Energy Plan Goes on Tour
From the largest maker of old-fashioned lead-acid batteries to a company producing solar energy panels, President Bush toured plants in the nation’s manufacturing heartland Monday, advocating technological solutions to wean the country from its reliance on oil.
Embarking on a two-day trip to focus attention on the sort of experimental projects that are at the heart of the energy program he introduced three weeks ago, Bush said the nation was “addicted to oil” and needed to develop alternatives.
He said that with the nation importing about 60% of its oil, and large amounts of that from countries with unstable governments, “the dependence upon oil is a national security problem and an economic security problem.”
The president’s first stop was in Milwaukee, where white-coated technicians instructed him on the advances being sought in car batteries. He visited a laboratory where Johnson Controls is working to develop a lithium-ion battery for use in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, which now use heavier and larger nickel-metal hydride batteries.
The company makes 110 million conventional lead-acid batteries a year, and is the largest producer of vehicle batteries around the world, selling them under a variety of brand names, said Monica Levy, a company spokeswoman. The company said it hoped to produce lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles by 2010.
With such advances in mind, Bush said, “we have a chance to transform the way we power our economy and how we lead our lives.” He read from a text, with little of the passion he often shows when the topic is Iraq and fighting terrorism.
Bush said the combined gas-electric, or hybrid, vehicles were “a good deal for consumers, and the American people have begun to figure it out.”
The president also said he looked ahead to the day when solar panels were built into roofing materials, providing protection from the elements as well as electricity, and when houses could send to the electrical grid the power they created but did not use.
“We want solar power to be competitive by 2015,” Bush said.
Later, he flew to suburban Detroit to tour United Solar Ovonic, where a 100-yard-long machine turned out solar panels no thicker than 1 micron, or about one-tenth the width of a human hair, to turn sunlight into direct current electricity.
“Solar technology is commercial,” Bush said. “This technology right here is going to help us change the way we live in our homes.... The role of the government at this point is to continue to spend research dollars to help push technologies forward.”
Critics have said the president has put too much emphasis on technology and not enough on conservation.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate minority leader, praised Bush for addressing the nation’s energy problems, but said in a statement: “We need more than just rhetoric from a president who let Big Oil write our energy policies.”
Bush said, as he has on other occasions, that the effort to achieve energy independence should unite Republicans and Democrats.
The president’s two-day trip marks the most public attention Bush has devoted to energy issues since he announced in his State of the Union address Jan. 31 a new focus on federal energy research to develop technologies that might reduce dependence on fossil fuel. These include solar and wind energy, and -- returning to a subject that caught his interest several years ago -- hydrogen fuel cells and “cellulosic ethanol,” produced from agricultural waste, to run cars.
Although the energy initiative represents a departure from the administration’s earlier focus, the biggest changes have been in tenor, rather than substance.
Nevertheless, the president, whose ties to the oil industry date back three decades, has drawn favorable notice for emphasizing the need to tackle the nation’s reliance on oil.
Even with higher prices and moderate improvements in auto fuel economy, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast that cars will be driven more. By 2030, the country will consume 36% more oil for transportation than it does now. Motor vehicles account for about 40% of U.S. oil consumption.
Bush chose a federal holiday, when there was little other news, to draw attention to his efforts. And he offered one nod to the holiday. “Happy Presidents Day,” he said in Milwaukee. “It turns out most folks in Washington don’t work on Presidents Day. The only one working is the president.”
