Mr.Barrack Obama Ties Energy to Prosperity

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President-elect Barack Obama visited an Ohio company that manufactures wind-turbine parts to make the case for his economic-stimulus package, underscoring his push to link alternative energy and jobs.

Mr. Obama's visit came as oil prices hovered near their lowest level in 4½ years, illustrating the challenge his administration will face in trying to displace fossil fuels with cleaner but more costly forms of energy. Oil futures in New York rose 3.1% Friday to $36.51 a barrel as the International Energy Agency revised its estimate for 2009 demand downward by 940,000 barrels a day.

Mr. Obama has pledged to double over three years the amount of U.S. wind, solar and geothermal generating capacity, which is currently around 25,000 megawatts. In a down payment on that effort, House Democrats unveiled an economic-stimulus package Thursday that calls for $20 billion of tax cuts for renewable-energy production and an additional $54 billion of spending to modernize the country's aging electricity grid, and to make homes, vehicles and buildings more energy efficient. For wind power, the bill would extend by three years a production tax credit currently set to expire at the end of 2009.

President-elect Barack Obama was in Bedford Heights, Ohio, on Friday, meeting employees of Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., which makes specialty screws and bolts needed for construction and wind turbines.

On Friday, Mr. Obama tried to connect spending on energy with American jobs, noting that his hosts, Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., hired two people this week. Mr. Obama said passage of the stimulus plan is critical to helping companies that don't have access to financing because of frozen credit markets. He said that half the wind projects planned for the U.S. this year could be abandoned without federal aid, and that other countries, including Spain, Germany and Japan, are investing in renewable energy and "surging ahead of us." "A renewable-energy economy isn't something pie-in-the-sky, it's not part of a far-off future," Mr. Obama said. "It's happening all across America right now. It's providing alternatives to foreign oil now. It can create millions of additional jobs and entire new industries if we act right now."

Cardinal, located in a Cleveland suburb, began selling its bolts, screws and other parts to companies that build wind towers two years ago. Wind customers now account for about 20% of Cardinal's business, a company spokeswoman said.

The stimulus plan enjoys strong support among Americans, particularly aspects aimed at creating jobs, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week. But skeptics of Mr. Obama's energy-related goals have said there isn't enough manufacturing capacity in the U.S. to build all the wind turbines needed to meet his goal.

A fundamental challenge for boosting the use of alternative energy is that fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas remain cheap. This gives them a big advantage over renewable sources, especially in an economic downturn, for consumers worried about energy bills. Coal-generated electricity costs 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 9.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for wind, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Mr. Obama's aides have rejected calls from some economists, environmentalists and business leaders to levy a carbon-based tax on fossil fuels, saying such a tax wouldn't guarantee the big reductions in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions Mr. Obama has called for.