This morning, like many, I was glued to my laptop watching President Obama's inauguration. I suffered through the many blips and hiccups of streaming Internet video that was clearly overwhelmed by the volume of people all trying to watch at the same time.

I've been following Obama's energy policies for the last few months. In this morning's address, Obama said "the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet." Certainly a strong statement. Following the inauguration, the White House released their agenda for energy and the environment. The White House's primary goal is to become energy independent, focusing on three main points:

• New sources of clean energy
• Plug-in hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles
• Cap-and-trade program

That's not the full story.

As with any story, there are two sides. The goal of energy independence is no different. One side is "harnessing the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." But the other side is the reduction of energy that we use today. The problem must be attacked from both ends -- reducing our energy footprint while developing new, cleaner forms of energy. With both energy reduction and clean energy production, we can meet in the middle and reach our goals faster.

Saul Griffith gave a talk last week, where he evaluated his energy use from the perspective of an engineer (you may know him from Make magazine and Instructables). Griffith contends that the world currently runs on about 16 terawatts (trillion watts) of energy. He has an interesting analysis on what it would take to generate our power from renewable sources in the next 25 years. For illustration, Griffith talks about the impact of solar energy, or "photovoltaics".

"Two terawatts of photovoltaic would require installing 100 square meters of 15-percent-efficient solar cells every second, second after second, for the next 25 years," says Griffith.

For just two terawatts, that's 30,000 square miles of solar cells. Imagine solar cells covering an area the size of the state of Indiana, supplying only 12% of the required renewable energy. Oh, and remember that the location of the solar cells should have plenty of direct sunlight all year round, otherwise the solar cells won't collect all 2 terawatts.

By Griffith's estimate, if we built all kinds of renewable energy non-stop in parallel for the next 25 years, splitting our energy between solar, solar thermal, biofuels, wind turbines, geothermal, and nuclear, "the land area dedicated to renewable energy ("Renewistan") would occupy a space about the size of Australia."

Don't worry, Obama's plan (from his campaign) acknowledges the need for energy efficiency. Energy Efficiency is "the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source," according to Obama. Since the Department of Energy projects that electricity demand will increase by 1.1% per year, there's a need for increased efficiency to curb increased demand. The administration is setting an aggressive energy reduction goal -- 15% reduction from the 2020 projected demand by making our society more energy efficient. Other items include:

• making federal buildings 40% more efficient in the next 5 years, saving $130b
• invest in a smart grid to measure and manage peak demand
• improve new building efficiency to 50% and existing buildings to 25%

So while clean energy may take most of the spotlight in the media, efficiency is just as important. Besides, who wants to live in Indiana or Australia -- full of all those solar panels?