U.S. Energy Policy

U.S. Energy Policy 2009

The energy challenges our country faces are severe and have gone unaddressed for far too long. Our addiction to foreign oil doesn't just undermine our national security and wreak havoc on our environment -- it cripples our economy and strains the budgets of working families all across America. President Obama and Vice President Biden have a comprehensive plan to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Energy Plan Overview

Provide Short-term Relief to American Families

Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation.
Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.

Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 Years

Increase Fuel Economy Standards.
Get 1 Million Plug-In Hybrid Cars on the Road by 2015.
Create a New $7,000 Tax Credit for Purchasing Advanced Vehicles.
Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
A "Use it or Lose It" Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases.
Promote the Responsible Domestic Production of Oil and Natural Gas.

Create Millions of New Green Jobs

Ensure 10 percent of Our Electricity Comes from Renewable Sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source - Energy Efficiency.
Weatherize One Million Homes Annually.
Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology.
Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.

Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050

Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.

Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act)

Secretary Steven Chu The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act began a new era at the Department of Energy.

President Obama has set clear goals for this bill: creating or protecting 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, while lifting our country out of this economic crisis and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. To achieve those aims, the Department of Energy has been given new resources and new responsibilities.

Each of the ten initiatives below will put Americans back to work and begin to transform the way we use energy. We will reduce our carbon emissions and create entire new industries based on America's resources, America's ingenuity, and America's workers - and these will be jobs that can't be outsourced.

The Department of Energy will carry out this economic recovery plan with the highest level of speed, transparency, and accountability. I recently announced a sweeping reorganization of the way the Department awards grants and loans, so we can begin creating jobs as quickly and wisely as possible. We will also be posting the Department's progress regularly on this website and at Recovery.gov, where you can monitor the efforts of other federal agencies as well.

Achieving the President's bold goals will take the hard work and collaboration of all of us - homeowners, scientists, local and state governments, small businesses, industry, and many others - but I am confident that, together, we will succeed. We will turn this time of economic crisis into an opportunity to build a clean, secure, and prosperous energy future for America.

Thank you,

Steven Chu

TRANSFORM THE WAY AMERICANS USE ENERGY

1. Energy efficient homes and businesses: Funding provided through the states for homeowners and businesses to take immediate steps toward energy efficiency - reducing heating and air conditioning bills and creating jobs. $5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Buildings use approximately 40 percent of energy consumed in the United States today, so increasing the efficiency of buildings is one of the most effective ways to lower energy consumption, save money, and reduce carbon emissions. The recovery package includes funds to weatherize more than a million homes, beginning with a home energy audit to identify which measures - from adding insulation to sealing leaky windows, roofs, and doorways to upgrading furnaces and appliances - will have the greatest impact. In addition to creating construction jobs in cities and towns across the country, weatherization saves homeowners money and makes their homes more livable. For businesses, the recovery funding will support construction of combined heat and power generation - creating jobs, while reducing energy use and costs.

In addition to funding these ready-to-go energy efficiency projects, the Department of Energy, in partnership with states, industry and manufacturers, will also put scientists, engineers and computer programmers to work developing better ways to build ever more efficient buildings and appliances.

Read more about DOE's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
Read more about home energy efficiency.
Read more about industrial energy efficiency.
Learn more about the DOE's research in building technologies.

2. Greening federal buildings: Provide funding to improve the efficiency of federal government offices and buildings, reducing energy bills and creating jobs. $4.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The U.S. government is the largest energy consumer in the world, using approximately two percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. today. As the Department of Energy invests in construction projects to make its own facilities more energy efficient, it will also provide guidance to the rest of the federal government on how to reduce energy costs and the environmental impact of federal buildings through the Federal Energy Management Program. The projects will spur job creation and reduce the government's energy bill by 25 percent, while significantly lowering carbon emissions.

Read more about efforts to green federal buildings.

BUILD A CLEAN, EFFICIENT ENERGY SUPPLY

3. Renewable energy projects: Accelerate the construction of solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy generation facilities through a combination of loans and grants, creating jobs immediately and providing the United States with a clean energy supply for the future. $2.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Photo of a wind turbine with the sun setting behind it. The United States has tremendous potential to harness its natural renewable resources to increase the supply of clean electricity - from the windy plains of the Midwest, to the sunny deserts of the Southwest, to the subterranean geothermal resources of the West. This set of initiatives will provide money to spur industry investment in shovel-ready projects that have been delayed due to the economic crisis, fund new projects to pilot emerging technologies, and support the scientists and engineers who will design the next generation of renewable energy technologies.

Learn more about the Department of Energy's solar energy program.
Learn more about the Department of Energy's wind and hydropower program.
Learn more about the Department of Energy's geothermal energy program.
Learn more about the Department of Energy's loan guarantees to support renewable energy.

4. Smart Grid technology and transmission infrastructure: Build the transmission lines and grid technology infrastructure needed for a better, smarter grid to transport electricity - from the places renewable energy can be produced to the places it will be used. $4.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Photo with power lines in the foreground and wind turbines in the background. Investments in improving the grid - with more than 3,000 miles of new or modernized transmission lines - will create jobs immediately and lower the number of power outages, increase reliability, and allow new renewable energy to come online. Deploying "Smart Meters" in homes and buildings across the country will make the energy grid cleaner, more efficient and more reliable. And the Department of Energy will invest in design and demonstration projects to improve on existing grid technologies. The Department will also invest in job training for the next generation of transmission workers to learn the skills needed to build and maintain a more efficient, smarter grid.

Learn more about the Smart Grid.
Learn more about transmission projects in the northwest United States.
Learn more about transmission projects in the western and Midwest United States.

5. Clean fossil energy technology: Develop innovative technologies for clean coal, petroleum coke and other plants of the future, allowing our nation to safely use our abundant coal and fossil energy resources. $3.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Coal is a cheap and abundant energy resource for the United States, currently providing more than 50 percent of the nation's electricity supply. This set of initiatives will focus on research, development and deployment of technologies to use coal more cleanly and efficiently. Investments will go both toward finding and testing new ways to produce energy from coal, such as gasification, and improving techniques to clean or capture and store the emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Learn more about the Department of Energy's clean coal initiatives.

6. Next generation biofuels: Provide grants to accelerate the research and deployment of cellulosic biofuels technologies to provide a clean alternative to imported oil. $800 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Working with industry, the Department of Energy will put scientists and researchers to work finding new ways to convert plant materials -- such as corn stalks and husks, switchgrass, and woodchips -- into fuel that can power our cars and trucks. Research investments will focus on innovations along the value chain - from addressing feedstock sustainability, to methods to break them down into basic chemical compounds and convert them into fuels. By co-investing with industry to build new cellulosic biofuel refineries to test these new technologies, we will take important steps toward transitioning the American vehicle fleet to ever cleaner alternatives.

Learn more about the Department of Energy's biofuels programs.

REINVIGORATE THE ECONOMY WITH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

7. Science and basic research in the energy technologies of the future: Investments in building and renovating laboratories and research facilities to create jobs immediately and enable the research that will sustain American industry and provide new energy and climate solutions. $1.6 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Photo of two scientist working the controls of a laser. Rebuilding facilities for basic science is vital for maintaining America's role as the world leader in innovation. These construction projects will allow ongoing research into high energy and nuclear physics, basic chemical and materials science, nanotechnology, biological and environmental science, advanced computing, and other cutting-edge fields. The key will be ensuring the discoveries made in Department of Energy labs find their way to the assembly line as more efficient production processes and into stores as new products offered by American companies.

Learn more about the scientific research supported by the Department of Energy.

8. Battery research and advanced vehicle technologies: Loans and grants to support the development of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems to reinvigorate the U.S. auto industry, reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil, and transform the way automobiles are powered. $2 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Battery research is critical for achieving a clean, secure, and prosperous energy future. Electric vehicles are currently a niche market, largely because today's batteries can't safely store enough energy to power cars over long distances. At the same time, electric utilities are only able to use a certain level of renewable energy sources like solar and wind because they lack a large-scale energy storage solution. The invention of new battery technologies has the potential not only to reshape the U.S. auto industry but to enable the wide-spread use of renewable energy to power America.

Learn more about advanced vehicle technologies at the Department of Energy.

Learn more about the Department of Energy's loan program for vehicle technologies.
Learn more about battery and energy storage programs at the Department of Energy.

9. Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E): Jump start advanced energy technologies by funding high-risk, high-payoff research in collaboration with industry. $400 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was founded at the beginning of the Cold War and developed the technologies that resulted in modern computer operating systems and the Internet, ARPA-E will support transformational energy technology research projects with the goal of enhancing the nation's economic and energy security. By fostering an atmosphere of innovation, ARPA-E will provide a place for research into cutting edge technologies that are still too risky for private industry, creating the opportunity for revolutionary breakthroughs in energy technology.

Learn more about DARPA, the model for ARPA-E.

SAFELY MANAGE AND CONTAIN NUCLEAR MATERIALS

10. Cleanup of nuclear legacy: Redouble the ongoing efforts to clean up radioactive waste from Cold War nuclear project sites, creating jobs and reclaiming lands for communities across the country. $6 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Spanning the country from South Carolina to Washington, the Department of Energy works to secure the nuclear materials and radioactive waste left from the construction of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. These efforts include building and operating treatment facilities, safely moving and securing the remaining waste materials, and restoring the cleaned-up land.

Learn more about the efforts to clean up the nuclear legacy.

U.S. Energy Overview

Secretary of Energy	Steven Chu
Basic Petroleum Statistics (data for 2006 except where noted)
Gallons of Oil per Barrel	42
Barrels of Oil per Metric Ton (U.S.)	7.33
U.S. Crude Oil Production	5,102,000 barrels/day
State Ranking of Crude Oil Production	Texas - 1,088,000 barrels/day
U.S. Crude Oil Imports	10,118,000 barrels/day
U.S. Crude Oil Imports from OPEC	5,517,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Crude Oil Supplier	Canada - 1,802,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Product Imports	3,589,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Product Imports from OPEC	733,000 barrels/day
U.S. Net Petroleum Imports	12,390,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Total Petroleum Supplier	Canada - 2,353,000 barrels/day
Top Oil Producing Countries & Exporters	#1 - Saudi Arabia
Top Oil Consuming Countries & Importers	#1 - United States
U.S. Total Petroleum Exports	1,317,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Consumption	20,687,000 barrels/day
Dependence on Net Petroleum Imports	59.9%
U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption	9,253,000 barrels/day (388.6 million gallons/day)
Share of US Oil Consumption for Transportation	68%
Number of U.S. Operable Petroleum Refineries	149
U.S. Refiners Ranked Capacity (1/1/2006)	#1 - Baytown, Texas (ExxonMobil) 562,500 barrels/day
Top U.S. Petroleum Refining States	#1 - Texas 4,241,000 barrels/day
U.S. Proved Reserves of Crude Oil as of December 31, 2005	21,757 million barrels
Top U.S. Oil Fields(2005)	Prudhoe Bay, AK
Top U.S. Producing Companies(2005)	BP - 827,000 barrels/day
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve	689 million barrels
Total World Oil Production (2005)	82,532,000 barrels/day
Total World Petroleum Consumption (2005)	83,607,000 barrels/day

Date Last Updated/Reviewed: July 2007 Next Update/Review: June 2008

Credit: Energy Information Agency Official Energy Statistics from The U.S. Government

United States Crude Oil Imports (Annual Thousand Barrels )

	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
All Countries	4,476,501	4,811,104	5,005,541	5,003,082	4,915,957	4,711,238
Non OPEC*	2,592,417	2,724,642	2,966,253	2,989,479	2,733,350	2,530,488
OPEC*	1,884,084	2,086,462	2,039,288	2,013,603	2,182,607	2,180,750
Canada	756,354	782,598	796,219	858,839	895,976	899,935
Persian Gulf	912,749	912,447	851,855	807,172	789,607	868,516
Saudi Arabia	647,666	570,137	560,823	534,143	541,987	560,705
Mexico	592,466	609,225	606,751	622,408	559,304	475,545
Venezuela	502,328	568,944	558,157	517,947	496,684	435,769
Nigeria	316,522	417,152	425,440	406,662	413,932	362,263
Iraq	175,663	240,191	193,987	201,866	176,709	229,300
Algeria	139,333	165,346	174,652	239,959	244,605	200,192
Angola	135,559	115,708	172,609	195,048	185,352	187,761
Russia	92,711	109,151	149,681	134,646	151,074	169,415
Virgin Islands (U.S.)	104,981	120,860	119,544	119,607	126,129	117,191
Brazil	39,433	38,052	56,881	70,281	73,039	94,261
United Kingdom	160,520	139,223	144,674	99,330	101,181	85,415
Ecuador	52,752	89,640	103,153	101,457	74,179	80,714
Kuwait	80,208	91,540	88,729	67,355	66,185	76,988
Colombia	71,073	64,413	71,532	56,532	56,487	73,238
Netherlands	31,660	36,955	55,076	63,390	46,857	61,142
Chad	1,577	24,592	35,574	37,143	28,400	38,080
Libya		7,410	20,520	31,896	42,801	37,467
Norway	98,565	89,374	85,197	71,603	51,970	37,303
France	9,867	18,672	22,596	26,736	25,838	32,468
Belgium	29,936	33,377	27,941	27,107	30,902	31,472
Aruba			45,648	45,290	40,022	31,341
Equatorial Guinea	24,377	28,450	25,385	21,957	21,597	28,289
Azerbaijan		484	563	10,091	22,809	27,152
Congo (Brazzaville)	11,455	5,246	11,592	12,957	23,849	24,694
Trinidad and Tobago	35,809	32,116	41,056	42,870	36,365	23,268
Gabon	47,670	52,061	46,539	21,773	23,577	21,430
Italy	12,324	15,579	15,702	21,350	19,968	19,423
Germany	11,507	20,236	26,896	25,265	26,161	19,192
Korea, South	11,226	14,794	23,001	34,330	44,889	17,657
Argentina	38,898	35,536	37,065	19,800	23,510	17,595
Spain	8,679	8,965	10,067	17,507	19,401	16,370
Australia	12,523	10,029	5,213	2,774	1,389	12,880
Peru	5,730	6,672	12,924	13,737	12,427	12,172
Finland	6,557	7,193	5,306	6,296	9,064	11,885
Vietnam	9,209	9,256	11,400	15,545	11,156	10,628
Sweden	4,423	10,769	9,593	10,993	9,118	10,153
Indonesia	13,609	16,475	8,664	9,967	9,943	8,068
Oman	12,736	3,570	8,781	12,826	11,538	6,765
Belarus		2,520	1,262	4,526	7,060	6,630
China	9,869	8,138	11,940	10,059	4,892	5,628
Egypt	3,193	5,147	5,342	2,194	3,290	5,605
Guatemala	8,027	6,699	3,920	5,644	3,975	5,394
Cameroon	4,499	8,548	2,923	2,857	10,804	5,341
Thailand	1,031	563	955	3,737	5,993	5,148
Lithuania	5,561	6,327	7,923	7,641	3,800	4,891
Kazakhstan		4,492	7,583	4,141	6,881	4,466
Netherlands Antilles	25,415	10,641	10,663	11,706	3,185	3,732
Japan	2,757	3,873	3,981	9,748	12,927	3,421
Estonia	6,842	9,160	12,122	13,925	5,716	3,410
Ivory Coast	1,514	2,356	8,734	2,073	531	3,298
Tunisia	425	1,759	1,433	1,975	5,003	3,114
Portugal	5,526	6,100	3,430	8,545	9,220	2,989
Turkey	4,130	1,722	7,590	4,618	4,719	2,827
Malaysia	11,152	10,875	7,849	7,110	5,207	2,789
Ukraine		352	888	1,699	403	2,756
Bahamas	10,831	13,916	11,693	3,143	1,325	2,610
Jamaica		723	810	1,898	1,771	2,439
Latvia	10,443	11,445	8,835	7,860	3,851	2,347
Israel	233	795	1,956	1,812	944	2,313
Syria	4,600	3,584	4,410	2,965	1,402	2,303
China, Taiwan	2,545	5,822	7,534	4,075	7,420	2,125
India	7,138	4,291	10,332	4,402	10,449	2,040
Denmark	4,982	2,631	2,576	2,541	2,238	1,731
El Salvador		128	663	2,108	1,730	1,667
United Arab Emirates	7,731	7,264	6,722	3,148	3,828	1,474
Bolivia		311	528	699	1,157	1,239
Ireland	306	902	1,659		854	1,186
Greece	1,180	1,329	855	1,915	1,463	1,082
Mauritania				942	950	995
Costa Rica	283	491	753	910	1,056	957
Belize				232	250	952
Ghana	923	1,512	881	197	422	831
Turkmenistan	19	182	1,618	323	1,742	809
Singapore	2,461	3,268	5,228	6,275	4,293	649
Bulgaria	1,530	960	541	276	1,375	635
Cyprus				141		604
New Zealand						571
South Africa	408	83	322	2,044	2,637	511
Brunei	10,115	5,616	5,215	6,086	3,838	356
Panama					347	348
Morocco	678	2,985	621	545	705	321
Niue		78		151		313
Pakistan				600		307
Georgia, Republic of	1,322	19	722		669	92
Midway Islands			255	771	53	79
Malta	388	1,398	251			67
Senegal				9		65
Qatar	1,024	2,003	1,594	660	581	49
Romania	2,157	245	1,539	1,040	239	49
Uruguay		2,064	1,165	932	234	37
Poland	208	31	102	981	418	32
Hungary	5	6	4	129	11	22
Albania			529
Austria
Bahrain	457	1,312			317
Barbados	326
Benin
Burma	302
Chile	3,845	2,766	6,323	3,614	2,314
Congo (Kinshasa)	698	5,101	688		473
Cook Islands
Croatia
Guinea	479				107
Hong Kong
Kyrgyzstan
Nambia				648
Papua New Guinea	649
Philippines			60		211
Puerto Rico			74
Slovakia				4
Spatly Islands		650			43
Swaziland	258
Switzerland		288	8		3
Togo
Tonga		1,759
Yemen	2,130	1,722	4,806	7,525	4,837

Credit: Energy Information Agency Official Energy Statistics from The U.S. Government

U.S. Primary Energy Consumption
by Source and Sector, 2007
(quadrillion Btu)

Energy Consumption

Country	% of Energy Consumed	% of World Population
United States	25	4.6
China	9.9	21.2
Russia	7	2.5
Japan	5.8	2.1
Germany	3.9	1.3
India	3.1	16.6
France	2.9	.9
U.K.	2.6	1
Canada	2.5	.5
Korea	1.9	.7

The 1970s oil shocks occurred when US oil imports were far lower than they are today. America now imports over half its oil compared with 34.8 percent in 1973. This level of dependence on imports (58%) is the highest in history, and will increase as The United States uses up domestic resources. The vast majority of the world's oil reserves are concentrated in the Middle East (65% to 75%), and controlled by the members of the OPEC oil cartel. The United States accounts for about 25 percent of global oil consumption but has only 3 percent of proven global oil reserves.

U.S. oil consumption has risen by 12 percent since 1973, the year of the Arab oil embargo.
U.S. oil consumption in the transportation sector (including motor vehicles, planes, and ships) has risen by 42 percent since 1973.
Between 1973 and the present, oil imports to the United States rose -- in absolute terms -- by two thirds.
Almost half of U.S. oil imports come from OPEC producers and a quarter comes from the unstable Persian Gulf region.
Crude oil production in the lower 48 states peaked in 1970 and has been declining since.
Crude oil production in Alaska's north slope peaked in 1988 and has since fallen by nearly 50 percent. (The time between the beginning and peaking in Alaskan production was a mere 10 years.)

United States Basic Data by Fuel

Energy

Credit: The Whitehouse, Energy Information Administration, The American Petroleum Institute