After two years of hearing presidential candidates discuss and debate issues, while "everyone who's anyone" in the political world speculated, analyzed and predicted the election's outcome, we've elected our 44th president. As I write this column, Barack Obama has been the president-elect for only a few hours and already "everyone who's anyone" is speculating and predicting what the next four years will bring.

I don't intend to join the "political experts" and talking heads by making predictions about the next four years. I would, however, like to provide a summary of where the Obama-Biden team stands on energy-related issues. Details about the new administration's energy outlook are available on Obama's Web site, which was my information source.

Much of the energy information on the Web site deals with high oil prices and eliminating our country's dependence on foreign oil. Because my space for this column is limited, oil supply is not directly related to Electric Light & Power topics and oil price has fallen below $70 a barrel, I'm not going to address this part of the plan. Instead, I will look at some of the issues that could directly affect IOUs, co-ops and municipalities.

Energy efficiency is a big part of the new administration's energy plan. Obama wants to handle much of the future energy demand by promoting energy efficiency. His plan includes reducing electricity demand 15 percent by 2020. "A portion of this goal would be met by setting annual demand reduction targets that utilities would need to meet," says Obama's Web site. Among other things, the president-elect wants to change the way utilities profit by flipping the utility sector's profit model so that shareholder profit is based on reliability and performance as opposed to total production.

Obama's energy plan also includes smart grid promotion. He hopes to establish a matching grant program that will reimburse companies a quarter of what they spend on smart grid investments. He will promote advanced metering, demand response, distributed generation and storage systems on "customer premises."

Of course, renewable energy is another major part of the Obama-Biden energy plan. Obama supports a national renewable portfolio standard that would require 10 percent of U.S. electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. He also wants to extend the federal production tax credit (PTC) for another five years.

Obama's proposed measure on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), designed to reduce oil use, will definitely impact electric utilities. His plan calls for 1 million PHEVs to be on the road by 2015. He intends to use public and private funds to improve battery technologies for these automobiles. As an incentive for adoption, he wants to give two tax credits, one for conservation and a $7,000 credit for "the purchase of advanced technology vehicles." He also plans to convert the White House fleet to PHEVs and make half the cars purchased by the federal government PHEVs by 2012.

Emissions rank high in the Obama-Biden energy plan. Obama hopes his energy efficiency standards reduce CO2 emissions by 5 billion tons or more through 2030. To further reduce emissions, he supports a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. He will use the pollution credit auction proceeds to fund clean technology development, energy efficiency improvements, wildlife habitat restoration and to fund relief programs to help families and communities that might be adversely impacted by the transition to a low carbon economy.

Obama does not support new plant construction using current coal technologies. He instead wants to commercialize clean coal technologies through incentives for "private sector investment in commercial scale zero-carbon coal facilities." He hopes the Department of Energy can work with the private sector to develop five new commercial coal plants with carbon capture and sequestration capabilities.

While he has not been a proponent of nuclear power in the past, Obama acknowledges nuclear power as an important part of the non-carbon emitting generation mix. He understands that eliminating nuclear will hurt his climate goals. Before expanding nuclear power, however, Obama wants to address nuclear fuel and waste security, waste storage and proliferation. He does not believe Yucca Mountain is right for waste storage.

So, there you have it. Whether you agree or disagree with the president elect's views on energy, I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that our nation does face challenges when it comes to energy, and we need a plan.

Teresa Hansen, editor in chief