Bush's plan to wean US off imported oil: Ambitious enough?

"The president's plan is a compendium of research initiatives which may have a great impact in the distant future and are definitely worth pursuing," Ms. Korin says in a statement. "But in the short run, they will do little to advance our petroleum predicament. What we need most now is to focus on deployment, not only research and development."

Cellulosic ethanol - a technology to make it possible to use switch grass, wood chips, and other biomass for biofuels - could be cost-competitive with gasoline in a few years, the president argued. If so, he should be requiring automakers to make all cars biofuel-compatible since the cost to do so is only about $150 per car, some argue.

Other analysts say the biggest oil savings could be done with a stroke of Bush's pen, saving more oil than his research proposals far more quickly. Boosting fuel-mileage standards for automobiles saved the lion's share of US oil savings during the 1970s.

The president's proposals were "a repackaging of the same old wish list for corporate lobbyists" that did little to cut near-term US dependence on foreign oil, says Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club, in a statement.

While it might not affect dependence on foreign oil, the nuclear industry's bid to build 12 to 15 new plants by 2015 got a boost from the president's initiative. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby group, applauded "the President's favorable view."

Many others, however, were angered by the president's use of the term "clean, safe nuclear energy," an industry characterization. In a statement, Tony Massar, vice president for political affairs for the League of Conservation Voters, criticized the president's focus on "unworkable technologies and dangerous energy sources of yesterday."

However, wind and solar advocates were ecstatic at the big hikes in federal research funding - $44 million for wind and $65 million for solar respectively - and for being mentioned as part of the solution.

Following are the main components of the president's initiative, with the proposed dollar amounts for the 2007 budget.

• Coal Research Initiative. $281 million for development of clean coal technologies.

• Solar America Initiative. $148 million to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convert sunlight directly to electricity.

• Expanding clean energy from wind. $44 million for wind energy research.

• Biorefinery initiative. $150 million to help develop bio-based transportation fuels from agricultural waste products, such as wood chips, stalks, or switch grass.

• Developing more efficient vehicles. $30 million to speed up the development of battery technology for hybrid vehicles and to extend the range of these vehicles.

• Hydrogen fuel initiative. $289 million to accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cells and affordable hydrogen-powered cars.

- The White House

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