Pres. Obama : Alternative energy comes first

President Obama in a televised State of the Union address to Congress last night told lawmakers—and the nation—that his three top priorities are energy, healthcare and education. First and foremost on his list: seeking renewable power sources and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

"We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before," he said, harking back to a time when former President Carter wore sweaters in the White House to promote conservation only to be followed by former Pres. Reagan, who had solar photovoltaic panels taken off the rooftop of the White House and eliminated most research and development funding into alternative energy sources.

Obama argued that kicking our foreign oil "addiction," as ex-Pres. Bush called it, and reining in the greenhouse gas emissions behind climate change, is the only way to ensure that the 21st century will be "another American century."

Although solar photovoltaics were invented in the U.S., the country now lags behind Germany and Japan in utilizing and manufacturing the alternative electricity source. And even when alternative energy sources are employed in this country, such as in GM's Chevy Volt—a plug-in hybrid designed to save energy, the environment and automakers —the batteries at the core of the car are made in other countries, like the lithium ion cells produced by LG Chem in South Korea.

The $787 billion stimulus package that Obama recently signed into law will pump $15 billion into development of alternative energy sources—both in the lab and the field—as well as into new transmission lines to carry, for example, wind energy from the Great Plains to the cities to the east, west and south, according to the president. He also called for a cap-and-trade program—in which the government sets an overall limit or cap on on pollution and power plants are able to sell and buy the right to emit up to a set level of carbone dioxide and other greenhouse gases—to make such alternative energy sources more profitable than conventional technology, such as burning fossil fuels (though the president also mentioned "clean coal.")