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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9657)	10/23/2009 6:37:09 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24212

Obama says U.S. must win clean-energy race Speaking at MIT, the president says the nation that leads in the alternative-energy field will also lead the world. Later today, Obama will focus on a different kind of power at two fundraisers. October 23, 2009 \| 10:57 a.m. Reporting from Washington - President Obama, citing a global competition for development of clean-energy alternatives to oil, insisted today that the United States must win that race and called on Congress to enact legislation also intended to curb climate change. "The nation that wins this competition is going to be the nation that leads the world," Obama told an audience at one of the nation's premier research universities in Massachusetts. "And I want America to be that nation -- it's that simple." Obama praised "a legacy of innovation" that "taps into something that is essential about America." "Even in the darkest of times that this nation has seen, it has always sought a brighter horizon," the president said at the MIT in Cambridge, Mass. "We have always been about innovation. We have always been about discovery. That is part of our DNA." Obama was touting MIT's development of "cutting- edge clean-energy technology." He toured a lab demonstrating wind, solar and batter power before delivering an address to an expected audience of about 750 in the Kresge Auditorium. "There is no silver bullet," Obama said. "There is going to be a lot of debate about how we move from an economy that is importing oil to one that is exporting clean energy. . . . There are going to be all kinds of debates, both in the laboratories and on Capitol Hill." The president has pressed for passage of an energy bill in Congress. The House this year narrowly approved a "cap-and-trade" plan to curtail the greenhouse gas emissions of manufacturers and power generators blamed for contributing to global warming. The Senate is advancing a plan of its own. "We are seeing a convergence," Obama said. "The naysayers, the folks who would pretend this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. . . . There are those who would suggest that moving to clean energy will destroy our economy. . . . We're going to have to work on those folks. "But understand that there is also another myth that we are going to have to dispel. . . . That's the idea that there's nothing or little that we can do. It's pessimism." The president also coupled some party business with his trip to MIT: Obama was headlining a campaign fundraising reception for Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval in Boston this afternoon and was planning to join Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) at a fundraiser this evening in Stamford, Conn. Both Democrats face tough reelection contests in 2010, and can benefit from the president's fundraising power. Obama put that influence to work in New York City this week, raising money for the Democratic Party and for the campaign of a Democratic candidate for an upstate New York congressional seat. The president also is promoting Democrats in hard-fought governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, which will be decided Nov. 3, with the president campaigning this week for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, and planning to campaign on Tuesday for Virginia candidate R. Creigh Deeds. Yet the fundraisers have tended to highlight some of the troubles the president's party is having in election contests. Deval was reportedly having trouble raising the money that he was seeking at this afternoon's fundraiser in Boston, and one of Dodd's opponents in Connecticut, former World Wrestling Entertainment Chief Executive Linda McMahon, was running a television ad today criticizing Obama's visit as a "pat on the back from Washington," which she maintains that Dodd does not deserve. Dodd expected to raise $1 million. At MIT, the president was getting some demonstrations of another kind of power: wind and solar energy. Professor Marc Baldo was demonstrating his work on luminescent solar concentrators that collect sunlight for solar cells, with a promise of cutting costs by employing fewer solar cells than needed before for the same energy. Professor Alex Slocom was demonstrating an offshore renewable energy system, which draws excess power from a wind turbine pumping water from the seabed. Professors Angela Belcher and Paula Hammond were demonstrating a high-power battery that can be grown using biological processes without toxic materials. And professor Vladimir Bulovic was demonstrating quantum dot lighting, an alternative for lightbulbs or fluorescent lights that offers warm lighting. "This tells you something about MIT: Everybody hands out periodic tables," the president said, holding one up for his audience, with a laugh. "What's up with that?" latimes.com