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Weaning America from foreign oil

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Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman says more nuclear power plants are needed to meet U.S. energy needs.

By Samuel W. Bodman
Special to CNN

The summer heat has left Americans cranking up their air conditioners, leaving power companies scrambling to keep up with the surging demand for electricity.

Meanwhile, high demand for oil around the globe and political instability in parts of the world are keeping the price of gasoline uncomfortably high, issuing, in essence, an unbudgeted tax on American families.

And on Sunday night, we saw corrosion in a pipeline system in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, require the possible shut-in of crude oil supply, which could diminish our domestic production by up to 400,000 barrels a day.

What we are seeing is the culmination of years of unfocused direction and lack of investment in new technologies and energy infrastructure. To strengthen our nation's energy security, it will take years of work and specific upgrades throughout the energy sector. Thankfully, that work is already under way.

Over the past five years, the Bush administration has taken steps to improve energy efficiency, make our energy infrastructure more secure and reliable, and increase the domestic supply of energy through alternative and renewable sources.

This week, we celebrate the first anniversary of President Bush's signing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 -- the first comprehensive energy legislation in more than a decade.

The long-term strategy laid out in the act takes a crucial step toward realizing the president's goals of reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil and reinventing the way we power our homes, businesses and vehicles.

First, through the Energy Policy Act, energy-efficiency standards are being raised for appliances and industrial equipment. In addition, a host of tax incentives are encouraging consumers to choose energy-efficient products, including Energy Star-labeled ones, for their homes and businesses.

Second, we are modernizing our energy infrastructure, particularly the electricity grid, to meet the demands of a growing economy and population. Electricity congestion is challenging the reliable delivery of power to homes and businesses. The congestion study my department released this week kicks off the national effort to identify and remedy electric congestion and is a crucial step toward modernizing our electric power delivery system.

Third, in conjunction with the president's Advanced Energy Initiative, the act is helping us to expand and diversify the energy we produce here at home. This includes incentives for new electricity generation through nuclear and clean coal plants as well as efforts to bring cost-effective solar and wind energy to the market and also provide more home-grown biofuels -- such as E-85 and biodiesel -- to families in the United States.

Over the last two weeks, I have held events across the country highlighting progress since the president signed into law this national strategy in August 2005. Last week, I visited Joliet, Illinois, where I announced a $250 million investment for two bioenergy research centers, which will accelerate the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. This will help reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil, while giving farmers across the country another use for their crops. This means more jobs in the U.S. and less dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Then on Friday, I traveled to the Georgia Power Co., which is a Southern Co. subsidiary, one of the nation's largest suppliers of electricity. There I talked to employees and the electricity industry about the need for cleaner, safer and relatively inexpensive nuclear fuel.

We have more than 100 nuclear plants in this country, and they supply more than 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but we haven't built a new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years. To help spur the growth of nuclear power, I announced a $2 billion federal-risk insurance program that, I hope, will speed up the nuclear renaissance in this country.

Earlier this week, Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich and I cut the ribbon at a new E-85 fueling facility in Baltimore, where I announced the launch of a $2 billion loan guarantee program. This funding will help bring about additional capital investment in the most promising clean-energy technologies that will someday power our nation.

More details on these programs, as well as other progress and highlights of the Energy Policy Act, are available in a brochure published by our department and available on our Web site.

We are undoubtedly reaching the goals set forth in the Energy Policy Act, but our success will not be achieved overnight. We recognize that these challenges took a long time to create and will take a number of years to correct. Yet through this administration's focused strategy, we will continue to light the path toward a stable and prosperous energy future.

 

Samuel W. Bodman is U.S. secretary of energy. Its views are not necessarily those of PETROLEUMWORLD.

Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published CNN, on Friday, August 11, 2006, is part of a series of occasional opinion pieces on CNN.com that offer a broad range of perspectives that express a variety of thoughts and points of view.

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Petroleumworld 08/13/05

Copyright ©2006 Samuel W. Bodman. All Rights Reserved.

 

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