per year and therefore doubling every 5 years, energy is a major issue in the 2008 presidential election.
As President, McCain would focus on coal, oil, and nuclear power. Obama would focus on wind and solar, requiring U. S. utilities to get 25% of their electricity from solar and wind by 2025. McCain would require 20% by 2030. He would also reduce the “red tape” to speed construction of power plants and would build 45 nuclear plants by 2030, at which time he would be 94. Obama, who will be 69 in 2030, is concerned about the radioactive waste problem and other challenges of nuclear power. It does not seem likely that he will call for the construction of 45 new nuclear plants in the next 22 years.
McCain would give the oil companies $34 to $55 Billion over the next five years in subsidies and tax breaks (click here). He also spoke about giving drivers a $30 tax break this past summer. However, the money “given” to the drivers would have been made up in other taxes. Obama would give tax payers a $1,000 tax rebate based on a taxing “windfall” profits of the oil companies over the next 5 years.
McCain proposed a $300 million prize to the auto company that develops a next-generation car battery and would commit $2 billion annually to “clean-coal.” Obama would invest $150 billion over 10 years on low-carbon energy sources, double R&D spending on biomass, solar and wind resources; accelerate commercialization of plug-in hybrids, invest in low-emissions coal plants.
The U S Supreme Court ruled, in 2007, that the under the terms of the Clean Air Act, the EPA must regulate Carbon Dioxide. McCain favors a cap-and-trade CO2 approach. He sponsored a bill in 2007 to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2050. Obama would cut carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Popular Logistics prefers that we accept Al Gore’s challenge: 100% Clean and Green by 2018. The details of the McCain and Obama positions, compiled by Ayesha Rascoe and Chris Baltimore, from their web-sites Reuters and the International Herald Tribune and Friends of the Earth, are below.
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