Additionally, all levels of gov't could demand (and order) higher-mileage cars using flex-fuel, diesel/bioD and hybrid tech. The days of 10mpgpolice cars and huge SUVs was over years ago.

You have to LOVE how more is spent on coal than anything else, after adding the "clean coal" and "FutureGen" projects! $335mil for coal and only $30mil for hybrids/plug-ins combined?

While "clean coal" plants are certainly better than the existing onese we have, we ALREADY know how to do this! What else is left to research?

Just think what could happen if all that money wasted on hydrogen was spent on hybrids or solar.

To curb the demand for energy, it can't be resolved merely by exploration of new energy but conversation. It seems nothing is mentioned in CARB! EnergyStar rated applicances should be encouraged. None of them was mentioned, unfortunately...

So after spending a couple of trillion dollars on the wars in the middle east and killing thousands of people they figured out that they should spend less than $1B on improving technology that will lower oil consumption. Brilliant! Why couldn't I think of that?????

They sure do use some funny math over there. I suppose building fancy miltary gadgets is just much more fun than developing batteries and fuel efficient engines.

Let's try this:
1) Stop all wars, pull out, etc
(stop pissing people off)
2) Spend trillion dollars on energy technology (fuel efficient engines, solar, wind, the whole works)
3) Outsorce some work to 3rd world (with so much money you can spin few billion off to different contries for certain development work)
(now most of world loves you)
4) 12 months later US uses 20% less oil
5) US exports all this tech to other countries, makes a lot of money, the rest of the world cuts oil use by 20%
(everyone loves US now)
6) oil prices collapse, oil is cheap again, no more wars in middle east

No more weapons and no more wars over oil. Now that is a horrible plan ;)

I think I'm in a similar state of mind to "t" above.

I'm really trying to sort out in my mind this morning why "conservation" didn't make it into the detailed plan. I could see it not being mentioned in the spoken SOTU for reasons of consumer confidence.

So far my ideas have ranged over these possibilities:

- the president knows conservation is critical, but is expects it to happen anyway, as a result of higher prices

- the president doesn't think conservation is critical, and actually thinks hydrogen cars will save us

- the president doesn't care and the bar graph above represents the relative power of research lobbies at the federal level

- the president doesn't care and the spending is immaterial, it is all a band-aid on consumer confidence

... did I miss any?

Energy Conservation is just not part of the American and Canadian way of life. A society based on consumption cannot easily be converted to conservation. That is why our politicians promote the production of more and more energy from various sources as the ideal most accepted solution. This may be exactly what the majority wants to hear. A few trillion dollars spent on OIL WARS is in line with our quest for more energy. The same resources could have doubled the efficiency of our vehicles and reduced OIL consumption by 50%. Is that what we really want? Many of us still prefer, Oil Wars, cheap gas, V-12, 3-ton 4 x 4 gas guzzler regarless of mpg and pollution created. Alberta Tar Sands extraction operation is a perfect example of how far we are willing to go to perpetuate our consumption society. Short term benefits dictate...

For the same reason no one is stupid enough to back a bill that forces all computers to use less then 5 watts of power or all sterios use less then 5 watts of power or that all all fast food places sell just what the average person needs an no more or that skydiving is a waste of fuel or boating or flying or that skiing is a waste of energy or that all racing cars must get at least x miles per gallon or that football games cant be played at night as its a waste of energy or that computer monitors cant be larger then 12 inches as anything larger is a waste of enrgy or that all hard drives must be 4200 rpm as anything faster is a waste of energy or that all pottery classes will be shut down as it uses soo much energy or or or or or ....


What soo many forget is we NEED some of the things we want because you cant expect people to go through life with just what you think they need.

Then you need to justify your computer and monitor bub.

Yes we want our stuff to use less energy. But we still want a better computer and that will still mean more power used. We still want a bigger tv and a bigger monitor and that still means more power used.

They want a car they enjoy driving as much as we want a computer we enjoy using.

If they have collectively enough money to fund the stuff needed to provie the fuel for that car... same as we spend enoygh money on puters and eletric bills to fund whats needed to support our habit.

(watts measured with a Kill-A-Watt monitory)

You have to be kidding me. You watched Bush give his speech-writers' speech? He's only serious about perpetuating big oil. By the time HIS "ideas" (which us environmentalists have been requesting for 30 years) come to fruition after running through the Republican Congress, they'll be very watered down. I helped the environment by saving electricity by turning off my TV during his speech.

We spend $7 Billion a day in Iraq and in so doing, alienate people the world over with our narcissistic arrogance. As an agenda, we spend $Billions subsidizing Big Oil with public funds so Joe-sixpack can squander it like an alcoholic. No wonder we can't afford to invest in energy alternatives. We buy oil in the middle east and ultimately fund terrorism, then as if in a stuper, we send our sons and daughters to war so we don't have to tighten our belts here at home. It's sickening. Every addiction is a sickness of denial, and we won't fix this one until we collectively admit to the problem.

I agree with wintermane. And when we speak of conservation, we must distinguish between voluntary vs forced. I, for one, am glad to see the $Billion go into the above research areas.
By the way, how about keeping our negative political tones out of this site of great ideas?