Washington, D.C., USA (GLOBE-Net) – U.S. President George Bush again touched on energy security, renewable fuels, and clean coal in his State of the Union Address this year, but for the first time the words ‘climate change’ appeared in the midst of his discussion on energy. The speech included a call to cut gasoline usage in the United States by one fifth over the next decade by increasing the use of renewable fuels by nearly five times and by reforming fuel economy standards for cars.

The inclusion of climate change in the speech was less groundbreaking than Bush’s declaration a year ago that America was “addicted to oil”, but significant as it has not been mentioned in any of his previous State of the Union Addresses.

The current administration’s position on energy and climate change was clearly framed within the context of energy security, with technology development cited as the primary policy goal. “It is in our vital interest to diversify America’s energy supply - and the way forward is through technology,” said Bush.

Technologies for electricity generation mentioned, in order, were clean coal, solar and wind energy, nuclear power. Also stated was a need for research on battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and the expansion of ‘clean diesel’ vehicles and biodiesel fuel.

The major energy-related announcement in the speech was a call to reduce national gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next ten years, something which the President said will significantly cut total imports currently sourced from the Middle East.

Two major policies were proposed to accomplish the “Twenty in Ten” goal: increased use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, and improved fuel economy standards for cars.

Ethanol and biodiesel will get a boost with a proposed mandatory standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017, displacing around 15 percent of gasoline use at that time. Under a previous standard set forth in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and enacted in recent legislation, a gradually increasing standard would require at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2012, compared to around 4.5 billion gallons in 2006.

See: US proposes Renewable Fuels Standard

Bush’s proposal involves the expansion of the current Renewable Fuels Standard into an “Alternative Fuels Standard”, which will include ethanol, biodiesel, methanol, butanol, hydrogen, and other alternative fuels. Energy experts have noted that this may open the door to increased use of ‘coal-to-liquids’ technology, which can be used to convert coal to usable fuel. The new standard would include “safety valves” to allow the government to decrease it in the case of price increases for feedstocks.

Bush also called for continued investment in new ethanol production methods, meaning cellulose-based fuel from agricultural waste, wood chips and grass crops.

In conjunction with renewable fuels, Bush outlined a need to “reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars”, similar to previous legislation for light trucks, a move which he said can conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline over the next decade. The proposal says Congress should not set a numeric fuel efficiency target, but let the Secretary of Transportation set the actual standard based on cost-benefit analysis and scientific research.

Other announcements in the speech related to energy and the environment were a call to increase domestic oil production in ‘environmentally sensitive ways’, and a request for Congress to authorize doubling the capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Overall, the emphasis on technology as a solution to the problem of energy security as well as environmental issues was clear: “America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment - and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change,” said Bush.

A copy of the complete State of the Union Address can be found here.

A description of the energy-related initiatives mentioned in the speech, as well as other energy plans, can be found here.