President Barack Obama, fresh from vacation and nine rounds of golf in Martha’s Vineyard, launched into a busy two weeks promoting renewable energy and his nuclear deal with Iran.
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President Obama cited free-market principles in making the case for alternative energy Monday night, speaking on a day when his administration also announced new government support for clean-energy industries.
However, Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop, chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said Obama’s policies were leveling “increased costs and decreased choices on all Americans and especially the most disadvantaged communities”. Faced with the fast-paced growth that has made it hard for basic infrastructrure to catch up, sources said this proposal would help ensure that the potential renewable sources were fully tapped before turning to conventional energy. “That’s not progress. That’s not innovation”, he said.
Obama defended renewable energy and lambasted coal-championing critics as free market hypocrites.
Obama defended the climate rule on Monday, calling it the “single most important step Americans have ever taken to tackle climate change”.
Monday’s speech kicked off a two-week global warming messaging sprint by Obama that will take him from the Las Vegas event to New Orleans on Thursday for a Hurricane Katrina commemoration tour to a glacier in north Alaska next week. Those steps included a $1 billion loan guarantee fund for projects like rooftop solar and a program to help families improve energy efficiency at their homes. That plan, announced this month, provides incentives for much of those reductions to come from renewable energy projects – exactly what executives at the conference are looking to sell.
The world’s largest solar thermal power facility, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts.
The American economy grew under an old way of doing things, Obama said, when “we were less anxious about dependence on fossil fuel”. The same report said so far 2015 is the warmest year on record. “Solar isn’t just for the green crowd anymore”, he said.
Obama also was announcing the approval of a transmission line that will support a 485-megawatt solar plant planned for Riverside County in California.
Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland Coralee O’Rourke said the trial could see more solar batteries rolled out across regional Queensland.
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The Federal Housing Administration will also allow low-income homeowners to save money by using renewable energy and making their existing energy use more efficient, it added. The Blythe Mesa plant would produce enough renewable energy for more than 145,000 homes, according to an administration document.
