President Barack Obama's energy plan may seem like a knight in shining armor charging in with its fuel efficient cars, but it has an unreasonable target time.

Although oil independency from the Middle East is a perfect dream for America, it is still that ' a dream. Obama has too quickly dreamed up a hopeful plan with a time span of only 10 years to solve a problem that is over 30 years old (Obama 7). The dilemma of an America addicted to oil has already been attempted to be solved by various presidents.

The same problem has existed in the past, with the same plan and time period formed, and failed before. In 1973, after the Arab Oil Embargo Crisis, President Nixon said:
Let us set as our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy source (http://www.americanenergyindependence.com).

One problem with the idea of a 10 year plan is the fact that the alternative energy sources are just not advancing quickly enough. Exxon Mobil projects that biofuels are growing at 8% a year and wind and solar are growing at 10%. If this growth rate continues through 2030, those two alternative sources will only provide 2% of the entire world's primary energy production (Robert Bryce).
Compared to that statistic, there is absolutely no way for America to be able to be dependent upon alternative energy sources in the time period of only ten years. At the same time, however, Obama supporters may argue that President Obama has promised to provide more funding for such projects and that the additional funding will create an incentive for companies to work harder and faster toward such a goal.

However, at the same time, those same Americans are worrying over the weak economy and the problems of America's spending. It just is not within America's budget to be able to spend $150 billion on alternative energy sources in our current state. Where would the money come from? As most government funded projects are funded, this would also be funded by American citizens' taxes. Taxes would then have to be raised for all the people.

As of now, a full 17% of the entire oil supply consumed by Americans originates from the Middle East. (Journey to Energy Independence) This is almost a full quarter of our entire supply. America has been relying heavily upon foreign countries and this relationship is only getting stronger and stronger in favor of the Middle East. Add to that the loss of jobs in America due to outsourcing, and a broken America without control is left. This problem is too severe to be solved and eradicated within ten years.

Obama's plan to solve both problems is to create a greater and stronger force of American fuel efficient cars. The new industry would provide for more jobs to Americans and the cars would save Americans the cost of fuel at the same time. The problem,
however, is with the cost of the materials and research into fuel efficiency. The car prices would be much higher than the prices of cars now, but Americans are already trying to save on non-essential items, especially cars, right now. We just can not afford Obama's plan right now.




While Obama feeds middle-class and poor Americans promises of lower taxes and satisfies environmentalists with pledges of a greener America, he must sacrifice one for the other. Doing so will ensure that Americans will turn on their supposed great leader, once they realize their promised dreams are unmet. Before this happens, Obama should think of a more practical and easily obtainable target