President Barack Obama has slaughtered a „sacred cow“. “There will never be cheap oil or cheap fuel again”, the President told his shocked Americans, to whom cheap energy had been a kind of human right so far. Over and out! What Europeans have been discussing for years, is beginning to dawn the Americans, too. Their President and the oil disaster have finally opened their eyes. All fossil fuels will run out quickly, get therefore more and more expensive and they cause the greenhouse effect or are as dangerous as nuclear power plants.

Finally Obama has announced what his supporters had long time been waiting for: a radical turn in energy policy in favour of renewable energies. The end of the “oil age” had long been foreseen. But nothing had really been done against it, complained the US-President. The current oil disaster gives Obama the chance to make good one of his central electoral promises which was a more efficient energy policy and a 100 % change to renewable energies, as Al Gore had worked out during the electoral campaign. According to that, the USA could generate 100 % green electricity.

As regards wind energy, the USA is meanwhile world leader in front of China and Germany. This has created more than 90,000 new jobs. The growth of all renewable energy industries is tremendous. Since 2000 this sector has annually been growing by 12 %. With regard to the oil disaster, Obama intends to speed up this growth. 2 million jobs should be created. At the moment, huge solar plants are currently being built in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and other southern states and are installed inter alia by German companies. By contrast with Germany, nobody is bothered by the shimmering blue solar panels on the roofs or by wind turbines in the landscape. Yet before the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster Obama’s Government had given 70 billion dollars for the development of renewable energies. At the same time, the Government plans to improve energy efficiency.

How much will that turn in energy cost? BP had to promise the President to pay 16 billion dollars of compensation into a fund. The consequences of the former energy policy will soon be more expensive than the change to renewable energies. The turn in energy costs, but no turn in energy costs the future.

© Franz Alt 2010

Übersetzung: Andrea Polak