With less than six months remaining in his stay at the White House, President Obama has come out with a program to use the U.S. taxpayers’ money to guarantee loans for parties who are working to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and the infrastructure to charge them. The money comes into play in the form of up to $4.5 billion in loan guarantees. The administration is inviting applications to support the commercial-scale deployment of innovative electric vehicle charging facilities.
Car2Go
Last week the White House put out a fact sheet entitled “Obama Administration Announces Federal and Private Sector Actions to Accelerate Electric Vehicle Adoption in the United States.” The fact sheet summarizes its actions like this: “The Obama Administration is taking responsible steps to combat climate change, increase access to clean energy technologies, and reduce our dependence on oil.”
The Obama White House took credit for its “multiple programs across the Administration that are working to scale up electric vehicles and fueling infrastructure, including at the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Defense, and at the Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, in the past eight years the number of plug-in electric vehicle models increased from one to more than 20, battery costs have decreased 70 percent, and we have increased the number of electric vehicle charging stations from less than 500 in 2008 to more than 16,000 today – a 40 fold increase.”
Not surprisingly, numerous business units of Duke Energy and Southern Company were listed as supporters/partners. If the U.S. economy were to see a significant adoption of electric plug-in vehicles by the driving consumer, it could mean more electric power sold from the grid for the purpose of fueling transportation, potentially replacing the marketshare for gasoline, diesel fuel and ethanol that would be replaced by plugging in millions of electric cars.
Ward’s Auto
In spite of the glowing White House language about its efforts to boost EV sales, U.S. consumer uptake for EVs has been sluggish. Americans bought just 102,600 such vehicles in 2015, a year when U.S. auto sales set a 15-year record with 17.5 million cars and light trucks sold. That’s about a half of one percent of the total U.S. auto sales. Analysts largely credit $2.00 per gallon gasoline prices for the overwhelming sales numbers for cars with internal combustion engines. Legacy gasoline and diesel engines can push heavier vehicles farther at higher rates of speed.
Obama Out the Door in Six Months: What does the next President Think about Energy?
In the past two weeks, the two major party candidates who will attempt to take over the executive branch from President Obama in the November 2016 election are now official, with the top of the ballot showing Democrat Hillary Clinton vs. Republican Donald Trump.
A Clinton vote backs a candidate who favors “mov[ing] our economy along a path towards deep decarbonization by 2050.” Some of Mrs. Clinton’s energy policy points include installing more than a half billion solar panels by the end of her first term, bumping installed solar capacity by 700% by 2020. Add more wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and other renewables to the grid and increase the number of government grants for clean energy projects.
Trump has promised that his administration would remove barriers to energy development. In a speech in North Dakota in May, Trump said the president’s “anti-energy orders have also weakened our security, by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy. Every dollar of energy we don’t explore here, is a dollar of energy that makes someone else rich over there.”
Trump said, “North Dakota shows how energy exploration creates shared prosperity. Better schools. More funding for infrastructure. Higher wages. Lower unemployment.”
Trump said that the anti-oil and gas development actions of the Obama administration have “denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet.” Trump said the president’s “anti-energy orders have also weakened our security, by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy. Every dollar of energy we don’t explore here, is a dollar of energy that makes someone else rich over there,” the candidate said.
Backing their Green Favorites Not a Winning Proposition for Obama or his Administration
President Obama backed a green energy technology developer by putting up a half billion dollars in U.S. government loan guarantees earlier in his administration. That was Solyndra and the company went bust, taking the taxpayers’ money down with it.
The Washington Post
