Bush Promotes Alternative Energy During Trip
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 02.21.06
On Monday, President Bush visited three states and promoted alternative energy on the way. As alternatives to oil, Bush promoted battery-powered cars at the stop in Wisconsin and solar power at a later stop in Michigan. He ended the day in Colorado, where some three dozen workers at the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory were rehired after being laid off soon after Mr. Bush's State of the Union address promoting renewable energy.
In Milwaukee, Mr. Bush toured a technology center of Johnson Controls, the world's largest supplier of standard car batteries and a leader in research into new lithium ion batteries for hybrid cars. Afterward, in a speech to Johnson Controls employees, Mr. Bush urged Congress to support an additional $31 million for research into the new batteries, as called for in his 2007 budget. Lithium ion batteries are smaller and more efficient than the current nickel metal hydride batteries used in hybrid cars, although they are still years away from widespread use.
"You've got your car, you pull in, you plug it right into the wall," Bush said, adding that he anticipated a day when cars with lithium ion batteries could go 40 miles on electricity alone. Current hybrid cars use the gasoline engine to charge the onboard battery.
In Auburn Hills, Mich., Mr. Bush toured United Solar Ovonic, a maker of solar panels. "The ultimate goal is to have solar technology on your home, and that home will become a little power-generating unit unto itself," Mr. Bush told reporters afterward.
:: Via New York Times and CBS News
Wow! A car that can go 40 miles on batteries alone! What a visionary Bush is!
Oh, and while the DOE miraculously scared up $5 million to rehire the NREL employees just before Bush visited, there's still the matter of the other $23 million that was cut from their budget. Nice "focus on renewable energy", Mr. President.
Unto itself! Yay, distributed power generation!
"bush promotes an image of himself caring about the environment during trip"
ok before any commentary: um, y'all notice how red that nose is getting? Is Rudolph hitting the bottle again?
the prez sez:
"Sometimes, decisions made as the result of the appropriations process, the money may not end up where it was supposed to have gone," see, it wasn't his fault. or the GOP. it's that silly liberal "process" blame the process for cutting their budget and firing the staff! (of course we can thank photoOps and the desire to save face for getting them back?)
then he sez: "My message to those who work here ((NREL)) is we want you to know how important your work is. We appreciate what you're doing and we expect you to keep doing it, and we want to help you keep doing it."
help by cutting the funds, firing them, rehiring them before showing up to look like a fool and then what? how much more love can he bestow upon these people before he kills them??
lastly i feel very sorry for Stanford and Iris (Ovonic ECSD) Ovshinsky, I mean what woudl you do when the president wants to do a walk through. smile and nod right? these people have worked and battlede uphill for almost 30 years, don't you think they deserve better? (ok taking tongue iout of cheek now)
What concerns me is that we're not seeing the actions of government that would indicate a serious interest in environmentally friendly policies. If Bush were seriously interested in environmentally friendly policies he'd have mandated solar panels on all federal buildings, solar powered streetlights on federal property (we have them here on base in Kuwait) and why not have all of his Limos tricked out with the latest hybrid tech? I would love to see these things happen, but I'm not holding my breath.