Bush plans energy explosion
Vision for oil rigs and power plants raises fears for environment
Special report: global warmingSpecial report: George Bush's America
President George Bush yesterday
launched an energy plan that would dramatically increase the number of
oil rigs, power stations and nuclear plants across the country. He
warned of a "darker future" ahead for the United States unless
something was done about "the worst serious energy shortage since the
1970s".
Outlining his much-anticipated plan in Minnesota, Mr
Bush claimed that it was possible to dramatically increase oil drilling
and coal mining without serious damage to the environment, and restated
his intention to open up the Arctic wildlife refuge in Alaska to oil
rigs.
"The truth is, energy production and environmental
protection are not competing priorities. They're dual aspects of a
single purpose - to live well and wisely on the planet earth," Mr Bush
said.
However, environmentalists and congressional Democrats
were quick to portray the plan - drafted by a taskforce led by the
vice-president, Dick Cheney - as a polluters' charter, drawn up in
secret in the interests of businesses such as the oil industry, in
which Mr Bush and Mr Cheney used to work.
Writing in the
Washington Post, former president Jimmy Carter called into question the
White House's claims that the country was facing a crisis comparable
with the oil shocks of the 1970s when energy prices doubled over the
course of a few months, and there were long lines of cars outside
petrol stations.
"No energy crisis exists now that equates in
any way with those we faced in 1973 and 1979," Mr Carter wrote. "World
supplies are adequate and reasonably stable, price fluctuations are
cyclical, reserves are plentiful and automobiles aren't waiting in line
at service stations."
The White House report argues that energy
consumption is projected to increase by a third over the next two
decades and that if it continues to grow at the same rate as the past
decade, energy supplies would run out.
Mr Bush pointed to the
current wave of power blackouts in California as a foretaste of
national energy shortages to come, denying "the routine everyday
expectation that when you flick on a light-switch, the light will come
on".
The threat was serious enough, Mr Bush said, to jus tify
relaxing environmental constraints. The Arctic national wildlife refuge
should be opened for drilling he argued, because new technology allowed
oil extraction with far less environmental damage.
The refuge
could produce up to 600,000 barrels of oil a day, he said, as much as
the US now buys from Iraq - an example of how new oil exploration would
reduce the country's dependence on unfriendly foreign powers.
Under
the plan, regulations governing coal mining and the licensing of new
nuclear power plants would be relaxed and streamlined. The federal
government would be given the power to requisition land for the
construction of power transmission cables, and to clear the way for
38,000 miles of new natural gas pipelines. The plan envisages the need
for up to 1,900 new power plants over the next 20 years, more than one
a week.
Such measures, combined with fresh investment in green
technologies, would allow energy production to increase in line with
supply without severe harm to the environment, Mr Bush said. Financial
incentives would provide a "market-based" means of fighting pollution.
The plan earmarks $10bn in tax credits to reward fuel-efficient homes and companies.
Friends
of the Earth in London and the Worldwatch Institute in Washington said
the EU and other developed countries would gain a competitive advantage
by embracing new technologies such as solar and hydrogen power, leaving
the US with sunset industries such as coal, oil and nuclear power.
FOE
climate campaigner Kate Hampton said: "Instead of seriously trying to
tackle the waste of energy by the world's most profligate economy, the
Cheney energy strategy simply gives a green light for ever faster
consumption of fossil fuels and greater use of nuclear power.
"The US administration will face protests at home and across the world if it ever tries to put this plan into action."
Worldwatch
said: "The US risks falling behind its economic competitors and
compromising its political credibility on the international stage. Wind
and solar power are growing at double digit annual rates globally but
mostly in Europe and Japan where government support is creating vibrant
markets, hi-tech jobs and exports."
The Democrats derided the
plan as a juicy bone thrown to the oil and coal companies which helped
bankroll Mr Bush's election campaign.
"It's very unfortunate,
we now have an administration that is more concerned about big oil
companies making record profits than worrying about average American
working families and their bottom-line budget," the party's national
chairman, Terry McAuliffe said yesterday.
But British Nuclear
Fuel chairman Hugh Collum said: "If the full potential of the proposed
changes are realised in the United States, BNFL will be well-positioned
to provide nuclear reactor technology and associated fuel, equipment
and services through Westinghouse, with their recently licensed
advanced reactor system."
