Since his election, President Barack Obama has emphasized the importance of developing new sources of energy and cultivating the jobs that will come with them. "I am convinced that whoever builds a clean energy economy, whoever is at the forefront of that, is going to own the 21st-century global economy," Obama told a bipartisan meeting of governors at the White House on Wednesday.

But, increasingly, the President's new clean economy seems to rely on old sources of energy. At his State of the Union speech on Jan. 27, Obama coupled calls for comprehensive energy and climate legislation with a mention of the need for offshore oil drilling, and his 2011 budget includes $36 billion in new loan guarantees for nuclear power.

On Tuesday, the White House further announced new steps to boost production of biofuels, which are considered environmentally questionable by many greens, and to expand research into technology that would help capture and store carbon emitted by burning coal. It is an energy program designed to increase U.S. energy independence and to create new jobs but, to the dismay of greens, not necessarily to reduce carbon emissions. "Every American is anxious to have an energy and fuel agenda that puts us back in control of our own energy and fuel future," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters. "[This is a] clear pathway to energy security."

The new White House plan will support the development of five to 10 carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) demonstration projects by 2016. The idea is to show on a commercial scale that coal can be burned cleanly for electricity -- without accelerating climate change -- by injecting millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the ground. The new plan isn't exactly new, though. In 2003, former President George W. Bush authorized a similar CCS pilot project called FutureGen, though the program was eventually shut down, ostensibly for exceeding budget projections. But under the current White House plan, the Department of Energy will be spending far more, investing more than $4 billion in CCS, with the expectation that industry will add another $7 billion.