President Barack Obama has continued with steps to ensure the United States increases the use of solar panels, boosts energy efficiency in federal buildings and trains more people to work in the renewable energy field.
“It’s the right thing to do for the planet,” President Obama said, standing in the outdoor lighting display section of a Wal-Mart store that features roof-top solar panels and a charging station for electric vehicles, among other energy-saving retrofits.
Reuters Newsagency reports the president used the stop to show how major corporations have committed to increasing the generation of solar power at their facilities.
Wal-Mart, Apple, Yahoo, Google and IKEA were among the companies that have made such commitments.
Mr Obama made the announcement at the end of a three-day swing through the state of California mostly devoted to raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democratic Party.
Reuters reports the president and administration officials spent much of the time highlighting their concern about climate change and the need to take steps to address the change.
“The sooner we work together to adapt the economy to this reality of climate change, the more likely it is that we do right by our kids, and leave a more stable world,” Mr Obama said at what the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart US, Bill Simon, said was the first visit by a sitting US president to one of his stores.
Mr Obama said an additional $US2 billion would be devoted to energy efficiency upgrades to federal government buildings over the next three years.
Several financial institutions, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs Group, were announcing new plans for “large scale investment and innovative programs” to develop solar and renewable energy installations, the White House said.
President Obama’s executive actions would support efforts at community colleges so that 50,000 workers would join the solar industry by 2020, it said.
“Investing in solar and efficiency makes sense to reduce our carbon emissions, but also for our pocketbooks and for our economy,” Dan Utech, an energy adviser to Mr Obama, said during a conference call.
Reuters reports he said the US solar energy industry had expanded dramatically under Mr Obama’s watch, with installations increasing to an amount enough to power more than two million homes.
A presidential spokesman also announced the completion of a project to install solar panels at the White House itself.
The panels were American-made and part of an energy retrofit that would improve the building’s energy efficiency.
“The project, which helps demonstrate that historic buildings can incorporate solar energy and energy efficiency upgrades, is estimated to pay for itself in energy savings over the next eight years,” spokesman Matt Lehrich said.
Solar panels at the White House are not entirely new as President Obama promised in 2010 to put solar panels on the White House roof.
Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter had put up solar panels in 1979, during an oil crisis, but Ronald Reagan, his Republican successor, removed them during repairs.
One Response
Wind solar take 10-14 yrs to payback the CO2e emissions from raw material fabrication transport to distant sites pour large concrete bases including towers hook to a distant grid in a 15yr life cycle. Coal burning is de-facto volcanoes. The nox sox emissions become via suns radiation life sustaining nitrates sulfates
The global solution is to sequester CO2e into the 2-4% of vegetation that generates soil (best in deserts) to grow food fodder. Under UNFCCC 100yr rules carbon trading funds all with little adverse impact on national accounts The USA could should lead in this job creating work! Robert Vincin