To Each His Own, I guess, but in my view Obama's push is nowhere comparable to the Kennedy Lunar challenge. In case you haven't noticed, the whole "Global Warming" panic is blowing apart and has become a running joke on late-night TV shows. The impetus behind solar and wind has thus lost a great deal of momentum, as people realize that they really aren't practical at current fossil fuel prices, which also aren't going up any time soon, as enormous new reserves continue to be discovered.
Theory is one thing, practice is another. We need jobs, not government jobs, not public union sector jobs, not green jobs. Jobs.
Ideas have to start somewhere. Take clean energy. To be defined as clean, energy can’t require a continuous carbon foot print to produce power. That’s the goal. Innovation and passion requires a sustained source of inspiration, and mentors to follow such ideas through to completion. Creating these kinds of ideas and future technologies is the easy part. No matter who you are, you have to believe in it, or it will surely fail in its progress. And then you have to be convinced and convey to others around you that it is a worthwhile goal, or else it will not attract development and research required to move forward with sustainable products and long term life cycles.
President Kennedy inspired an entire future generation with the space program. President Obama is following up with a vision for clean and renewable energy. There are always demands made of any President to practice what they preach. Saving energy at the White House was the first step, ensuring Federal Agencies followed best practices for energy conservation and sponsor through the OSTP and Department of Energy new research set the example. That would be enough, most might argue.
President Obama recognizes it demands more. If the country is to be a world leader in this technical space, it also needs to develop a new generation of thinkers, engineers and designers to continue the process into the future. In other words, it has to be a complete life cycle of clean energy products and services. The desire to ensure its success means relentless and continued development, and the President is not taking the, I’m too busy to be involved hands-off approach. In fact he’s closer to his vision than President Kennedy was to the space program, as I think this video illustrates.
Update: March 4: President’s address at Savannah Tech (where this walk through took place)
