Steven Chu and Obama's stance on the energy sustainability issue

"So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world's leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that would allow us to become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stop it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity."
-President Obama, March 19, 2009


Steven Chu's view on energy sustainability is that he wishes to use more wind and solar power along with nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse emissions. He strongly pushes for the reduction of coal use quoting, "coal is my worst nightmare". He states that coal produces 100 times more radiation than the average nuclear power plant.

• Obama has created the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which provides 60 billion dollars to produceclean energy investments and a better enviroment for the country. The money is helping train workers to be more "green" minded, create weatherization projects, build green federal buildings to help reduce energy costs, build local renewable energy efforts, creating smart meters to be in houses, and create batteries to store energy.
• In 2011, Obama has created truck and car models so they will get better gas mileage which will save money for consumers.
• Obama wants to create better energy efficient household appliances like dishwashers and washing machines.
• Obama wants to develop renewable energy projects on the waters to generate clean energy in the enviroment.

The main goals of President Obama is to break dependance on oil, produce more energy at home, promote more energy efficency, closing the carbon loophole, protecting American consumers, and promoting American competiveness.

• The amounts of petroleum being imported by the United States and other countries is enormous
• In 2004, Japan used 5.4 million barrels of petroleum a day! Also in 2004 the U.S. 20.4 million barrels of oil per day.

Concept Map

Our Concept map shows ways that we as a population could change our usage of energy in a way that's more efficient and sustainable.

A. One pattern and trend is that the population has been growing rapidly which results in a higher demand on our non renewable sources.

Another pattern is the temperatures have been gettind increasingly warmer as the years go by which in result has been melting the ice caps.

B. A time delay is in the temperature change. It doesn't happen rapidly, as hundreds of years pass, the temperatures will become increasingly warmer and the effects will take effect. Another time delay is that we won't immediatly run out of supplies it will take awhile for it to run out.

C. The relationships between countries will always be there. We are always going to need relationships with other countries for trading and resources. Without that relationship, our country would not manage. Another relatioship is that our technology will always keep advancing. If it is advanacing this much right now, imaging how it will be in 20 years. Hopefully there will be more advances on finding efficient ways to convert energy which could potentially solve our energy problems.

D. As our population starts to grow, the more non-renewable resources we will consume. At this rate, we will run out of them soon. If we start to use renewable sources, we will slowly regain and preserve our non-renewable sources for a time that we need them the most. Trees is our one main way that take the CO2 out of the air and release oxygen. Deforestation is creating more CO2 in the air which is harming to our enviroment. If we cut back on deforestation, there will be less concentrations of CO2 in our enviroment.