Alternative energy

One of the issues that President Bush talked about in his State of the Union address was alternative fuels. One of the things that people are not making enough of is that a Republican President is making alternative energy sources one of the key parts of his agenda going into 2006. Could you have seen that when Bush was elected in 2000? Bush actually said the words, "addicted to oil," which is something coming from an "oil industry stooge." I wonder if there was anything to that label anyway.
But I often get nervous when I hear that a President or leader of congress starts talking about government programs or initiatives, whatever that means, to get all this innovation going. So, the innovation isn't going right now?
Joe Katzman thinks that the wind has been blowing in this direction for a while, and now it's finally come out on center stage. Winds of Change has had a running topic on alternative energy sources for a while now. Here's this week's edition, complete with updates on Bio-fuels.

There's been a slight uptick in chatter about energy issues in the US since the President announced his Advanced Energy Initiative in the State of the Union the other night. Of course, if you've been paying attention, as Dean Esmay has, you'll know that Bush has made calls for 'energy independence' an annual tradition, and has used the SotU to announce major initiatives in the past.

And, if you've been paying attention to this corner of the infosphere, or many of the increasing number of energy-related blogs to come online in the past year or so, you'll know that there are all sorts of private (and some public) 'advanced energy initiatives' already well, well underway today in the US and around the world.

Also, check out this article in American Enterprise Online by Robert Zubrin and why he thinks that Ethanol and Methanol will be the key to reducing dependence on forien oil. Zubrin goes on at length as to why reducing dependence is important, why bio-fuels can be the solution, why conservation and hybrids aren't, and how they compare with gasoline.