Planning For The Future | Blackout | FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE



		Bush Advisers on Energy Report Ties to Industry June 3, 2001 By JOSEPH KAHN At least three top White House advisers involved in drafting President Bush's energy strategy held stock in the Enron Corporation or earned fees from the large Texas-based energy trading company, which lobbied aggressively to shape the administration's approach to energy issues.

		Bush Task Force on Energy Worked in Mysterious Ways May 16, 2001 By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE Most of Washington has remained in the dark about how the Bush administration's Energy Development Task Force operated, which arguments it embraced and how it reached decisions on some of the nation's thorniest energy issues.

		In the Race to Produce More Power, States Are Faced With Environmental Tradeoffs March 26, 2001 By MICHAEL JANOFSKY Buckeye, Ariz., is near ground zero in the nation's race to create more energy and the debate over the environmental tradeoffs that come with it.

The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, calls President Bush's National Energy Plan (released May 2001) "an historic first step to addressing long-neglected energy challenges." Here is the full text of this major report which has triggered national debate about the nation's future energy course. The report is presented on the U.S. Dept. of Energy's web site and is broken into key sections.

President Bush's National Energy Plan places a high priority on increased production of oil, coal, gas, and nuclear energy, with less emphasis on conservation and alternative fuels. Janet Ginsburg, a contributing reporter for BusinessWeek, offers a critique of the assumptions and budget numbers that form the underlying basis of the report and presents what she considers a missing perspective on alternatives.

For more on the Bush Administration's position on energy and its new energy plan, read FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman's interview with Vice President Cheney.

FRONTLINE's report, "Blackout," includes interviews that explore the perspectives of several CEOs from traditional energy companies and utilities. To learn more about the potential for alternative energy and efficiency, FRONTLINE asked Janet Ginsburg to conduct email interviews with some leading experts from the solar, wind, and distributive power industry: Richard DeBlasio, director of the Distributed Energy Resources Center at the Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory; James Dehlsen, chairman and CEO and Dr. Geoffrey Dean, Director of Technology of Clipper Windpower; and David Clark, chief scientist at BP Solarex.

How we plan for the future depends on how much power we will need. Here are some charts showing trends in America's use of power since the 1970s, with projections through 2010. (Statistics are based on data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy.)

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