Gas in Long Grove and Buffalo Grove is now over $4 a galleon. Electricity is just 12 cents per kilowatt hour. Crude Oil leaves Carbon emissions in the air. Electricity doesn't. There's a pattern, and I feel that alternative energy is set to boom due to two key factors.
First off, one of the basic necessities for growth in any industry is demand for its products. As oil costs are once again reaching all time highs, this is demand for clean, and more importantly, cheap energy sources means that the eager consumers are there. In addition, environmental concerns have picked up as well. Americans have experienced firsthand the horrors of drilling for oil; the BP oil spill off the coast of Florida has left more than 184 million galleons of oil in America's waters, with even the most conservative scientists predicting decades off aftereffects. As such, consumer demand for alternative clean sources is around an all time high.
More importantly however, is that the government is actively supporting this, lobbyists or not. Last December, President Obama finally announced his plan to increase government regulation for more sustainable energy. The Official Obama-Biden Plan is as follows:
- Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
- Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
- Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
- Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
- Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
