By Lena Babaeva

The Wall Street Journal also reports on President-elect Obama’s visit to the wind turbine part plant in the discussion of his energy plan.  The WSJ notes the difficulties faced by the plan for alternative energy when “oil prices hovered near their lowest level in 4½ years . . . [while] [o]il 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, meanwhile, pledged to double over three years the amount of U.S. wind, solar and geothermal generating capacity, which is currently generating around 25,000 megawatts.  Additionally, he stated 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.’”  The article also notes that:

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.

Additionally, Mr. Obama’s aides have resisted the call from economists, business leaders and others to levy a carbon-based tax on fossil fuels, arguing that a tax would not reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions to the extent that Mr. Obama has urged.