President Bush Addresses Energy at Small Business Expo

It's national Small Business Week here in the United States. President Bush spoke to the crowd yesterday at Small Business Expo, the anchor event put on by the Small Business Administration.

His talk focused on energy, a topic big on the minds of American small businesses given high fuel costs.

I thought the speech was notable because it drilled in on technology as the key to making energy more affordable. I counted the word "technology" or some variant at least 3 dozen times. His unspoken point seemed to be: other countries may have oil reserves, but by using our technological edge we can secure abundant energy and lower the cost.

All of which suggests opportunity may be in the offing over the next few years for small businesses that have technology that can be used to increase energy supplies or make our usage more efficient. It will be interesting to see if the President's direction translates into SBIR grant monies to encourage small businesses to develop energy technologies.

By the way, it wasn't just oil energy that the President spoke about. His speech covered coal, nuclear, ethanol and even more unconventional sources of energy (such as leftover vegetable fat). Read the full speech transcript.