Remarks by the President in a Discussion on Jobs and the Economy in Charlotte, North Carolina

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-a-discussion-jobs-and-economy-charlotte-north-carolina

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release | April 02, 2010

Remarks by the President in a Discussion on Jobs and the Economy in Charlotte, North Carolina
Celgard, LLC, Charlotte, North Carolina

12:02 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, guys. Hello, everybody! Hello! Good to see you. Everybody, please have a seat. Have a seat.

...

Q I’m concerned that your decision to allow offshore drilling could have the effect of chilling investment into alternate sources of energy. And I’m interested in what incentives you’re going to be proposing to establish the conditions and to stimulate research and development and expansion of that critical sector.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that’s a great question. Look, first of all, understand that the Recovery Act, what we passed last year, represented the single largest investment in clean energy in history, by far. So we invested in wind; we invested in solar; we invested in biomass. We invested in research and development; we invested in commercialization. We invested in battery technologies. We are interested in figuring out how we can improve efficiency across the system, both in buildings and in transportation sectors and -- you name it, we’re all about increasing energy efficiency and finding new renewable, clean sources of energy. It’s one of my highest priorities, and I think it’s got to be one of our highest strategic priorities as an economy. It has the potential of being an enormous growth industry.

Here’s the challenge that we have. We don’t yet have the technological breakthroughs that can completely replace fossil fuels. So for the next 10 years, next 20 years, we’re still going to be using oil; we’re still going to be using coal; we’re still going to be using natural gas -- we’re still going to be using the traditional sources to fuel our cars, to heat our homes, to run our big power plants, et cetera.

It’s my hope that if we’re aggressive over the next several years, we can substantially cut our energy use in every sector while still maintaining our high levels of economic growth. So, for example, at the announcement where I talked about offshore drilling, I did so in front of an F-18, a fighter jet, that is actually going to be run half on biomass. So I was joking with the pilot -- I said, so this thing runs on vegetable oil. But they’re going to break the sound barrier using biomass as fuel.

So the Pentagon is investing huge amounts in energy efficiency. We are promoting weatherization across the country because this is a win-win situation; you put people to work putting in insulation, putting in windows -- most of which, by the way, that insulation and windows is manufactured here in the United States -- it saves on the individual’s energy bill, plus it means that that power plant has to produce less energy to keep that home warm. So it’s a win-win all across the board.

That’s our biggest priority -- energy efficiency and renewable, clean energy. But because we’re going to have this transition -- unless somebody here invents something tomorrow, which would be very helpful, and if you have it let me know, we’ll get it going right away -- but what’s most likely is we’re going to have this transition. And so in the interim we’ve got to look at our traditional energy sources and figure out how can we use those most effectively and in the most environmentally sound way.

That’s why I announced that we were going to start the first nuclear plant in 30 years. Japan, France, other countries have a safe, secure, reliable and effective nuclear -- civilian nuclear energy. We essentially stopped 30 years ago. For those of you who are concerned about climate change, nuclear energy doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. It’s not a perfect energy source because it’s got the problem with spent fuel and how that is properly stored, but generally speaking, that’s going to have to be part of our energy mix.

The decision around drilling -- same approach. What we did was we said we’re not going to have drilling a mile off the North Carolina coast or two miles off. But 50 miles off, 100 miles off, where it is appropriate and environmentally sound and not risky, we should allow exploration to begin taking place to see if there’s certain reserves.

There are some areas that we just completely put off limits, like Bristol Bay in Alaska where it’s a huge fishery, environmentally very sensitive. There are some areas off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico which don’t make sense for us to allow exploration, even though we know that there are existing reserves there.

But what we did was we tried to look at the scientific evidence and figure out where are areas where low risk environmentally and a high potential upside.

Now, here’s the last thing I’ll say about drilling, though, because what you have is, you have some environmentalists who just said, don’t drill anywhere; and then you’ve got some of my friends on the Republican side who were saying, well, this is a nice first step but it’s not enough -- you should open up everything.

I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.

But the notion that we could drill our way out of the problem -- you’ll start hearing about this because you know what happens during the summer. As soon as gas prices start going up -- every summer it’s the same thing, right? And then politicians start standing up and -- “we’re going to do something about it” -- and these days some of my colleagues on the Republican side, what they’ll say is, you got to drill even more.

Just remember the statistics when you start hearing this. We account for 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves but we use 20 percent of the world’s oil. We use 20 percent; we only got 2 percent. We can’t drill our way out of the problem.

That’s why we’ve got to get moving on this clean energy sector, but we also have to make sure that we’ve got enough supply that’s regular in terms of these other energy -- traditional energy, sources, so that by the time we get to the clean energy sector, we haven’t had to sacrifice economic growth along the way.

...

[Skittles]

1. yeah, he gives a purty speech

[Statistical]

2. "It’s not a perfect energy source but that’s going to have to be part of our energy mix."

That’s why I announced that we were going to start the first nuclear plant in 30 years. Japan, France, other countries have a safe, secure, reliable and effective nuclear -- civilian nuclear energy. We essentially stopped 30 years ago. For those of you who are concerned about climate change, nuclear energy doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. It’s not a perfect energy source because it’s got the problem with spent fuel and how that is properly stored, but generally speaking, that’s going to have to be part of our energy mix.

President Obama is a realist. Nuclear energy is a PART of any realistic solution to reduce GHG emissions.