uring the presidential debate Sept. 26, Sen. John McCain gigged Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly over the latter’s pie-in-the-sky plans to achieve U.S. energy independence within 10 years. The rebukes were warranted.

Obama insists that by developing electrical generating plants powered by renewable energy sources, the U.S. can quickly wean itself away from imported oil. This is false. As McCain told him, “You can’t get there from here.”

The Illinois senator seems unaware that half of America’s electricity is generated by burning coal, 20 percent by nuclear power, 20 percent by natural gas and seven percent by hydro. A negligible percentage of our electricity is produced by burning oil. So introduction into the electrical sector of wind, solar, biomass, wave, current, geothermal and other renewable and alternative energy sources will do nothing to displace importation of foreign oil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind power provided just 36/100 of one percent of U.S. electricity in 2005 and is expected to supply only 89/100 of one percent of U.S. electricity in 2030. Solar power provides us with 0.01 percent. The EIA projects that, at best, renewables may fulfill four percent of our kilowatt hours by 2018.

Practically all imported oil is consumed by the transportation sector. Until someone invents a practical solar or wind-powered vehicle or aircraft, those two favorite Obama alternative energy sources will have zero impact as well on achieving energy independence on our highways and in our airways.

McCain had the courage during the debate to call for removal of subsidies for ethanol production. Development of this corn-based, ersatz substitute for fossil fuel has consumed cropland and jacked up food and feed prices. Worse, it requires nearly as much fossil fuel to produce as it displaces. In McCain’s crosshairs was Obama’s push for ethanol subsidies, including his sponsorship of the Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act, which attempted to mandate manufacture of flex-fuel vehicles.

The debate also uncovered Obama’s backhanded “support” of nuclear and coal plants. He is all for nuclear power if technology is developed to meet his exacting standards for “safe” storage of spent fuel. He is comfortable with coal-fired energy as long as it is “clean” and will not contribute to global warming. The problem is that no new nuclear power plants can meet Obama’s wholly subjective storage criteria. Nor has any new coal-fired plant successfully sequestered carbon dioxide.

In other words, a President Obama would probably not countenance development of a single new nuclear or coal plant. Yet he will not straightforwardly admit this. Even his running mate, Sen. Biden, has stated that an Obama-Biden Administration will eschew coal plants.

The liberals’ rejection of coal will cost the rest of us dearly. The U.S. has about 25 percent of the world’s coal reserves, more than any other country in the world and enough to supply current U.S. consumption needs for 250 years. This contrasts with the U.S. share of global oil and natural gas reserves, which stands at around three percent.

Coal could be America’s energy solution as a transportation fuel as well as an electrical generating source. The Fischer-Tropsch process for converting coal to clear, odorless, low-sulfur diesel fuel has been around since the 1920s. Most of South Africa’s diesel fuel is synthetically produced from coal at its Sasol plant. Syntroleum, Inc. has produced over 400,000 gallons of diesel and jet fuel at its demonstration plant near Tulsa, Okla.

Meanwhile, nuclear is the only energy source that can provide us with reliable and relatively affordable electricity and still keep global warming concerns at bay.
The reality is that the U.S. faces a 25 percent increase in electricity demand by 2030. The wind turbines and solar generating plants Obama favors will produce far less electricity than we will need.

So if the debate proved nothing else besides Obama’s embarrassing tendency to stammer when he cannot rely on a teleprompter, it is that he also has no workable solution to America’s energy woes.