At the ABC Café last week, amidst the churning of espresso machines, eclectic Ithaca music and dining patrons, three professors gathered to discuss the energy policies of the two presidential candidates with 10 Collegetown residents. Paul Mutolo ’94, associate director of the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute, fielded questions from the residents and moderated the discussion between Prof. Richard Allmendinger, Earth and atmospheric sciences and associate dean of the College of Engineering, and Ryan Legg grad, formerly the program manager of Business, Engineering and Sustainability in the Johnson School’s Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise.

McCain’s energy plan has been tabbed the Lexington Project. According to McCain’s official election website, the project includes an increase in the development of domestic oil and natural gas discovery and production, a marked improvement of the transportation sector, investment in alternative energy and efficiency concerning current energy use.

McCain advocates ending the federally-imposed moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. He supports the Clean Car Challenge, which will offer a $5,000 tax credit for customers who buy a zero carbon emission car. He also sponsors a $300 million prize to whichever company can improve battery technology for full commercial development. The Republican candidate wishes to build 100 nuclear power plants by 2050. And he talks about the “greening of the federal government,” which according to McCain is the “largest electricity consumer on Earth.”

Obama calls his proposal the New Energy for America Plan. According to his official election website, the plan will, within 10 years, save more oil than we import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined. The plan will also put 1 million hybrids on the road by 2015, work toward getting 25 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025 and implement a cap-and-trade program.

Obama’s Windfall Profits Tax will provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American families to counter the increase in gasoline prices, a $7,000 tax credit for purchasing “advanced” vehicles, the promise of a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the carbon content of fuels by 10 percent and the prioritizing of the construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.

The panel discussed their views on these energy policies. Allmendinger commented that neither candidate is willing to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem because the “real panorama will scare the hell out of the populace.” He mentioned that McCain’s proposal of building of nuclear plants by 2050 will provide 1.4 percent of the total energy the U.S. will consume by 2050, which is estimated to be about seven terawatts. In comparison, oil mogul T. Boone Pickens is hoping to establish a wind farm system running down the middle of the United States to send electricity to both coasts and increase the amount of cars running on natural gas; his efforts alone will potentially save the United States two gigawatts of energy before 2020.

Both panel members agreed that one of the most important topics concerning energy is the improvement of the “not sexy,” as Allmendinger described, electricity grid, which neither candidate mentions much. Legg approved of McCain’s willingness to allocate money to the electricity grid because the private sector is currently not able to build out the grid. The expansion of the grid will make alternative energy sources like wind and solar power more applicable. Also, in terms of current energy efficiency, only one-third of energy is being turned into useful electricity. That ratio drops to one-fifth when focusing solely on the transportation sector.

According to Allmendinger, the “real cost of energy is climate change,” and, hence another important topic is the cap-and-trade system, which is an incentive-based system where market participants are allotted total permits equal to a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Market participants are able to sell or trade the permits they have left over at the end of the year. Legg stated that Obama takes a much more aggressive stance on cap-and-trade, as the Democratic candidate hopes to decrease carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

On the subject of oil, Allmendinger stated that it is “physically impossible to shift away from oil in the next few decades.” He disagreed with McCain’s proposal to domesticate oil production, citing a Chevron $500 million endeavor off the Gulf of Mexico which reaped the same amount of oil that it would cost Saudi Arabia about $5 to $10 million to produce.

The Collegetown residents and the panel also debated who was more responsible for fixing the energy crisis: politicians or people themselves. Allmendinger said that 6 percent of energy use could be eradicated if the American population would turn off “vampire” electronics, which waste energy when left on for no reason. Legg commented that the only effective incentive to persuade the population to save energy is increasing prices, as seen in the decrease in the use of gasoline due to the increase in oil prices.

The panelists concluded by addressing the United States’ eroding position as leader in the global technology race, which the panelists blamed on a lack of federal support. They mentioned how a lot of cleaner technologies are invented domestically, but many industries choose not to invest in them, citing the automobile industry as an example.