Obama Wins South Carolina, A Victory for the Environment?

Barack Obama
The Plan: Obama would enact a $150 billion, 10-year plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80% and invest in renewable and alternative energy technology, including biofuels and clean coal.
How He'd Pay for It: An auction of carbon credits from a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas pollution regulation.
What Sets Him Apart: Creation of an independent, private Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund, funded with $10 billion for five years, to invest in technology development.

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Senator Barack Obama trounced the competition in the South Carolina Democratic primary, pulling in 55 percent of the vote compared to Senator Hillary Clinton's 27 percent. But it remains to be seen what Obama's win might mean for environmental policy in the U.S.

While Obama has called for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by mid-century and 25 percent of U.S. energy to come from renewable resources, he has also advocated for coal-to-liquid fuel technology--a process that converts the black rock to gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels at the expense of massive greenhouse gas emissions.

And the senator from Illinois supports both new nuclear power plants and ethanol fuel brewed from corn, even though that fuel consumes nearly as much energy to produce it as it delivers as fuel. A comprehensive look at both parties candidates environmental policies is available at Grist.org.

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