The Energy to Go the Distance

Even as President Obama presses for renewable energy, he reminds us that not only will the entrenched oil and coal lobbies, and backward-looking business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce resist the change, but that we will need carbon-based fuels for decades. Energy reform is a strategic challenge and a matter of national security and economic security for the United States. In a speech he gave on Oct. 23 at MIT, Obama said "nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing [sic] and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy." It's a race we have to win.