To The Editor:
If President Obama and the Energy Department statisticians were using the metric system, perhaps he and his advisors would have been able to make sense of the energy data in the U.S., and, using simple math, avoid falling into a trap. I respect Mr. Obama, but I have doubts about his presidency when I hear him saying: The United States will “double the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term.” He should know that that’s not possible. But instead, during his State of the Union speech, he proclaimed that we’ll reach that goal in three years, not four.
Presented with the government’s numbers in unified units, he might realize that the majority of the renewable power in the U.S. comes from hydro and from biological sources, which together generate 154 GW. Trying to increase those yields, we would have to ask: Where shall we find the extra rivers to dam? And where do we look for the extra land to double the wood and corn production?
Understanding those limitations, President Obama’s plan apparently relies on direct solar, wind, and geothermal energy growth. All three sources are presently producing about 19 GW less than 1 percent of national capacity. To reach the stated goal of generating twice 173 GW, we would have to build nine times more windmills, solar plants, and geothermal stations than we installed in the previous decades, and do it in three years.
While the cost would be prohibitive and the electricity expensive, is the deadline at all realistic, under any cost?
President Jimmy Carter committed the U.S. to derive 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2000; the nation has not reached 1 percent yet.
In 1978, Ralph Nader said, “Everything will be solar in 30 years.” The 30 years just passed.
Three, even four years is too short a time to forget about a commitment. Obama’s retreating from his goal now, before funds for this extraordinary spending are cast into the concrete foundations of windmills, would seem a prudent, presidential gesture.
Stan Jakuba
West Hartford, Conn.