Energy Policy

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

With the focus of the nation on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, now is a perfect time to aggressively promote a policy aimed at weaning the United States off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Many observers are concerned that we are near (or, perhaps, past) the "peak oil" point, at which we can no longer increase the amount of oil we can extract from the planet. Petroleum is too important for many industries for us to be burning up our supply to produce energy and move people and goods. Other fossil fuels can be used in the short term to transition away from an oil-based energy economy, but our goal should be to produce over half of our energy needs from renewable resources within the next 50 years.

Many observers have noted that production from several of the deep wells in the Gulf is falling quite short (20-40%) of initial estimates. It is becoming increasingly difficult to discover new sources on land, and even in coastal waters, worldwide. It is an indisputable fact that, at
some point, we will run out of oil - and that point is getting closer every year.

In addition, our disproportionate reliance on oil for energy and transportation makes us hostage to foreign governments, not all of whom are particularly concerned about the health of our economy (except as it relates to the amount of oil we can buy from them). It is widely
supposed that the ulterior motive of the Iraq conflict was to secure the oil fields for US companies, and some suggest that the desire for a pipeline from the oil fields of Kazakhstan through to Pakistan is an underlying motive for a continuing US presence in Afghanistan. The
foreign policy implications for the United States are obvious, especially as the growing economies of China and India increase their consumption and thus come more into competition with us for the resources.

It will require a monumental engineering and research effort to convert the bulk of energy production in the United States to using renewable resources. We have, however, done things like this before - the Apollo and Manhattan Project programs are just two examples. We can do it again, if you strongly push a program.

As an interim measure, I suggest legislation to require all interstate truck operators (anyone who needs an ICC license) to convert their fleets to using natural gas by the year 2020. This would allow 10 years for the truckers to convert, and for someone - perhaps the current
gasoline distributors - to develop a network of natural gas fueling stations in parallel or co-located with existing gasoline stations. The automobile manufacturers could be incentivised with tax credits or loan forgiveness to create more cars that can run on natural gas (it's a
relatively easy conversion for existing vehicles - maybe a tax credit for consumers, too?). We burn 71% of our total petroleum for transportation (source: DOE Basic Petroleum Statistics, 2008) - any reduction in this use will greatly reduce overall demand.

Going forward, it is my belief that every home or apartment building in the United States should be encouraged to install solar water heating at minimum, and, where possible, photovoltaic systems. Water heating is approximately 12% of the average household's energy use - this could be cut to well under 10% by using solar heating. While there are existing
tax credits for this purpose, if we are serious about changing our energy profile, we should provide homeowners with a 100% tax credit for installing solar water heating or photovoltaic systems.

While the production of electricity uses a wide variety of fuels, and I realize the difficulties of providing a steady flow of electricity with most renewables, I believe we should work toward moving electric power production to natural gas, nuclear, and renewable sources as quickly as
possible. To accomplish this, a combination of cap-and-trade carbon credits and tax incentives for moving to cleaner sources can be used. Coal will continue to be a major fuel for electric power production for some time to come, but it has serious environmental problems and we
should work at reducing our need for coal, also.

I was one of your supporters in 2008 - in fact, that was the first year since 1972 that I was motivated enough to actually contribute to a campaign. I trusted that you had a new vision for America, that would move us into the new century and break some of the paradigms of the
past. Please continue to work for a clean energy future.

Sincerely,
Henry Stilmack
Papaikou, Hawaii