Obama addresses DOE

President Obama told Department of Energy employees on 5 February that his plan to jolt the US economy back to life will “end the tyranny of oil in our time” and bring about “a revolution in energy efficiency” and a “better, smarter electricity grid” that can “ship wind and solar power from one end of this country to another.”

“After decades of dragging our feet, this [stimulus] plan will finally spark the creation of a clean energy industry that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next few years, manufacturing wind turbines and solar cells for example, and millions more after that,” he said. “These jobs and these investments will double our capacity to generate renewable energy over the next few years.”

Although his visit was brief and no questions were taken, Obama did have one piece of news to share: He had earlier that day signed a presidential memorandum asking DOE to speed up issuance of energy efficiency standards for many common household appliances. In 2005 a court set deadlines, the last of which is June 2011, for the agency to issue standards on 22 types of household and commercial appliances. Still pending are standards on 15 of those appliance types. Obama said the standards will save consumers money, spur innovation, and over the next 30 years save the amount of energy produced during a 2-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in the US.