And so the idea of a smart grid¹ is, if you can hook up a national electricity grid that is state of the art and it has switches and computer monitors that are able to help regulate the flow of electricity to the places that need it when they need it, then you can save huge amounts of electricity, which means that your bills are lower.  It means that we have to produce less energy per household or per business, which means we’re sending less pollution into the air, whatever form of energy we’re using.  It means that renewable energies like solar and wind now have an advantage because you can get them from where they’re being created to where they need to go.  And because it’s more efficient, there’s less waste so you can actually store wind energy even when it’s not windy, or solar energy even when it’s not sunny.  So this is a huge and important project.
 
It turns out that the challenge is not so much a money issue.  When you said appropriations²（拨款，挪用） , you know, the question was, does -- are we going to -- is Congress going to put a lot of money into building this thing?  It turns out, actually, that you could probably get a lot of private sector³ dollars to invest in a smart grid.  The big challenge is actually all these different zoning laws because people don’t want transmission lines, et cetera（等等） , in their vicinity, and each state and each local government has its own control about siting issues.  And so you’ve got this patchwork⁴ instead of one national concept.
 
So what I’ve been trying to do -- and this wouldn’t cost a lot of money -- is just to get governors, mayors, county officials, federal government all to sit down and figure out, how can we get this done?  How can we get this done?  And it may start just in certain sections of the country.  So you’d have a smart grid in, let’s say, the upper Midwest and then you’d have another smart grid in the Northeast.  And you kind of build these bigger patchworks and then you kind of stitch them all together at the end.
 
We should be able to get this done, but it’s going to require some organization and it requires cooperation from each of these different units of government than we’ve got right now.  All right?  Okay.  And if you want to be a TV commentator⁵, you let me know.  (Laughter.)
 
All right.  Who’s next?  Who’s next?  Gentleman right here.
 
Q How you doing, Mr. President?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  I’m good.
 
Q My name is Jazz (ph).  You were talking about the rise of gas prices.  Is there any way that -- talks of lowering the prices?  I mean, I know back in the ‘70s when we had this conflict, they were going from -- our license⁶ plates, from odd to evens, days we could get gas.  I know we’re not at that stage right now, but they did lower the prices after that.  Is there a chance of the price being lowered again?
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let me go over what I said a little bit earlier.  Most of the reason the gas price spiked⁷（尖的） three years ago was demand for oil increased.  Then what happened was we had the terrible recession.  A lot of businesses closed, a lot of folks were out of work, folks were driving fewer miles, so demand for oil goes down, prices went down.  And by the way, oil prices are worldwide prices, so you don’t just have like a U.S. market for oil -- you’ve got a world market for oil.  Anything that happens anywhere in the world will lower the price.
 
So now the economy is picking up, which is a good thing.  More folks are finding jobs.  Businesses are starting to hire again.  And that’s happening all around the world.  So now you’re starting to see demand go back up and the prices are going back up.  You add on top of that what’s happening in the Middle East and it makes folks nervous and so these folks start saying, you know what, I’m going to bid a higher price on oil, on a barrel of oil now, because I’m thinking it’s going to go up a little further in case something happens on the world oil markets.  And that pushes prices up just a little bit more.
 
Now, there are a couple of things that we can do.  But I’m just going to be honest with you, there’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now.  What we can do is, for example, increase oil production here in the United States.  So we are out there -- here’s a little secret for you.  We actually have seen higher oil production here in the United States than any time in our history.  We are producing a lot of oil.  It’s just demand keeps on going up faster than production.  But we can still do more.
 
Now, we just had the Gulf⁸ crisis last summer when everything was messed up.  And so what I had to do was I had to say, you know what, before we start drilling again out there, then I want you guys to show me proof that you can actually do this safely and when something goes wrong you can cap that thing so we’re not going through six months of oil just spilling into the ocean and ruining coastal⁹ communities and hurting fishermen and so forth¹⁰.  We now have a situation where the safety rules have been improved and drilling is beginning again in that region.  But the drilling that’s taking place in the Gulf now, that product doesn’t get to market right away.
 
We’re also saying, you know, let’s look in places like off the Atlantic or in Alaska.  If there are other places where we can do some offshore¹¹ drilling, we’ll do it.  But here’s the thing about oil.  We have about 2, maybe 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves; we use 25 percent of the world’s oil.  So think about it.  Even if we doubled the amount of oil that we produce, we’d still be short by a factor of five.
 
So we can’t just drill our way out of the problem.  And that’s why the second thing we can do is increase efficiency on cars and trucks, which is where most of our oil is used.  (Applause.)  Now, I notice some folks clapped, but I know some of these big guys, they’re all still driving their big SUVs.  You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything.  You’re one of them?  Well, now, here’s my point.  If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting eight miles a gallon -- (laughter) -- you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big.  How many you have?  Ten kids, you say?  Ten kids?  (Laughter.)  Well, you definitely need a hybrid¹² van then.  (Laughter.)
 
But here’s the thing is that last year, for the first time in 30 years, we increased fuel-efficiency standards on cars and trucks.  And we didn’t do it, by the way, with a law.  We got autoworkers, auto¹³ companies, environmentalists -- everybody agreed to it.  That’s going to save us about 1.8 billion barrels of oil.  But we can do more.  The more efficient our auto fleets are, the more efficient our truck fleets are, the less people are using -- that lowers gas prices as well.  So that’s the second thing we can do.
 
The third thing we can do is we can start looking at electric cars, and maybe natural gas cars, so that we’re not just using petroleum¹⁴ to power our vehicles.  That would be, by the way, a huge boost for Gamesa.  If you’ve got a much better distribution network for electric cars -- right now, some of these electrics, you should be able to just plug it in into your garage; you basically just have a big socket¹⁵.  You plug it in at night, unplug it, you’re driving it all day.  You get home, you plug it back in, and if you’ve got one of these smart boxes in your garage, the unused electricity from your car actually goes back into your house.  And so you’re saving both ways.
 
But the problem is right now that we don’t have a broad enough distribution network.  The cost of advanced batteries for cars is still a little bit too expensive, so we’re trying to drive down the price.  It’s like anything else, though; it’s the same with your wind turbine, the same with wind energy -- the more you make, the cheaper it gets, because the technology improves, you’re creating more of them, you get economies of scale.
 
So number one, increase oil production.  But that’s not a short -- that’s not a long -- a short-term solution, and it’s a not a long-term solution, either; it will just -- it will help a little bit.  Number two, more efficient cars so we’re using our gas more effectively.  Number three, shifting to electric cars and other forms of transportation so we don’t use oil as much.
 
None of that is going to help you this week, though.  So, like I said, if you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in.  You can get a great deal.  I promise you, GM or Ford¹⁶ or Chrysler, they’re going to be happy to give you a deal on something that gets you better gas mileage¹⁷.