Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative to cut energy dependence on Middle East

With the Advanced Energy Initiative, the US aims to gain more political muscle to deal with the regressive regimes in Middle East by achieving energy independence. 

2 February 2006
WASHINGTON, USA

US President George W Bush is on a mission to end America’s dependence on Middle East for fuel, by announcing an Advance Energy Initiative as part of his State of the Union Address. At least, that is what those who approved of his State of the Union address say.

The Advanced Energy Initiative aims to increase by 22 % the spending on clean-energy research by the US Department of Atomic energy. It may be noted that since 2001, US had spent $ 10 billion with the aim of developing reliable alternative energy resources. The Advanced Energy Initiative will see Bush allocating almost $ 1 billion in the 2007 budget to solar, wind, clean coal and ethanol energy.

As Bush stated in his address, the United States is dependent on Middle East for an astounding 75% of its oil imports. He said that the Advanced Energy Initiative will help in replace 75 % of the America's middle eastern oil imports by 2025.

Bush’s announcement is expected to give a vital push to push to advanced energy technologies in US, which, experts say is on the verge of a much-awaited breakthrough. Several alternative energy exponents in the US have already welcomed President's Bush's Initiative.

The Bush administration aims to diversify the country’s energy sources by increasing the pace of research on “clean coal technologies, clean and safe nuclear energy, and revolutionary solar and wind technologies.”

The US hopes that through the Advanced Energy Initiative, will reduce overall demand for natural gas, paving the way for lower energy costs.

Through the Advanced Energy Initiative, Bush wants to accelerate the ‘President's Coal Research Initiative”. The United States has coal resources enough for two centuries and coal provides more than half of US’ power supply. In order to exploit Americas massive coal reserves, the 2007 Federal Budget will incorporate $281 million.

Bush has earmarked another $54 Million for the `FutureGen Initiative,’ a partnership between the federal government and the private sector aimed at developing innovative technologies for an emissions-free coal plant. The plant’s purpose would be to store the carbondioxide produced by itself and freeze it in geological formations.

For the Solar America Initiative, which would be part of 2007 budget, $148 million would be pumped in, which is an increase of $65 million over 2006.

James Woolsey, a former CIA director, said that he gave the president's address "two cheers" for facing up to energy issues, but said that it did not deal with some of the obstacles to oil independence. He noted that Bish mentioned "cellulosic Ethanol" and "switch grass", but said that much research expenditure already goes towards those two areas.

The initiative aims to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convert sunlight directly to electricity. Through this the administration aims to user in "zero energy" homes that produce more energy than they consume.

$ 44 million would be spent for wind energy research in the next budget, up from - a $5 million increase over FY06 levels, in an apparent attempt to boost the use of wind energy in the United States.

The Biorefinery Initiative, an attempt to achieve greater use of "homegrown" renewable fuels, will include $150 million for 2007, up from $59 million. Bush also plans to speed up research in technologies for next generation batteries used in hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrids, which can run either on electricity or on gasoline and can be plugged in to recharge. The budget allocation for 2007 is $30 million, which is up $6.7 million from the previous year.

The president’s $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative is part of a strategy to develop technology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells, with no pollution or greenhouse gases. Budget 2007 has allotted $289 million to speed up research in hydrogen fuel cells and affordable hydrogen-powered cars. This is up $53 million from the previous year. It may be recalled that ,the initiative had achieved a 50 % cut in cost of a hydrogen fuel cell in the last four years.

As per estimates, it will take more than 15 years for automobiles to switch to fuel efficient technologies.

The Advanced Energy Initiative, in a broader sense, aims to cut dependence on Middle Eastern economies, thereby giving the United States more political muscle to deal with the regressive regimes, although the US has not explicitly said this.

There have been complaints from some major agricultural firms such as Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill who were already qite far ahead in ethanol technology. As the State of the Union did not focus much on ethanol, Archer-Daniels-Midland saw a slight drop in its share price. Mr Woolsey said that compared to the ethanol producers in US, the switch grass and cellulosic ethanol firms do not have well-developed technologies, and the President should have focused instead on ethanol technologies and getting automobile companies to adopt it in the Advanced Energey Initiative.

Green critics such as David Roberts of grist.org said that Bush's proposals, in the end, amount to a large sum of money for the coal industry - 28 %. Also, he said that the larger problem is not funding for solar or wind energies, but the automobile industry and focus is needed on hydrogen cars and such-like.

On the other side of the spectrum, free market advocates and oil lovers were not happy either - concessions to environmentalism is construed as junk science by much of the right wing in the US. The Advanced Energy Initiative, for them, is buying into wrong ideas about the American economy.

The analysts and businessmen in the Us who favor less reliance on middle eastern oil feel that the Advanced Energy Initiative takes focus away to so called green technologies that have proven to be a waste of money, while measures such as drilling in Alaska - a quicker way to access own oil are ignored.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, also found fault with Bush's advocacy of nuclear fuel and argued that it was shown to be a 'dirty fuel' due to concerns including radiation and its dual-use nature.

The country remains in two minds, so far, about the Advanced Energy Initiative. The coming days shall we which way the national mood turns.