The suggestion was made to Oil Drum staff that some of us might want to write recommendations relating to President Obama's energy policy. It seems to me that several steps come before energy policy: we need to get the worst of our financial problems behind us and we need to understand where we are, before we can make intelligent decisions going forward. Also, the issues are really broader than energy policy--they include agriculture, education, commerce, and a broad range of other areas affected by reduced energy supplies.

In this post, I offer a few ideas regarding what needs to be done. My ideas not chosen from a point of view of what is practical; instead, they are chosen based on what logically needs to be done, regardless of the practicality. Also, these ideas assume a fairly high level of understanding, and a desire to implement the best long-term solution, without consideration of the politics involved. In the real world, I doubt that these ideas have much chance of being implemented.