GET ON ENERGY NOW AND STAY ON IT – CARTER TO OBAMA

Before offering advice to President-elect Barack Obama on how to move the U.S. to New Energy, former President Jimmy Carter described his own experience: "It was like gnawing on a rock…"

The first heyday of U.S. New Energy was during the Carter administration. In his 1-term, 4-year presidency (1976-to-1980), Carter capitalized on the 1970s interruptions in foreign oil supplies and resultant price spikes to lay the groundwork for what is finally coming to fruition now in solar, wind, hydrokinetic and biofuel energies.

The Carter administration created the Department of Energy, legislated the first appliance efficiency standards and installed 32 solar-energy panels on the White House (later removed by the Reagan administration and now in the Carter museum).

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President Carter’s administration spent $8.4 billion on energy R&D, twice (adjusted for inflation) the money spent in 2007.

President-elect Obama brings huge, exciting plans for New Energy with him to the White House. But oil prices have dropped 70% since July, mimicking the price drop of the 1980s and 1990s that was the main factor preventing (or excusing) all Carter’s successors from building on his achievements.

Randy Swisher, Executive Director, American Wind Energy Association: "We call the 1980s and 1990s the Valley of Death…Investments weren't made, technologies evolved slowly, and the government offered very little support."

The incoming President has already reiterated his commitment to New Energy and his determination to prevent the recent drop in oil price from disrupting his plans. The country’s pattern of reacting frantically when oil prices go up and behaving wastefully when they drop, of going "…from shock to trance…That has to be broken…Now is the time to break it..." Obama recently said.

What does Carter advise to make it happen? Legislate on New Energy soon keep legislating.

Carter: "I think he can prevail if he does it early and with a great deal of dedication and enthusiasm -- and with tenacity…"

Carter came to office with something of a mandate for New Energy because the trauma of the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo and its skyrockecting prices and gas lines was still fresh.

But much of the country didn’t take well to Carter’s cardigan-clad call for self-denying conservation. In response, Carter tried to ramp up motivation by calling the energy crisis "the moral equivalent of war…" When the country still didn’t respond well enough, he accused it of suffering from "malaise" and said there was a "crisis of the American spirit."

Many were alientated and the political opposition said he was blaming America. In combination with a 2nd oil-related trauma associated with the 1979 Iranian revolution and other Persian Gulf/Middle East events, Carter’s political support waned.

Carter: "It sapped away a substantial portion of my domestic influence to harp on this unpleasant subject for four solid years…"

Conclusion: It is not only energy policy but energy PR that the Obama administration must manage.

More important conclusion: Obama can’t do it alone. It will require sustained support from not just New Energy's committed activist core (although it will have its collecive hands full) but from the majority (but often fickle) electorate that mandated Obama's program.

The good news: This could be the last chance for many over-indulged, post-WWII baby boomers to prove their diplomas in socializing at political protests weren’t a complete exercise in posing.

Electing Obama made history, but now it is time to help him make something that will last literally forever: The transition to New Energy. As a popular TV show might put it, “Save the president, save the world.”

It will likely be very difficult. Circumstances are both economically and environmentally dire.

Another icon of the 1970s was the pet rock. Maybe somebody should dig some up for the President-elect and the New Energy movement to practice gnawing on. Call it President Carter's conditioning program.

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A Past President’s Advice to Obama: Act With Haste; Jimmy Carter Says New Administration Needs to Harness the Benefits of a Crisis Mentality to Tame Energy Policy
Neil King Jr., December 11, 2008 (Wall Street Journal)

WHO
President-elect Barack Obama; Former President Jimmy Carter; Former Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger

WHAT
Mr. Carter suggests that Mr. Obama is most likely to achieve his New Energy goals by getting legislation to Congress quickly and peristing in efforts to get it passed by inspiring Americans to see the virtue and value in making the sacrifices necessary to build the New Energy infrastructure of the 21st century. He predicts it will be different with oil prices as low as they are.

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WHEN
- Presidents at least from Richard Nixon have promised to make America independent from foreign oil. Nixon proposed doing it by 1980. President Ford aimed for 1985.
- The U.S. public always goes back to oil when the price drops.
- When Carter left office ~33% of U.S. oil was imported. Now ~70% of U.S. oil is imported.
- Adjusted for inflation, oil is now cheaper than in decades

WHERE
- Presently, and in the Carter era, Americans consume more oil per-capita than any other place in the world.
- As in the Carter era, oil prices fluctuate with peace and war in the Mid-East and with fluctuations in Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

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WHY
- Mr. Carter’s administration created the Department of Energy and James Schlesinger was named the first Secretary of Energy.
- The Obama New Energy plan calls for (1) a $150 billion investment to (a) build a New Energy infrastructure, (b) create 5 million green collar jobs and (c) put 1 million PHEVs on the road. He also supports (2) a climate change bill to develop an emissions-reducing cap-and-trade system to bring emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them 80% by 2050 and (3) a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 10% of their power from New Energy sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.
- Democratic leaders in Congress support the Obama plan and intend to make this era different than the 1970s Carter era.
- When Carter left office, ~7% of all U.S. energy came from New Energy sources. In 2007, it was 6.7%.
- When Carter left office, U.S. auto fleet fuel efficiency was 20.5 mpg. Today, it is 20.8 mpg, up 1.5% in 27 years.
- At the end of the Carter administration, 10% of all R&D money went into energy. Today it is about ~2%.
- Carter is 84 and now instead of promoting solar panels he is experimenting with fast-growing paulownia trees, native to China, which the University of Georgia confirms could be a good source of biofuel.

Have a gnaw, it might be good for the future. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- James Schlesinger, Carter administration Secretary of Energy:"It's a sad characteristic of our society that energy issues get no political attention until prices run up…[and when prices fall, everything] goes back to normal."
- Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass), chairman, House select committee on energy independence and global warming: "[New Energy is] now a top national-security and economic issue…I don't think there will be any return to the old days."
- Carter: "The energy crisis that I inherited was in many ways much more serious than it is now…Had it been sustained and continued, I don't have any doubt that Reagan and Bush and Clinton and others would have done the same thing,"
- Carter: "These trees could become a great future source for biofuels…And these trees grow very well as far north as Virginia."