In a speech last week, President Obama announced a new outline of his administration's energy policy, a document called a "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future." What's new about this latest foray into energy policy isn't the policy itself—which he said is essentially what he's been pursuing since he took office—but the packaging. Whereas he started out with a clear focus on climate change, the emphasis has shifted to decreasing dependence on imported oil and stabilizing gas prices.

In his speech, Obama announced a new goal: reducing oil imports by one-third. But there isn't much new in terms of policies to achieve that goal. There are no direct means of ensuring that this ambitious goal is met, such as a cap on oil imports or a tax on gasoline. What's in the blueprint is largely what's been a part of the policy all along: fuel economy standards, various government supports for biofuels, and support for alternative vehicles such as electric vehicles.

The other big goal in the blueprint is the clean energy standard that Obama announced in his state of the Union address. This also isn't new: it is essentially a substitute for the cap and trade policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions that Obama used to support, but that failed to become law. With a clean energy standard, the mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is requiring utilities to choose from a list of approved technologies for generating electricity.

The clean energy standard is now also a part of the primary focus of reducing oil consumption. It is presented as a way to enable electric vehicles by making electricity generation cleaner.

Will these policies work to reduce oil imports, stabilize gas prices (presumably at affordable levels), and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Will they even become law or official regulation? I'm working on a longer article to try to make an educated guess. My inclination is to be skeptical. The 1970s oil shocks led to regulations that required the fuel economy of new cars to double by 1985. In 1982, the U.S. imported 3.5 million barrels a day (.xls file). Now it imports more than twice that much: about nine million. The policy may have slowed growth in imports, but it certainly wasn't enough to decrease them.

Will increasing fuel economy standards, and other policies that have been tried before, such as supporting biofuels, work now? I'm curious what TR readers think.

A U.S. Marine regiment in Afghanistan has used solar panels to reduce the amount of diesel it uses in generators from 20 gallons a day to just 2.5 gallons, according to a news report from the Marines.

"Our generators typically use more than 20 gallons of fuel a day. We are down to 2.5 gallons a day," said [Staff Sergeant David] Doty, 3rd Squad Leader, with 1st Platoon, 'I' Company, and Fulton, Mo., native. "The system works amazing. By saving fuel for generators, it has cut back on the number of convoys, meaning less opportunity for one of our vehicles to hit an IED."

The panels are used to recharge batteries for laptops, radios, and lighting. They're part of a program called the Experimental Forward Operating Base (ExFOB).

According to Staff Sgt. Greg Wenzel, 1st Plt., platoon sergeant, this has helped PB Sparks' security when the sun goes down. "It's way more tactical not running the generators at night," said the Altoona, Pa., native. "At night the noise of a generator can carry a long way, become a calling card for insurgents."

"When we first got the gear, I was a skeptic. As Marines, we do not always like change. I expected ExFOB to be a burden," added [Gunnery Sergeant Willy] Carrion, a native of Philadelphia. "Now that we are in theater, and we have so many [patrol bases] set up, we all see the how crucial and important renewable energy is. Every infantry battalion should have the ExFOB, it has proven to be an extremely valuable asset!"Some experts have suggested that the military's use of alternative energy, including solar panels and biofuels, can help lower costs by increasing the scale of manufacturing, helping these technologies compete with conventional sources of energy.

Some experts have suggested that the military's use of alternative energy, including solar panels and biofuels, can help lower costs by increasing the scale of manufacturing, helping these technologies compete with conventional sources of energy.

The gasoline-powered, internal combustion engine dominated transportation during the 20th century, but during the early years of the automobile it wasn't obvious that it would beat out two alternatives: batteries and steam.

The movement to cut carbon emissions and petroleum consumption has of course renewed interest in electric vehicles. But there's also an effort to revive the steam engine.

Today I got a letter (speaking of antiquated technologies) from the president of the Steam Automobile Club of America, Tom Kimmel, directing my attention to Cyclone Power Technologies, a startup based in Pompano Beach, FL. A few days ago, the company demonstrated its new steam engine, which generates 100 horsepower. The company has also posted some videos of the engine here. It can run on just about any source of heat: the sun, wood pellets, biofuels, diesel, waste heat from other engines. Basically anything that can be used to produce a head of steam. The first application would be generating power from waste heat, the company says (pdf), but the engine could also be used to power vehicles.

Kimmel writes that steam engines can run directly on biomass, without the need to convert it into biofuels, with the energy losses that this entails. But there's a reason why liquid fuels beat out the alternatives before--they store more energy. It's hard to imagine this being a real alternative--outside of some nice applications. Anyone think otherwise?