Renewable industry cheers Obama budget while coal and nuclear jeer

It was a tale of two budgets.

For many environmentalists and the renewable power sector, President Obama’s $3.6 trillion blueprint released yesterday would provide a flush of new cash to spur the development of energy-efficient buildings and carbon-free wind and solar farms. It also would add new money to ready U.S. EPA for the global warming challenges to come.

But for some in the nuclear and coal industries, which produce 70 percent of America’s electricity, the plan would hamper the progress of the very fuels that switch on most of the nation’s lights.

“The president’s budget proposal will help move our nation toward the goal of providing 20 percent of our nation’s electricity from wind by 2030, and we welcome the proposal,” said American Wind Energy Association Policy Director Rob Gramlich.

Luke Popovich, a spokesman at the National Mining Association, said he was disappointed in the approximately $180 million that would be provided for research and development of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology not yet commercially available that would capture carbon dioxide from coal plants and shoot the gas underground.

“This is not enough,” Popovich said.

New York Times