Advanced Energy Initiative from Pres. Bush

Yesterday, Pres. Bush announced an Advanced Energy Initiative. The initiative is aimed at increasing research and development of advanced coal, solar, cellulosic ethanol,  batteries and fuel cells.  While I applaud this initiative, I should also point out that this is still only a small step, but in the right direction. I am specially glad with the following paragraph:

America Must Act Now To Reduce Dependence On Foreign Sources Of Energy. There are an estimated 250 million vehicles on America's highways, and Americans will purchase more than 17 million vehicles this year. It will take approximately 15 years to switch America's automobiles over to more fuel efficient technologies. The sooner breakthroughs are achieved, the better for America.

It is encouraging that the administration is urging some action NOW as opposed to some time in the future. It is also nice to see that there is some realization that the time scales to impact are quite long. The picture below represents the kind of time scales that I would think necessary for impact of advanced vehicle technologies to reduce fuel use.

This table (click for a larger version) indicates that time scale for impact of new vehicle technologies such as hybrids and fuel cells are of the order of a few decades. In case of fuel cell vehicles, no significant impact will be seen in the next 25 years or so. That is why the need for urgent action now to reduce fuel use of out cars and light-trucks is necessary. Unfortunately, Pres. Bush and much of the American population think that technology is going to solve all of our problems without us having to make any lifestyle choices.

Comments

[John]

Oooh... a forward looking administration initiative! How many have we had so far?

I don't actually know how its going but that AIDS in Africa initiative he announced a couple years back doesn't seem to have made much of an impact yet.

And boosting funding for science and engineering education? How much of that money will find its way to organizations promoting such laudable scientific ideas like intelligent design?

The gap between words and actions with this administration seems pretty high. I'll be reserving judgment on this one.

[Tom]

Yesterday's New York Times says Chuck Vest was on of the folks lobbying the White House to increase research funding (Behind Bush's New Stress on Science, Lobbying by Republican Executives).

[Mike]

Our fearless leader, Dava Newman, said as much at the TPP reunion last night. Good to see you there John. Tom, where were you? Don't come to me with the distance excuse either.

[Tom]

I must have missed that memo. Did this have something to do with IAP and a toast or something.

[William]

Just a quick, constructive comment. In the future you should use a palette-based format such as png or gif to compress graphics that are largely composed of text. The algorithm that jpeg uses is reponsible for the artifacts surrounding the text that are evident in that table.