In a new report from the Breakthrough Institute Energy and Climate Program, we document the challenges facing American energy entrepreneurs seeking to commercialize advanced energy technologies to enhance US energy, economic, and environmental security. Innovative public policy solutions are needed to support private sector innovation and overcome the "valleys of death" that trap too many promising advanced energy ventures.
The United States faces an urgent national imperative to modernize and diversify its energy system by developing and deploying clean, and affordable advanced energy technologies. Domestically, developing new energy supplies and ensuring affordable energy prices will bolster American competitiveness and economic growth. Reducing the cost of advanced energy technologies is the key to finally ending a dependence on volatile global oil markets that holds the American economy hostage, compromises our foreign policy, and bleeds more than a billion dollars a day out of the US economy.
Abroad, the military has already begun deploying innovative clean energy technologies to reduce the high cost, paid in both lives and money, associated with transporting fossil fuels across war zones. Moreover, the impending risks posed by climate change compel the accelerated improvement and widespread deployment of low-carbon energy technologies. Countries around the world are already recognizing the critical need for new advanced energy technologies and are positioning themselves to lead the next wave of energy innovation.
Global energy demand is rising steadily, straining the ability of conventional energy systems to keep pace. For security, economic, and environmental reasons, the global energy system is thus modernizing and diversifying. Developing and developed nations alike are seeking new forms of advanced energy technologies that reduce dependence on foreign nations, insulate economies from volatile energy markets, and are cleaner and thus less costly from a public health perspective. Supplying this $5 trillion global energy market with reliable and affordable clean energy technologies thus represents one of the most significant market opportunities of the 21st century.
Despite this clear energy innovation imperative, the United States and the world remain overly reliant on conventional fuels and exposed to the price volatility and persistent public health impacts that reliance entails. The necessary course of energy modernization remains impeded by the high cost and barriers to scalability of today's clean energy technologies. These are barriers that only innovation can overcome.
However, two obstacles currently block the progress of energy innovation, obstacles which can only be addressed through effective public policy. Due to pervasive market barriers, private sector financing is typically unavailable to bring new energy innovations from early-stage laboratory research to proof-of-concept prototype and on to full commercial scale. This leads to two market gaps that kill off too many promising new energy technologies in the cradle. These gaps are known as the early-stage "Technological Valley of Death" and the later-stage "Commercialization Valley of Death." This pair of barriers is endemic to most innovative technologies yet is particularly acute in the energy sector. As a result, many innovative energy prototypes never make it to the marketplace and never have a chance to compete with established energy technologies. These valleys of death particularly plague capital-starved start-ups and entrepreneurial small and medium-sized firms, the very same innovators that are so often at the heart of American economic vitality.
In effect, the current lack of public policy to address this pair of barriers acts to protect today's well entrenched incumbent technologies from full market competition, while hamstringing American entrepreneurs and innovative ventures seeking to develop and deploy advanced energy technologies. The implementation of creative policies to effectively deal with the Technological and Commercialization Valleys of Death will foster vibrant competition in the energy sector and help drive technological innovation and job creation throughout the economy as a whole.
In the past, the United States has driven immense and far-reaching technological transformations. As the pioneering global innovator of the 20th century, the United States built the world's largest economy because of the ingenuity and creative enterprise of its entrepreneurs and citizens. Each step of the way, proactive public policy has played a crucial role in driving American innovations, from railroads and jet engines to microchips, biotechnology, and the Internet, unleashing long waves of economic growth and shared prosperity. New and advanced clean energy technologies afford the same opportunities to the United States today--if public policy is shaped in a way that allows American innovators to thrive once again.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu will appear today before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation to answer questions on the DOE Loan Program Office. While there are important questions to answer regarding the role of government in technology investment and energy innovation, these questions are unlikely to be the main subject of today's hearing.
What was the original purpose of the Section 1705 loan guarantee program, and what was the expected impact on federal budgets and taxpayers?
In 2009, Section 1705 was added to the DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO), established by the bipartisan Energy Policy Act of 2005. The program was originally appropriated $6 billion in federal funds to provide reserves to cover expected losses on a portion of the loans issued by the agency. This $6 billion would be leveraged to offer a significantly higher loan guarantee volume, unlocking substantial debt finance that would be supplied by private banks. The original $6 billion in funding was raided by Congress to provide funds for the Cash-for-Clunkers program in 2009, however, and ultimately 1705 ended up with a $2.5 billion pool to cover expected loan losses.
Congressional investigators should prioritize clean energy commercialization solutions over political grandstanding and focus on identifying key lessons from the experience of the Loan Programs Office. Congress should put these lessons to immediate use to reform federal involvement in clean energy commercialization and establish a new Clean Energy Deployment Administration.
Step right up to see the latest chapter in the ongoing political circus surrounding the bankruptcy of solar manufacturer and federal loan guarantee recipient Solyndra. Today's main attraction: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's long-awaited appearance before the eager Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Key questions remain about the ill-fated solar manufacturer's dramatic demise earlier this year. Unfortunately, investigations on the Hill long ago veered into the realm of political point-scoring, rather than a serious inquiry designed to improve federal support for nascent and nationally-critical clean energy technologies.
Taking a step back from the circus on the Hill, let's make two things very clear.
First, the global energy system is modernizing and diversifying. For an array of motivations from public health and climate change to security and economic growth, today's economies demand a 21st century suite of clean and reliable energy technologies to supply the $5 trillion-and-growing global energy market.
Second, the DOE Loan Programs Office was never particularly well equipped to effectively address the "Commercialization Valley of Death"--the persistent lack of risk-tolerant capital that plagues American innovators and entrepreneurs working valiantly to improve the nation's energy, economic, and environmental security.
In the wake of Solyndra's failure, pundits have latched on to a simple, compelling narrative: government can't do energy right.
From synfuels to solar panels to "clean coal" (written, inevitably, with knowing quotation marks), demonstration projects funded by the Department of Energy are described as one failed white elephant after another. Today the DOE is the agency everyone loves to hate (and, at least in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's case, the agency to forget).
What gets left out (and forgotten) is that virtually every one of today's major energy technologies exists thanks to sustained US government investments in research, development, and demonstration. Consider:
Solar panels were pioneered by NASA, and have seen massive price declines thanks to government research, development, and deployment. Industry leader First Solar is a direct descendant of DOE research as are Nanosolar and GE's thin film solar division.
A new report by the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way argues that the United States needs to rethink its approach to manufacturing to incentivize and enhance next generation "advanced manufacturing" and worker training.
Stagnant and out-dated policy debates in Washington are the reason that advanced, high-tech products are mostly manufactured outside of the United States, according to a new paper jointly issued by two think tanks. The report, from the Breakthrough Institute and leading moderate think tank Third Way, argues that American manufacturing could experience a resurgence with a focus on complicated and technology-intensive manufacturing products.
"The Kindle has revolutionized how people read, but even though it was born in Silicon Valley, Amazon makes it in Taiwan," said Director of Third Way's Economic Program and the report's co-author, Ryan McConaghy. "When looking for the precision needed to build the e-reader, Amazon had to look abroad for experienced manufacturers because the technology was no longer available here. It's a huge missed opportunity."
Grist environment writer Christopher Mims has written a widely read post comparing Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor complex to solar photovoltaic energy in Germany. The post, "Germany's Solar Panels Produce More Power Than Japan's Entire Fukushima Complex," implies that solar PV may be an adequate substitute for aging nuclear reactors in both Germany and Japan.
But an analysis of the electricity generated by Germany's solar PV industry and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors finds that Germany's entire solar PV capacity, installed at a cost of at least $86 billion, generated only half the amount of electricity generated by the Fukushima plants in 2010.
Mims writes:
"It's worth noting that just today, total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW -- greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's entire 6-reactor nuclear power plant."
There are two problems with this.
First of all, the total installed capacity of Japan's Fukushima six-reactor Daiishi plant is actually 4.5 GW. The total power output of Japan's entire Fukushima complex, which consists of ten reactors--six at Daiichi and an additional four at Daini--is 8.8 GW. So Germany's peak solar PV output of 12.1 GW is nearly three times greater than Japan's Daiichi reactor complex.
Does that mean that solar in Germany is somehow equivalent to three of Japan's nuclear complexes? The answer is no, and this leads to the second problem with Mims' post.
The 12.1 GW that Mims cites is the total power generated at one peak time of day. But Mims' numbers don't tell us anything about what we really care about, which is electricity generation.
As Mims himself notes, solar power production varies with weather and the time of day--it doesn't supply 12.1 GW of power continuously. Rather, looking at total electricity generated over a year gives us a much more accurate, apples-to-apples comparison of each technology's contribution to a country's energy needs.
China is on a roaring path towards single-handedly swamping any hopes of climate stability. The nation's current climate pledges appear lackadaisical rather than ambitious and just as likely to trigger significant rebounds in energy use than real CO2 reductions. The only way to avert potential climate catastrophe is to de-link economic growth from carbon emissions by fueling China -- and the world -- with clean, affordable, and massively scalable energy technologies. Our current menu of technological options is dangerously short, and there's no time to waste: we must make clean energy cheap, and fast.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: when it comes to the global climate challenge, as goes China, so goes the world.
Driving that aphorism home, co2scorecard.org, a not-for-profit project that closely tracks global greenhouse gas emissions, now reports that China's CO2 emissions increased by 906 million tons in 2009 -- the second largest annual increase for any country in recorded history. China's soaring emissions were enough to completely offset the drop in emissions wrought by the economic havoc plaguing much of the Western world (see graphic below).
China's unprecedented surge in CO2
As Goes China, So Goes the World: Soaring CO2 emissions from energy use in China drive global greenhouse gas trends (click image to enlarge; source: co2scorecard.org)
Over the last decade, China's annual emissions of climate destabilizing CO2 jumped by 5 billion tons per year. According to Shakeb Afsah, President and CEO of co2scorecard.org, that's "the highest [increase in annual CO2 output] for a single country in recorded history, representing an average annual emissions increase of almost 12%--more than four times the rate observed [for China] the previous decade."
To put this unprecedented 5 billion ton increase in annual CO2 emissions in context, Mr Afsah and colleague Kendyl Salcito note that during the 14-year long post-war boom period of 1959-1973, during which U.S. CO2 emissions rose each year, America's annual output of CO2 jumped by only 2 billion tons.
On Monday, I appeared on an hour-long webinar hosted by theEnergyCollective.com on China and Energy, diving into questions of energy innovation, competitiveness, and the challenge of meeting China's soaring demand.
Carolyn Bartholomew, a commissioner on the US-China Economic Security and Review Commission joined myself and moderator Marc Gunther to dive into the issues at stake.
We discussed how China can be both the world leader in clean and dirty energy, simultaneously leading the world in the production of clean energy technologies and global contributions to climate-destabilizing carbon dioxide and coal consumption; the economic stakes of the global clean energy race and China's rising prowess in clean tech innovation and production; and the huge scale of energy demand in the rapidly developing nation.
Listen to the audio - "China and Energy" webinar, 1/31/11: (length 01:01:10)
Over at the Atlantic, technology writer Alexis Madrigal ran the numbers and found some pretty daunting scale issues with Obama's seemingly ambitious SOTU goal for electric vehicles (EV): 1,000,000 by 2015.
[Note: updated on 1/31 to correct typo in one of our figures]
With last night's State of the Union address, President Obama has shifted the debate from the partisan climate wars to an expansive energy innovation policy which has the potential to draw support from across the political spectrum.
With last night's State of the Union address, President Obama has shifted the debate from the partisan climate wars to an expansive energy innovation policy which has the potential to draw support from across the political spectrum.
"In embracing breakthrough innovation for solar and nuclear power alike -- for economic competitiveness rather than climate reasons -- President Obama took a bold first step toward a national commitment to energy innovation that is in the long tradition of bi-partisan support for science and technology," wrote Breakthrough Institute co-founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus in a statement. "While the road forward will not be easy, at least it is one America has traveled before."
In a State of the Union speech framed centrally around restoring America's global economic leadership, President Obama argued forcefully for increasing federal investment in energy innovation, declaring that "breakthrough" technologies have driven decades of innovation that "created new industries and millions of new jobs."
Obama's speech was a rejection of proposals to cut federal spending across the board, as he finally made the case before the American people about why public support for innovation is critical for the country's long-term prosperity:
In tonight's State of the Union Speech, President Obama will call for increased federal investment in education, science, technology and infrastructure. In doing so, he will join a long list of Republican Presidents who recognized that such investments are key to America's economic vitality and a hallmark of true fiscal responsibility. The question now is whether today's Republican leaders will don this mantle, or will continue to recklessly pursue cuts to America's most productive public investments?
Tonight, President Obama is prepared to call for renewed federal investment in infrastructure, research, education, and clean energy technology in his State of the Union Address, according to his advisers. He is likely to argue that new productive investments in education and technology are central to generating jobs and laying a new foundation for economic prosperity. Indeed, the long, bipartisan history of American innovation is one of federal investment in new technologies--even in tough economic times.
But as Republicans in Congress continue their campaign to cut everything in sight (except for what might reduce the growing federal debt -- defense and entitlement spending), with seemingly little regard for the difference between spending and smart investment, it may be difficult for Obama to enact policies that could seriously address the deficit by growing the economy.
The Reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act is not what most technology and innovations advocates hoped it would be, but it's still a major win for key science and technology agencies. Conservative budget hawks should recognize, as a number of influential conservatives recently have, that true "fiscal responsibility" means accelerating economic growth by increasing federal investments in science and technology.
On Tuesday, President Obama signed into law the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, a critical reauthorization of the landmark 2007 competitiveness bill that authorizes increased funding for critical science and technology agencies including the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Science and Technology.
Unfortunately, the ambition of the bill is much reduced from its original incarnation just four years ago, even as international economic competition has grown ever more fierce. The final version of the bill, passed by Congress on December 21, authorizes $45 billion in science, research, and education funding over three years, less than the five year, $85 billion authorization first approved by the House of Representatives in May of last year.
Nobel Laureate physicist Dr. Burton Richter discusses the three dimensions of the global energy challenge - economy, security, and environment - in his keynote at the "Energy Innovation 2010" conference in December.
"Energy Innovation 2010" keynote presentation delivered by Nobel laureate physicist Dr. Burton Richter on December 15, 2010.
(Richter's Keynote begins at 5:56 in the video below)
I have been asked by the organizers to be provocative at this discussion of energy innovation - the more provocative the better, I was told. So far, the talks have focused on the need for innovation to get the technologies of the future developed and deployed so that the issue of climate change can be effectively addressed. We all know that the country is not getting the action on the Federal front that the issue warrants, and thinking about how we might do better leads me to three questions.
1. Have we focused so exclusively on climate change as a justification for action on energy that we have excluded potential allies?
2. Have we emphasized ultra-green technologies that are not yet ready for the big time, and so had our desire for the perfect drive out the available good?
3. Have we pushed policies that are so narrowly targeted as to prevent much larger and less costly emissions reductions to be made in the nearer term than have been made with the renewables?
On December 15th 2010, hundreds of leading thinkers, scientists, public officials, and innovators gathered in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference to initiate a new conversation on a new energy policy paradigm for the 21st century
For 35 years, government and the market have been trying and failing to get energy policy right. Congress has failed to pass large-scale clean energy and climate legislation, while China and other competitors are moving aggressively to take the lead in new energy technology. And the market has failed to create needed low-carbon technology on its own. Meanwhile, the nation's dependence on oil and coal deepens and global temperatures continue to rise. To address these issues, we need to get past the old energy policy paradigm - and we just may be turning the corner.
On December 15th 2010, hundreds of leading thinkers, scientists, public officials, and innovators gathered in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference to initiate a new conversation on a new energy policy paradigm: one that recognizes the central role of innovation in resolving the world's looming energy challenges and boosting American competitiveness. Climate change aside, we can't rely on carbon-based fuels for the next 150 years the way we did for the last 150. And we can't create the transformational energy innovations we need without putting innovation front and center.
"Energy Innovation 2010" merely begins a new national energy dialog that must continue well into the coming years. Breakthrough Institute and our partners will continue to spearhead this conversation as we seek new strategies to address the multifaceted energy challenges facing America and the world.
In case you missed the conference, held before a packed house at the National Press Club, or if you simply want to revisit the top notch presentations delivered throughout the packed day, videos from the full conference can be viewed below.
Starting in the 1970s green groups helped kill new nuclear plants by claiming greater energy efficiency would slash energy consumption. It didn't. Energy demand rose 40 percent more than Amory Lovins predicted. The result? A coal-plant building boom. Time to rethink the role of energy efficiency.
By Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, and Jesse Jenkins
If there's one thing everyone knows for certain, it's that energy efficiency reduces energy consumption. President Obama, Steven Chu, Fortune 500 chieftains, Silicon Valley VCs, the U.N. and McKinsey all say it.
Why, then, does ever-greater efficiency go hand-in-hand with ever-greater energy consumption? In this week's New Yorker, journalist David Owen explains this apparent paradox. The essay (excerpted below) is as fascinating as anything written by Malcolm Gladwell. And the implications for energy and climate policy are of great significance.
From hybrid crops to blockbuster drugs, nuclear power to wind power, and microchips to the Internet, government support was critical to the productive public-private partnerships that spawned so many revolutionary American technologies.
This presentation was delivered by Jesse Jenkins (Director of Energy and Climate Policy, Breakthrough Institute) and Daniel Sarewitz (Director, Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, ASU; Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow) at the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference, December 15th, 2010.
_____________
Apple, Amgen and General Electric. Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell.
We are all familiar with these genius inventors and titans of industry.
Yet most of us remain unaware of the almost constant presence of a silent partner in American innovation: the federal government.
We might recall something about microchips and the space race, or know that the National Institutes of Health funds research into new drugs and treatments.
But most of us remain unaware of the depth and breadth of government support for technology innovation.
As we gather today to consider how to drive forward the dramatic innovation needed to deliver cheap, clean and massively scalable energy sources to power world, we would do well to pause and take a look back at the United State's long history of limited but energetic public investment in breakthrough technologies.
Where do good technologies come from? The history of American innovation shows that an active partnership between the public and private sectors has been key to developing breakthrough technologies, which have driven generations of economic prosperity. In an updated report, the Breakthrough Institute explores this partnership through a set of case studies in American innovation.
Driving directions from your iPhone. The cancer treatments that save countless lives. The seed hybrids that have slashed global hunger. A Skype conversation while flying on a Virgin Airlines jet across the continent in just five hours.
Where did these everyday miracles come from?
As soon as the question is asked we know to suspect that the answer is not as simple as Apple, Amgen, or General Electric. We might recall something about microchips and the Space Race, or know that the National Institutes of Health funds research into new drugs and treatments.
But most of us remain unaware of the depth and breadth of American government support for technology and innovation. Our gratitude at being able to video chat with our children from halfway around the world (if we feel gratitude at all) is directed at Apple, not the Defense Department. When our mother's Neupogen works to fight her cancer, we thank Amgen, not NIH or NSF.
By Rob Atkinson, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger
For forty years, presidents and policymakers have promised and planned for a new energy future just over the horizon. While the rationales have varied - reducing dependence on imported oil, stopping global warming, reducing air pollution, creating clean energy jobs - the song has largely remained the same: America has most, if not all, of the technologies needed today to make a quick and relatively painless transition away from fossil fuels.
Yet America is more dependent upon fossil fuels than ever before. U.S. oil consumption rose from 15 to 20 million barrels a day between 1970 and today, while coal still provides about 50 percent of our electricity. U.S. carbon emissions continue to rise unabated, as efforts to cap them have repeatedly foundered in the face of daunting political, economic, and technological obstacles. And renewable technologies like wind and solar only meet a tiny fraction of America's energy needs despite several decades of efforts to subsidize their deployment.
When experts convene in Washington next week to discuss energy policy at the Energy Innovation 2010 conference, they will do so in the wake of yet another failed federal effort to pass legislation to support a transition away from fossil fuel-based energy.
Breakthrough Institute and other leading think tanks sponsor day-long conference rethinking energy innovation in the United States: getting to scale, making clean energy cheap, securing American leadership.
After
two years of often-tumultuous debate in Congress, the national debate
over energy and climate change policy has now been altered: cap and
trade policy efforts have run aground in Congress, perhaps fatally, and
Republicans are ascendant, reshaping the national political landscape.
Meanwhile, with economic recovery the top priority for the public and
policymakers alike, America's clean tech competitors are surging ahead,
raising the stakes for energy policy.
Against this backdrop,
support is growing on both right and left for new national investments
in energy innovation that can help address some of the most urgent
imperatives of our time - renewing the economy, improving energy
security and public health, and overcoming key environmental challenges.
A growing chorus of voices thus counsels a renewed national commitment to develop breakthrough energy technologies - and to the reform of America's energy innovation system itself.
In
recent months, energy experts have advised policymakers to: take a page
from the nation's long history of successful military research and
procurement; build on the success of agricultural research stations and
the National Institutes of Health by establishing new innovation
institutes and clusters nationwide; promote the right mix of both
competition and collaboration to spur innovation and productive
knowledge spillover; reform energy subsidies to reward innovation; and
restructure business taxes to promote investment in the building blocks
of an innovation economy.
On December 15th, a group of America's leading policy think tanks will host a day-long conference in Washington D.C. to rethink energy innovation.
Energy Innovation 2010,
held at the National Press Club, will bring together leading experts
from government, think tanks, academia, and business to ask hard
questions about how energy innovation efforts can be brought to scale,
how the innovation system must be restructured and reformed, and how to
renew the kind of active partnerships between the public and private
sectors that were responsible for so much of America's prior
technological innovation and economic strength.
Breakthrough Institute is proud to organize and sponsor this free, day-long conference, along with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and with sponsoring partners the American Enterprise Institute, Third Way, Clean Air Task
Force, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Securing
America's Future Energy, and the Brookings Institution. We are pleased to
welcome TheEnergyCollective.com and Yale Environment 360 as media sponsors for the event.
Facing renewed international challenges to American technological and economic leadership, the United States "cannot cut back on those investments that have the biggest impact on our economic growth," including science, technology and education, President Obama declared at a speech in Winston-Salem, North Carolina this week.
Echoing his Secretary of Energy and chief science and technology advisers (as well as a pairof familiar op eds from 2008), President Obama told audiences in North Carolina today that the United States faces a new "Sputnik moment" - a challenge to American technology and economic leadership akin to the global race to dominate nascent aerospace, computing, and information technology fields during the Cold War Era.
The United States responded to the 1957 launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite with a series of major investments in science and education, including the National Defense Education Act and the creation of the Apollo Space Program. Maintaining economic competitiveness in the 21st century similarly demands a renewed national commitment to invest in the building blocks of a dynamic innovation economy, the President said.
Forcing countries to agree to emissions caps will never work, argue Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. The duo argues in a special Wall Street Journal column that the global community should think past U.N. climate talks in Cancun and focus instead on energy innovation, adaptation, and no regrets policies that do not require agreement about global warming.
The failure of the U.N. climate process is proof that shared economic sacrifice cannot be the basis of global action. Nations will not scale up clean energy as long as it remains so much more expensive than fossil fuels. Thinking past talks in Cancun, nations should focus instead on energy innovation, adaptation, and no regrets policies that do not require agreement about global warming. The first step is recognizing that the global market for clean energy exists only thanks to government subsidies and mandates. Instead of imposing emissions controls and subsidizing existing technologies, nations should use competitive deployment to purchase advanced energy technologies, benchmark the winners, and allow intellectual property to spill-over between firms and nations.
This is the framework we propose for pragmatic global climate action in the cover story for a special energy section in today's Wall Street Journal, pegged to the start of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. Today also marks the launch of a new web site, Breakthrough Europe, and its kick-off post, "Cancun Can't: The Twilight of European Climate Leadership," which documents the failure of Europe's cap and trade system to reduce emissions.
Our Wall St. Journal essay, "How to Change the Global Energy Conversation," builds on Breakthrough Institute's thinking about the failure of the UN process ("Scrap Kyoto," Democracy Journal), the clean tech intellectual property illusion ("The Revolution Will Not Be Patented," Slate), the green Keynesianism and neoliberalism behind Obama's green jobs fiasco ("Green Jobs for Janitors," The New Republic), and our proposal to make clean energy cheap through technology innovation ("Fast, Clean & Cheap," Harvard Law and Policy Review, Feb 2008).
Research and innovation on energy storage and transmission technology must proceed in parallel as the nation ramps up use of renewable energy, according to a new report from the American Physical Society.
New innovations in energy storage, transmission, and the integration of variable electricity sources are necessary to enable renewable energy sources to contribute significantly to the U.S. energy supply, according to a new report from the American Physical Society.
Establishing national policies to spur the deployment and adoption of renewable electricity sources, such as wind and solar power, are important, but the scientists warn that research and innovation must also proceed in parallel on better energy storage technologies, new strategies for integrating the varying and intermittent output of these energy sources, and improved technologies for the long-distance transmission of renewable electricity.
A new report by Third Way and an op-ed by three U.S. Senators add to the gathering consensus for a technology and innovation-led strategy for clean energy progress and economic renewal.
America can recapture the lead in the global clean energy race if it commits itself to a major public-private effort to spur clean energy innovation.
That's the message of a new report released today by Democratic think tank Third Way. The report, "Creating a Clean Energy Century," is the first in a series of reports from Third Way's new project on energy innovation, co-chaired by U.S. Senators Mark Udall (D-CO), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
The report begins with clear-cut premises. Clean energy is still too expensive and unreliable relative to fossil fuels. Other countries are moving toward clean energy more quickly than the United States. Countries that are able to make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels will gain the greatest economic benefits, by capturing more of the rapidly growing domestic and global markets for clean energy.
Neal Lane, of Rice University former science advisor to President Bill Clinton, showed the slide above in a recent talk at the University of Colorado (which he provided to me today, Thanks Neal!). It shows a number of technologies somehow connected to federal innovation investments and their relationship to the iPod, discussed in an earlier post today.
Apple has long boasted of its culture of innovation, and how this led to such products as the original Mac and the iPod. However, it turns out that, at least in the case of the iPod, Apple had a hidden ally: the US government. During a speech at Tuskegee University, President (and iPod user) George W. Bush told his audience, "the government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod." While we have to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of government agencies such as DARPA in some of the fields mentioned by the President, we also feel obligated to point out the accomplishments of private companies in the US and abroad, including IBM, Hitachi and Toshiba -- not to mention the Fraunhofer Institute, which developed the original MP3 codec, and codeveloped (with Sony, AT&T and others) the AAC format used by Apple in the iPod.
The United States and Australia have inked a new partnership to pursue joint solar energy research designed to make solar energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement in Melbourne on Sunday, with the Australian government set to commit up to $50 million towards the program.
Ms Gillard said the aim was to make solar power as cheap as conventional energy sources.
"One of the greatest barriers to a broader commercial take up of solar power is its cost and that is specifically what this joint research initiative will address," Ms Gillard told reporters.
"The joint project with the United States is part of an aggressive effort to bring the sales price of solar technology down by two to four times."
Ms Clinton said the program aimed to make solar power competitive with conventional energy sources by 2015.
The price had dropped by 50 per cent in the past three years but there was more work to be done, she said.
"Under this initiative our two governments will share both the costs and the benefits of research and development which will speed up innovation," she said.
Secretary Clinton also pledged a $500,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to support a global survey to identify opportunities to reuse carbon dioxide emitted by power plant and industrial processes, headed up by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, a recently established research center co-funded by the Australian government.
Solar Powerhouse? Solar irradiation in Australia is among the highest in the world, as this color-coded map from NASA illustrates (darker red areas have the most incoming solar energy). Source: The Age/Reuters
Australia, with perhaps the greatest solar energy potential in the world, has an obvious interest in pursuing affordable, scalable solar power solutions, and has also maintained several long-standing solar research efforts. Can the two new partners accelerate efforts to make solar energy cheap?
Despite rising national debts, would national governments be wise to borrow today to fund investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and innovation to be enjoyed by -- and paid back by -- a richer, more well-off generation tomorrow?
Here's an interesting argument from our friends across the pond at the UK-focused Political Climate blog, making the case that despite rising deficit concerns and austerity measures in the UK and elsewhere, borrowing from the future may still actually be an appropriate way to pay for clean energy innovation today:
Against this background, it may sound mad to argue for more public borrowing in order to pay for investments in low carbon technologies and infrastructure, but that is what I am going to do in this post.
Let's start with the rationale. ... The starting point is that in advanced economies successive generations tend to get better off over time. For example, at the depths of the 1930s depression Keynes observed that despite the general gloom, he was confident that 100 years in the future, people might be eight times better off in real terms. And indeed average GDP per capita in the UK is now already about 5 times what it was in the 1930s. By extension, we would normally expect future generations to be better off than us in GDP terms.
... [Furthermore, if] we in this generation mitigate climate change, we will allow future generations to have a higher standard of living than they would have if we did nothing. We are very slowly beginning to do this, with policies being introduced to encourage us to invest less in conventional capital (e.g. fossil fuel power stations) and more in investments that effectively maintain natural capital (like renewable energy).
At the moment we are paying for these more expensive investments through reduced consumption, in the form of higher energy bills. If instead we were to borrow a certain amount of money from future generations (who will have to repay through their taxes) and use this money to pay the extra cost of renewables, carbon capture and storage and so on, then the theory says it should be possible to make both our generation and future generations better off. ...
Support for a technology-first approach to America's energy and climate needs is rapidly growing in the wake of the October 14 release of the "Post-Partisan Power" proposal by scholars at the Brookings Institution, AEI and Breakthrough Institute. Here is a sampling of the many reactions and widespread discussion generated by the report...
Joshua Green, Atlantic Monthly & Boston Globe: "Unlike most of what gets introduced just before an election, this was not a soon-to-be-forgotten political ploy, but a long-term project to accomplish what Congress and the president could not: put the country on the path to a clean energy future."
David Leonhardt, New York Times: [T]he death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Tim Mak, Frum Forum (a site started by former Bush speechwriter David Frum): "If Americans want to fight the challenges of climate change and reduce their dependence on foreign oil, this piece sets a good baseline for discussion."
Ezra Klein, Washington Post: "It's not that PPP is a sure thing, nor that it will pass Congress anytime soon. The Tea Party Republicans will need to sow their wild and crazy oats for awhile before they feel any need to tack to the center. But when they do, they aren't going to embrace cap and trade. They might, on the other hand, embrace a limited and direct approach to energy innovation."
Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations: [T]his idea may well make a lot of sense... most of the paper is actually a smart and thoughtful discussion of how to do energy innovation policy right".
Kirsten Powers, New York Post: " If America wants to remain the leader of the world economy, Washington has to attack this issue."
Bryan Walsh, TIME Magazine: "A truly bipartisan approach on energy and climate won't be easy--sometimes, especially right before an election, it seems completely impossible--but it's the only approach we can hope for, if we still hope."
Nature: "[G]iven the lack of consensus in other areas, long-term R&D intended to bring the cost of clean energy down might well be one area where lawmakers will be able to agree."
Case Western professor Jonathan Adler writes: "While not without flaws, the proposal represents a serious alternative to politically-moribund cap-and-trade proposals and the regulate-everything mindset that produced the Waxman-Markey bill."
Newsweek: "Cap-and-trade is on life support, but its weakness is giving other ideas room to breathe. Emerging proposals focus on investment in clean energy, pitched to the public with a narrative that omits a doomsday point of view about global warming and instead focuses on more practical considerations like job creation or the need to stop certain types of pollution."
All that convergence around a politically centrist, technology-first approach alarmed some climate warriors on left and right.
Climate skeptic Steven Milloy of Green Hell blog (and Junkscience.com) wrote: "The left isn't oscillating at all. They are focused on establishing a one-world socialist paradise. Whatever path gets the comrades there, they'll follow. Global warming has just been there most successful gambit to date."
Said Grist.org's David Roberts: "The Republican Party don't want to spend government money on clean energy, Hayward notwithstanding."
Joe Romm, ClimateProgress.org: [It] should also be obvious we're not going to get a massive federal clean energy program either."
Not all long-time climate warriors were sour on the proposal.
While EDF chief economist Nathaniel Keohane reiterates that "we need both cap and trade and sustained investment in clean energy R&D," he went on to tell the New York Times' David Leonhardt, "if it turns out that we can't get cap and trade in the near term, we need R&D investment all the more."
Harvard's Robert Stavins still insists "there is no other feasible approach that can provide meaningful emissions reductions" beyond cap and trade, but he acknowledges: "New path-breaking technologies will be needed to address climate change, and public support for private-sector or public-sector R&D will be crucial to meet this need."
MIT's Michael Greenstone, a long-time cap and trade supporter, isn't so sure about the real-world viability of the policy he once advocated. "The first best hope was getting a world price for carbon, and that now looks remote in the coming years," he told Leonhardt. "But there are ways in which the other options may be preferable to a price only in the U.S." Greenstone endorses the need for $25 billion in clean energy R&D investments and rightly explains, "All the action is really going to be occurring in developing countries" who will need clean and affordable energy to power their economic growth.
In a second post, Washington Post's Ezra Klein looks the realpolitik in the face as well and concludes: "The best of all worlds would've been a price on carbon married to a big investment in clean-energy research. But this is not the best of all worlds. This is our world. And this [technology-first proposal] ... might be our last, best chance to protect it."
Update The Washington Post editorial page endorses Post-Partisan Power's call for a bipartisan energy innovation strategy, noting: "Even if cap-and-trade had passed, the logic goes, the government would still have had to invest in scientific research to make green energy affordable; might as well make those investments, anyway ... incremental action is better than none."
When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time. Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort cannot succeed if that discomfort is perceived to be too great. Calls for asceticism and sacrifice are a nonstarter.
The "iron law" thus presents a boundary condition on policy design that is every bit as limiting as is the second law of thermodynamics, and it holds everywhere around the world, in rich and poor countries alike. It says that even if people are willing to bear some costs to reduce emissions (and experience shows that they are), they are willing to go only so far...
To succeed, any policies focused on decarbonizing economies will necessarily have to offer short-term benefits that are in some manner proportional to the short-term costs. In practice, this means that efforts to make dirty energy appreciably more expensive will face limited success.
...
The unavoidable reality is that policy makers and those they represent are committed to sustaining economic growth, bringing populations out of poverty, and expanding access to energy. Emissions reduction goals will not be achieved by policies that seek to stimulate innovation by constricting, much less by reducing, economic activity.
Yesterday, scholars from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Breakthrough Institute released a joint report proposing a post-partisan way forward on climate and energy policy that moves beyond the framework of cap and trade. The report, "Post-Partisan Power," ignited a firestorm of discussion.
To answer some of major questions about the report, E&E News OnPoint TV host Monica Trauzzi invited Breakthrough Institute Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins and Brookings' Senior Fellow and Director of Policy for the Metropolitan Policy Program to join her show.
Throughout American history, federal investments in areas like science and technology have been a long-term driver of national prosperity under presidents both Democrat and Republican.
Throughout American history, strategic government investments in areas like education, technology, infrastructure, and energy catalyzed the entrepreneurship and innovation that has paved the way for so many of the great American technological and economic successes of the 20th century. In the words of conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, the American story is one of "limited but energetic governments that used aggressive federal power to promote growth."
The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to America's long-history of bi-partisan support for innovation.
Writes David Leonhardt in today's New York Times, "the death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Mark Muro of Brookings tells Politico the proposal's four parts "are broadly popular, provide a very broad and appealing American vision of economic transformation and are certainly far more doable than a global pricing system at this point." Added Steve Hayward of American Enterprise Institute, "The entire climate and energy agenda that we've been talking about for several years now has hit a dead end, so it's time to hit the reset button."
The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to America's long-history of bi-partisan support for innovation.
Writes David Leonhardt in today's New York Times, "the death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Mark Muro of Brookings tells Politico the proposal's four parts "are broadly popular, provide a very broad and appealing American vision of economic transformation and are certainly far more doable than a global pricing system at this point." Added Steve Hayward of American Enterprise Institute, "The entire climate and energy agenda that we've been talking about for several years now has hit a dead end, so it's time to hit the reset button."
As the Times's Leonhardt explains the new post-partisan proposal, and the growing energy innovation consensus surrounding it, "reflect[s] the political reality that raising the cost of dirty energy is unpopular, especially when the economy is so weak. Finding the money to make clean energy cheaper, even when government budgets are tight, will probably be an easier sell."
While cap and trade legislation became embattled by partisan wars over climate science and compromised to the point of inefficacy, Leonhardt reminds readers that there is a successor strategy waiting, if one only turns to the long, bipartisan history of American technological leadership.
"[H]istory shows that government-directed research can work," Leohardt writes.
"The Defense Department created the Internet, as part of a project to build a communications system safe from nuclear attack. The military helped make possible radar, microchips and modern aviation, too. The National Institutes of Health spawned the biotechnology industry. All those investments have turned into engines of job creation, even without any new tax on the technologies they replaced.
"We didn't tax typewriters to get the computer. We didn't tax telegraphs to get telephones," Breakthrough Institute's Michael Shellenberger told the Times. "When you look at the history of technological innovation, you find that state investment is everywhere."
And in that history, lies a new path forward to deliver clean cheap energy, economic productivity, and national prosperity.
By Steven F. Hayward, American Enterprise Institute; Mark Muro, Brookings Institution; Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute
If ever there were a time to hit the reset button on energy policy, it is today. Congress is set to adjourn without taking substantive, long-term action on either climate or energy. While conservatives may be celebrating the death of cap and trade, the truth is that the right's longstanding hopes for the expansion of nuclear power and oil production have also run aground, foundering on the high cost of constructing new nuclear plants and the impacts of the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, energy policy is at a standstill, despite overwhelming public support for accelerating the move to clean, affordable energy sources and tapping fast-growing clean energy industries to create jobs and wealth in the United States.
Here's the latest in our irregular Friday Factoids series, provided as usual without comment...
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistics and forecasting agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, a substantial price gap remains between the levelized cost of new renewable electricity sources and conventional fossil fuel power plants. Their cost estimates are for new power generation equipment constructed in 2016 and reported in 2008 constant dollars (see graphic below).
Electricity from new onshore wind power, for example, is 49% more expensive than electricity from new conventional coal-fired power plants, and 80% more expensive than electricity from a conventional natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant, according to EIA estimates. Wind power built offshore is 28% more costly than onshore wind, says the EIA.
Electricity from new utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants and solar thermal power plants are roughly 5x and 3x more expensive, respectively, than natural-gas fired combined cycle power plants, and roughly 3x and 2x more expensive, respectively, than conventional gas-fired combustion turbines, according to EIA figures.
[Originally published 10.28.10 in The New Republic.] President Obama's strategy for economic renewal through clean energy was flawed from the start, too over-reliant on cap and trade and public works programs to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency. To succeed, a new industrial economy requires large, sustained investments in innovation and manufacturing like the kinds that built America's information technology and biomedical industries.
An abridged version of this article appears in the October 28, 2010 print edition of The New Republic (and online here, subscription required)
In August 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama traveled to Lansing, Michigan, to lay out an ambitious ten-year plan for revitalizing, and fundamentally altering, the American economy. His administration, he vowed, would midwife new clean-energy industries, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and create five million green jobs. "Will America watch as the clean-energy jobs and industries of the future flourish in countries like Spain, Japan, or Germany?" Obama asked. "Or will we create them here, in the greatest country on earth, with the most talented, productive workers in the world?"
Two years later, the answer to that second question appears to be no. Obama's environmental agenda is in tatters. His green jobs plan has done little to make a dent in unemployment, which persists at close to 10 percent. Obama's signature environmental initiative, cap-and-trade, died in the Senate in July. And, during the first year of Obama's tenure, China massively outspent the United States on clean-energy technology.
The story of how Obama's green agenda came up empty is more complicated than the one conventionally told by Democrats and greens, who imagine that cap-and-trade would have been transformational had Republicans and global-warming deniers not gotten in the way. In truth, the president's strategy was flawed from the start. Cap-and-trade would not have birthed a domestic clean-energy economy -- indeed, it wasn't designed to. Meanwhile, the administration's green stimulus spending was split between short-term, if worthy, investments in green technology, to which far too little money was allocated, and over-hyped public-works projects that would never have delivered the new industrial economy Obama promised as a candidate.
A new report by the National Academies paints a grim picture of U.S. economic competitiveness in the 21st century knowledge economy. Major and sustained public investments in education, research, and innovation are key to reversing a long-term decline in global competitiveness.
A new National Academies report released last week confirms what many concerned with U.S. economic competitiveness have warily suspected: America's competitive standing in the 21st century global economy has deteriorated markedly in the last five years.
The outlook has only worsened since the publication of the original report, according to the Gathering Storm committee, which includes leading academics, CEOs, and science and technology experts. For those concerned about America's ability to create lasting, high-paying, high-quality jobs in a time of economic distress, the report's conclusion is disheartening:
"America's competitive position in the world now faces even greater challenges, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the last few years and by the rapid and persistent worldwide advanced of education, knowledge, innovation, investment, and industrial infrastructure. Indeed the governments of many other countries in Europe and Asia have themselves acknowledged and aggressively pursued many of the key recommendations of Rising Above the Gathering Storm, often more vigorously than has the U.S."
The failure of cap and trade and Kyoto has driven many on both the right and left toward a new consensus energy policy framework centered on making clean energy cheap. As a new energy innovation agenda is debated and refined in the coming months, true clean energy and climate progress may yet be realized.
On the right, Bjorn Lomborg, long a leading skeptic of efforts to address climate change, has wholeheartedly embraced a new clean energy innovation agenda, calling for massive global investments--on the order of $100 billion per year--in energy R&D. New York Times conservative commentator David Brooks has also acknowledged that the government should invest much more--around $25 billion per year--in research and development.
On the left, the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Democratic think tank whose spokespersons have in the past attacked Breakthrough's proposal to "Make Clean Energy Cheap," appears to be embracing just such a strategy -- at least rhetorically. According to a recent news report, Democratic lawyer Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is working with CAP and Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection on a new energy bill for the next Congress that focuses first and foremost on "lowering the cost of clean."
Hundt and CAP/Gore are also talking about measures to scale out the "breakthrough technologies" that the Department of Energy has funded.
The German government is proposing to extend the life of its nuclear power plants and use the resulting windfall to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. The WSJ reports:
Germany's proposal to keep its nuclear reactors running on average 12 years longer than planned will bring in €30 billion ($38.69 billion) in taxes and levies from utility companies, Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle said Monday.
"It's about €30 billion overall. These are large sums that will be directed to the government, toward renewable energy," Mr. Brüderle said in an interview with radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. He added that the revenue includes the contributions utilities will be obliged to make toward renewable-energy research and development, and a tax on nuclear fuel rods. The fuel-rod levy, which utilities fought vigorously to avoid, will generate an estimated €2.3 billion annually but will be limited to six years, Mr. Brüderle said.
Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
In a new interview with Technology Review, Bill Gates nails the global energy and climate challenge and discusses the need for dramatic increases in energy innovation funding to make clean energy cheap.
In a climate discourse dominated by emissions targets and carbon caps, Gates has provided a refreshing and clear-eyed look at the first-order importance of direct public investment to develop clean, affordable technologies to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
In this new interview, Gates discusses why dismissing the difficulty of the challenge is counter-productive, and argues that carbon pricing can never drive the dramatic innovation required to transform the global energy system. Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
Below the fold, you can find excerpts from Gates' interview, which can be read in full here.
For more, the NYTimesAndy Revkin and TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh each spotlight the interview here and here, respectively.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has funded breakthrough innovation and new growth industries that are driving down the cost of clean energy and building the foundation for competitive 21st century U.S. industries, according to a new White House reportreleased today on the impacts of the U.S. stimulus bill.
Yet while the White House report highlights the considerable clean energy momentum established by the Recovery Act, it also inadvertently raises the specter of an impending clean tech funding cliff which risks sending U.S. clean energy industries into deep freeze as stimulus funds begin to expire over the coming months.
There's been some change over at WhiteHouse.gov's energy and environment page, but probably not the kind we had in mind when we heard President Obama's oft-repeated campaign slogan, "Change You Can Believe In."
A number of (as yet unfulfilled) energy and environmental policy pledges have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov page in recent weeks.
Chief among them: President Obama's pledge to "invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy," once a central plank in Obama's energy and environment platform, and a feature of his first national budget proposal (in FY2009).
With support from short-term federal stimulus funds, state and local governments aren't waiting for the academic and political debate over whether the U.S. should pursue an industrial policy to spur a clean energy economy. Instead, they are implementing targeted investments, tax breaks, and loans to help expand home grown clean tech companies and entice foreign firms to expand U.S. operations.
A vigorous debate about whether the U.S. government should invest in and help manage clean energy industries to spur economic growth is unfolding among academics, policy makers and business leaders. Curiously, a handful of federal, state, and local government officials are forging ahead in spite of the national discussion and formulating targeted industrial policies to create vibrant clean energy innovation ecosystems that include manufacturing, material suppliers, customers, and R&D. Cases like Rioglass Solar, a Spanish glass manufacturer expanding operations in Arizona, as well as the considerable growth of the wind industry across the US show how the public and private sector can collaborate and, more importantly, how effective industrial policy can create well-paying, long-term jobs.
This past week Rioglass Solar, which provides curved glass sheets used in solar panels, decided to build a $50 million headquarters and a 130,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Surprise, Arizona. The project will create 100 new jobs at the headquarters alone and many more in the manufacturing plant - a welcome economic boost for the town.
The chief incentive for the American operations expansion? Local, state, and federal officials provided almost $12 million in tax credits and fee reductions to (successfully) lure Rioglass to the area.
Meet the $35 dollar laptop, the result of the Indian government's direct investment in information technology research. If manufactured successfully, the laptop will both revolutionize education in the developing world and serve as a testament to the power of government investment to trigger rapid technological progress.
Last week, the Indian government showcased a prototype of a low-cost laptop that could trigger an education revolution in India and elsewhere in the developing world. If successful, the newly announced computer will serve as a prime example of how direct government investments can reduce the price of technology quickly and effectively.
Funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development and designed by students from India's top universities, the laptop is slated to enter the market in 2011.
According to a recent IEA report, the U.S. is not alone in facing the possibility of a clean technology R&D funding cliff. The report documents an uptick in global clean energy R&D investment in 2009 as a result of country-level stimulus packages, but the author of the report cautions that investment on this level must be built upon, not allowed to drop off.
According to the [IEA] report, "Global Gaps in Clean Energy RD&D," the recent burst of spending on research as part of various countries' efforts to stimulate their fragile economies has helped provide a substantial boost after decades of diminishing investment on the frontiers of energy inquiry. But the report's author, Thomas Kerr, warned that this was a transitory pulse when sustained growth was needed, particularly given signs that no global price on carbon dioxide emissions was likely any time soon. In essence, the report says, the $24 billion in such spending in 2009 needs to be the new floor for such investments, not a temporary peak.
The report describes how India, despite its poverty, has moved ahead with an initiative for raising money for energy research that the United States -- thanks to a lack of leadership, congressional polarization and fear of anything remotely resembling a tax -- has so far been unable to do: India has created a National Clean Energy Fund for research and innovation financed by a levy of $1.10 (U.S.) per metric ton of mined or imported coal. It's a very modest fee that has created hundreds of millions of dollars to stimulate Indian research and testing of promising technologies.
Click here for more on India's National Clean Energy Fund.
In a recent Guardian op-ed, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Ulrich Beck argues that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe should be inspiring far more than just a pointless blame game. Instead, he points out, "we need the celebrated innovative power of capital and the utopian enthusiasm of engineers," to revolutionize the way we use energy and make use of the most abundant sources of energy, such as solar power.
Beck writes:
Postwar prosperity in the west laid the foundation for environmental awareness. Now environmental awareness must provide the basis for prosperity in developing countries. These countries will adopt sustainable policies to the extent that the affluent countries invest in their development and adopt a new vision of prosperity and growth. China, India, Brazil and African countries will not agree to any approach that tries to limit their efforts to achieve economic parity - and rightly so.
But does the future lie with a global environmental policy based on carbon trading, which amounts to the global sale of indulgences for CO2 sins? Or will we have the courage to invent and realise a new age of solar energy in which prosperity is not an environmental sin, and when everything from cows to electric toothbrushes is blamed for contributing to CO2 emissions? "It is time to introduce clean forms of energy," Obama has said. If he can ring in an era that is truly Beyond Petroleum, Big Oil's Bastille will be doomed.
A recent collection of nuclear news over at the Energy Collective suggests that Japan and South Korea are taking major steps to sign lucrative nuclear deals - with relatively little competition from Westinghouse or Areva. And China is planning to increase nuclear capacity nearly eight-fold by 2020 by building reactors locally using Westinghouse AP1000 technology.
Update (Jul 16, 2010): Expanding on a Washington Post op-ed, Vinod Khosla delineates his argument "about the deficiencies of an isolated cap-and-trade or carbon-pricing bill," and joins the climate technology consensus. Khosla writes, "If we want to make a significant difference, we need to get on the path to reducing carbon worldwide by 80 percent now by focusing on what I call "carbon reduction capacity building" -- in other words, we need to develop radical carbon-reduction technologies. A utility cap (or a carbon price) won't build capacity -- it will just increase our utility costs and decrease our manufacturing competitiveness without any increase in our technological competitiveness. On the other hand, although a policy that promotes capacity building will increase research investments in the short term, it will likely decrease overall electricity costs in the medium to long run (through the magic of competition, technology and regulatory certainty), while simultaneously reducing carbon. Disruptive technologies require investment; they don't come from the status quo."
Update (Jul 14, 2010): Other observers have reached similar conclusions about the faltering pollution paradigm. Walter Russell Mead and Clive Crook weigh in on "The Big Green Lie" but can't agree on what it is. Mead argues that it is "that the green movement is a source of coherent or responsible counsel about what to do" while Crook argues that "it's the diminished credibility of the claim that we have a problem in the first place." But both agree that cap and trade and the effort to establish a global carbon pollution regime are dead. Meanwhile, Newsweek's Stefan Theil observes that "the whole concept of radical, top-down global targets is coming under scrutiny" and suggests that the "new climate realism" will "look at other options beyond the current set of targets" and "include a broader mix of policies" including "a shift of subsidies into research and development" and "greater efforts to adapt society to a warmer climate."
Update (Jul 10, 2010): See Andrew Pendleton and Matthew Lockwood of the UK-based IPPR think tank response to Alex Evans' contention that real action on climate will only occur after a major global warming disaster. "There is simply no reason to believe that a climate shock big enough to bring about major changes in thinking will come along before we reach a tipping point (how would we know?)" they write. "Climate change is by its nature long-term and insidious, more like a frog in a warming pot than a sudden Anschluss."
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation to make clean energy cheap. The new framework begins from the understanding that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. But hard and important questions are being asked of the new investment-and-innovation paradigm. How is it different from just increasing subsidies for clean energy? How can we be sure it will reduce emissions? What role should carbon pricing play? Here Breakthrough Institute answers frequently asked questions of the climate technology paradigm and responds to challenges raised by Alex Evans on the left and Robert Michaels on the right, among others, who have taken aim at Breakthrough's and Bill Gates' proposals, respectively.
By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has not reduced emissions and is quickly fading as the central effort to decarbonize European economies. The UN process is becoming a forum for nations to compare and coordinate national policies and measures, not create or enforce a binding global treaty. And it is now clear that, if energy legislation passes the U.S. Senate, it will not create an economy-wide cap-and-trade system, nor will it increase the deployment of clean energy.
Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation. This consensus begins with the recognition that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. No nation -- not even the wealthiest in Europe -- is willing to price carbon enough to cover the difference. Until the technology gap is closed, little will be done to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Arising out of the debates surrounding clean technology and the economic recession, is the nagging question: can the U.S. continue to lead in high tech innovation without domestic manufacturing? Increasingly, it seems, the answer is "NO" -- a response that carries serious implications for clean tech innovation and economic growth in the U.S.
Political confusion surrounding "green" jobs, clean tech, and outsourced manufacturing (largely to Asia) has caused those looking to clean energy as the next U.S. growth sector and those seeking to raise the U.S. out of a growth-numbing recession to lose sight of what has fueled U.S. technological and economic leadership in the past - public support for innovation and large scale high tech manufacturing. Recently, Alexis Madrigal posed the critical question arising from this confusion to the readers of the Atlantic: "Can the US Innovate Without Manufacturing?"
As Breakthrough and numerous high tech leaders argue, the answer is "NO."
In a new IEA report intended to inform and guide climate and energy policy decision makers, the Energy Technology Perspective 2010 (Exec. Summary; full report purchase required) demonstrates that the clean technology revolution will require an additional $46 trillion investment (beyond energy infrastructure investment expected in BAU scenarios) if we intend to halve carbon emissions by 2050 (from 2005 levels). And, the IEA adds, a carbon price alone will not be sufficient to drive that level of investment.
The long holiday weekend will undoubtedly bring the usual calls for energy independence. With a hole in the bottom of the ocean continuing to spew tens of thousands of gallons of oil daily into the Gulf and hundreds of thousands of American troops stationed around the world endeavoring, among other things, to ensure the free flow of oil upon which our economy depends, it is worth remembering why it has been so difficult to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, even though the costs of that dependence have been high.
China is planning to bring on two new reactors at the Ling Ao nuclear power plant complex, adding about 1.7 GW of average capacity (assuming a capacity factor of .87) at the complex. According to Bloomberg, China plans to bring the first new reactor online in October and the second in 2011 as part of its effort to replace some of its coal fired generation with nuclear energy.
Just to put the size of these reactors in perspective, (according to Breakthrough analysis) it would take nearly ten offshore wind farms the size of Cape Wind or about four solar PV projects the size of California's $3 billion Million Solar Roofs initiative to supply the amount of energy that these additional reactors will provide for China.
A new policy brief by the Breakthrough Institute and Americans for Energy Leadership, "The Power to Compete?", provides the first independent analysis of how the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act would impact U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy industry.
A new policy brief released today by the Breakthrough Institute and Americans for Energy Leadership provides the first independent analysis of how the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act would impact U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy industry, benchmarking its provisions against key policy components for technological innovation and industrial development in the low-carbon power and transportation sectors.
Federal energy policy has become a primary U.S. national priority in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and amidst the ongoing Senate debate over comprehensive climate and energy reform. The May 2010 release of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act (APA) currently represents the flagship proposal for comprehensive reform in the Senate, and its future within the context of broader energy legislation will be determined in the weeks ahead.
The renewed urgency for energy reform arrives among growing national concern that the United States is falling behind its competitors in the growing clean energy industry. Thus, in addition to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, one of the core objectives of the Kerry-Lieberman proposal is to enhance U.S. competitiveness in clean energy technology markets. As Senator Kerry declared in the opening of the APA release press conference, "The bill that we are introducing today and revealing today, the American Power Act, will restore America's economy and reassert our position as a global leader in clean energy technology."
By re-thinking how the federal government can foster innovation and competitiveness in clean energy, from education and research to commercialization and production, the United States can once again become a global leader in clean energy technology.
By Jesse Jenkins, Mark Muro, and Rob Atkinson, originally at the New Republic
Having passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 28th, the America COMPETES Act, America's flagship competitiveness legislation, will soon be debated in the U.S. Senate. The Act was originally passed in 2007 in response to mounting concern that the United States was failing to effectively compete economically with other nations, imperiling the nation's future prosperity.
Now, a new outbreak of anxiety has engulfed the nation's competitive standing particularly as regards the nation's fledgling clean energy industry. Presently, the United States lacks an effective strategy to compete in this high-growth industry, which is expected to surpass $600 billion globally by 2020. Fortunately, the America COMPETES reauthorization offers a key opportunity for Congress to strengthen U.S. clean energy competitiveness.
In a new policy report, the Breakthrough Institute, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program call on Congress to strengthen clean energy competitiveness through the America COMPETES reauthorization.
Congress first passed this flagship competitiveness legislation in 2007 in response to concerns that the United States was losing its ability to compete economically with other nations. On May 28, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the COMPETES reauthorization by a vote of 262-150 and the bill is set to be debated in the Senate. The reauthorization comes at a time when the United States seeks new sources of growth in a fiscally constrained environment. The clean energy market is one such growth industry--expected to surpass $600 billion by 2020--but the U.S. faces unprecedented global competition.
In "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," an authoritative report on international clean energy competitiveness, the Breakthrough Institute and ITIF recently demonstrated how U.S. leadership on a number of clean energy competitiveness metrics has declined in the last decade. The United States' historic lead in energy innovation is slipping as other countries implement national innovation strategies. America now lags economic competitors in Asia and Europe in the manufacture of virtually all clean energy technologies. And the U.S. lags its economic rivals in preparing its future workforce with critical science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM).
The new report argues that to regain leadership in the global clean energy market, the United States must prioritize major investments in clean energy technology and embrace bold new paradigms in clean energy education, innovation, and production and manufacturing policy.
"Meeting the aggressive challenges to U.S. clean energy leadership will require both increased funding for critical education and technology programs as well as new ideas for how the federal government can foster innovation in the clean energy industry, from basic research to full-scale commercialization," said Mark Muro, Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Project.
The Brookings Institution is out with a new policy brief today building on their prior calls for energy discovery innovation institutes (e-DIIs). These regionally-based, collaborative research centers are designed to "serve as the hubs of a distributed research network linking the nation's best scientists, engineers, and facilities." The newest report assesses the potential for e-DII's in the Great Lakes region.
Through such a network, the nation could at once increase its current inadequate energy R&D effort and complement existing resources with a new research paradigm that would join the unique capabilities of America's research universities to those of corporate R&D and federal laboratories.
Brookings' vision for creating an energy innovation network is consonant with a similar concept put forward by the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way in "Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution with a National Institutes of Energy" which called for a national commitment to energy innovation modeled on the National Institutes of Health.
A new report by WWF confirms that the potential economic gains associated with clean energy exports are huge, but falls short in advancing an effective strategy for the U.S. to compete. More than pricing carbon and subsidizing clean energy in perpetuity, U.S. competitiveness in clean energy requires a comprehensive federal investment strategy in clean energy innovation and deployment to make clean energy cheap in real, unsubsidized terms.
A new report by the World Wildlife Fund outlines the enormous potential economic gains associated with clean energy export market share. The report, however, misses a critical opportunity to advance the most effective solution to declining U.S. clean energy competitiveness -- major public investment in clean technology innovation and deployment to make clean energy cheap.
Three-quarters of additional energy demand between now and 2050 is expected to occur in developing countries, according to the new report, suggesting that any national strategy to capitalize on the economic benefits of the growing clean energy industry must also focus on boosting clean energy exports.
"If US businesses capture 14% market share (which reflects current US exports in environmental goods and services in developing countries) in just a subset of this new clean technology market, it would result in up to 850,000 new American jobs"
But the policies that WWF recommends--putting a rising price on carbon and subsidizing clean energy in the developing world--will fail on their own to deliver on the promise of securing U.S. market share both domestically and abroad.
Despite the Deepwater Horizon calamity, if the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill gets passed then concessions on offshore drilling are likely to be part of the deal. But Brookings' Mark Muro points out that this outcome could provide a "teachable moment and tie further fossil fuel use once and for all to energy system transformation," citing a post by Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins and I, in which we argued that a 2009 GOP plan to dedicate the new oil and gas royalties to a clean energy fund would be an appropriate compromise if drilling is inevitable.
Before a Senate Finance Subcommittee, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson testified in support of incentives for US clean energy manufacturing as part of a comprehensive strategy for clean energy competitiveness.
Testifying before the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson spoke in support of incentives for US clean energy manufacturing as part of a comprehensive strategy for clean energy competitiveness. Building on Breakthrough's work with him on "Rising Tigers," Atkinson warned that a carbon price, and other demand side policies, are not enough to spur the kind of innovation necessary to ensure clean energy competitiveness.
Below are some highlights from his testimony. You can read the full testimony here.
Yesterday's column in the NYT by Thomas Friedman illustrates why efforts to put a price on carbon are not going to do much at all to stimulate energy technology innovation. Friedman writes:
After months of heroic negotiations, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman had forged a bipartisan climate/energy/jobs bill that, while far from perfect, would have, for the first time, put a long-term fixed price on carbon -- precisely the kind of price signal U.S. industry and consumers need to start really shifting the economy to clean-power innovations. . .
Without that price signal, you will never get sustained consumer demand for, or sustained private investment in, clean-power technologies. All you will get are hobbies. . .
I'd love to see the president come out, guns blazing with this message: "Yes, if we pass this energy legislation, a small price on carbon will likely show up on your gasoline or electricity bill. I'm not going to lie. But it is an investment that will pay off in so many ways. It will spur innovation in energy efficiency that will actually lower the total amount you pay for driving, heating or cooling. It will reduce carbon pollution in the air we breathe and make us healthier as a country. It will reduce the money we are sending to nations that crush democracy and promote intolerance. It will strengthen the dollar. It will make us more energy secure, environmentally secure and strategically secure. . . "
It is not clear what that "price on carbon" is in the legislation or how widely it would be applied, but for the purposes of discussion, let's just say that it starts at $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide and is applied economy-wide.
In spite of endless NIMBY opposition Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has handed a big win to Cape Wind. The triumph of this level-headed decision over continued efforts to block the project in the name of the "natural" or "sacred" provides a humbling lesson for opponents of Cape Wind and future clean energy projects.
Defining Sacred Compare for yourself the destruction of the sacred rainforest by oil drilling to the modest development of this region (right) by wind turbines.
After almost a decade of NIMBY opposition Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has handed a big win to Cape Wind -- what will become the country's first offshore wind farm -- and the future of offshore wind in the U.S.
Yet, environmentalists are bitterly divided over support for Cape Wind -- a 130 turbine, 430 megawatt clean energy project that is scheduled for siting about six miles offshore and could meet up to 75% of Cape Cod's power needs. The conflict between those who see Cape Wind as a step towards a clean energy future and those who consider it a "corporate giveaway to private industrial energy developers" says much about the scale of the challenges to clean energy adoption in the U.S.
The Breakthrough Institute has advocated for the project since 2005, when Robert Kennedy Jr. led a public fight to block the wind farm. Breakthrough's Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger published an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle and organized an open letter with other global warming writers, including Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan, and Jon Isham, calling on Kennedy to support the project. Over 150 other global warming writers and activists signed the letter. Nordhaus and Shellenberger continued their critique in a chapter of their 2007 book, Break Through, writing about Cape Wind as a cautionary tale against green NIMBYism.
Out of the scramble over the thrice-delayed Kerry/Graham/Lieberman climate bill, various policy alternatives have emerged. Grassroots greens are arguing for cap and dividend but high tech leaders including Bill Gates are calling for an explicit energy technology innovation agenda that - if backed by a direct, large-scale plan for investment - could leave carbon pricing alternatives by the wayside.
Out of the scramble over the thrice-delayed Kerry/Graham/Lieberman (KGL or "keggles") climate bill have emerged various alternatives, with grassroots greens arguing for cap and dividend and high tech leaders including Bill Gates calling for an explicit technology innovation agenda.
Earlier this month, Bill McKibben advocated in The New Republic for the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act, claiming it would solve the political problem of raising energy costs because it would rebate some of the pollution allowances to consumers -- "three-quarters will come out ahead," McKibben claims, "with only real energy hogs hurting .
It is simply not true that the government should not or cannot pick technological winners and losers. That was ITIF President Rob Atkinson's message in a piece today at Huffington Post. Indeed, as Atkinson writes, the government has always picked winners and in the process, has developed entire new industries, like IT, that have formed the foundation of economic prosperity and the basis of our modern way of life. What would our lives be like if we had left everything to the "free market"?
From Huffington Post:
"But the free market opponents will say how can Washington outsmart the market? Is this the same market that through its infinite wisdom invested hundreds of billions of subprime mortgages? In fact, the government has a pretty good track record of picking winners. Just look at the technologies that the government had a key role in developing: the Internet, the web browser, the search engine, computer graphics, semiconductors, and a host of others. There are many other examples of success stories made possible not because government anointed a particular young entrepreneur but because the government made a conscious choice to open new pathways into which young innovators could embark."
A few weeks ago, at an event on the same subject, Atkinson and former-Reaganite Clyde Prestowitz took the neoliberal free market ideologues including former Clintonite, Robert Lawrence (ironic?) to task for their ahistorical views. Amidst all the anti-government fervor lies the true but unconventional wisdom: the government can and should pick technological winners. Our economic prosperity depends on it.
Update: As Alexis Madrigal points out at WIRED, it's great to see the list of "heavy hitters" on the American Energy Innovation Council embrace a technology innovation agenda like the one Breakthrough has been working to advance. Let's hope this welcome show of support will be followed up by a serious commitment of financial resources.
An op-ed from Microsoft's Bill Gates and DuPont's Chad Holliday gives voice to the private sector's support for public investment in clean energy because energy, as Breakthrough has long argued, "requires a public commitment."
Gates and Holliday lay out three reasons why the private sector can't make this investment on its own:
What makes energy different from, say, electronics? Three things.
First, there are profound public interests in having more energy options. Our national security, economic health and environment are at issue. These are not primary motivations for private-sector investments, but they merit a public commitment.
Second, the nature of the energy business requires a public commitment. A new generation of television technology might cost $10 million to develop. Because those TVs can be built on existing assembly lines, that risk-reward calculus makes business sense. But a new electric power source can cost several billion dollars to develop and still carry the risk of failure. That investment does not compute for most companies.
Third, the turnover in our power system is very slow. Power plants last 50 years or more, and they are very cheap to run once built, meaning there is little market for new models.
It is understandable, then, why private-sector investments in clean energy technology are so small. Yet, while it may make sense for individual companies to make these choices, accepting the status quo would condemn our country to very bad options.
The Copenhagen climate talks may have been a symbolic success according to some, but the Accord won't mitigate climate change and the forthcoming Kerry/Graham/Lieberman climate bill will not lead to technology innovation. These failures, notes Michael Lind in a new white paper, show the collapse of the climate paradigm and the need to redefine our approach to climate change in terms of technology
The climate negotiations in Copenhagen resulted in a 193-nation agreement that included 154 policy commitments -- "the highest number of new government initiatives ever recorded . . . in a four-month period," according to Deutsche Bank -- but do they really matter?
In the months since the frenetic, and at times, apoplectic UNFCCC meeting, two conflicting views have emerged.
A report released earlier this month by Deutsche Bank (DB) presented analysis like those from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) showing the talks were "no failure."
Two new posts for Earth Day argue that we need to move from nature protection to tech innovation. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are in Slate and Mother Jones arguing that the focus on technology transfer as part of a global climate agreement is a distraction: clean tech IP has already been rapidly transferred to China -- soon it will be transferred back here.
Politicians talking about clean energy jobs like to claim "they can't be shipped overseas." From President Obama's State of the Union to Rep. Ed Markey stumping for the climate bill he co-authored with Rep. Henry Waxman, the promise of new "green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced" is an all too common refrain.
The only problem with it is that it's wrong on its face.
America is already exporting clean energy jobs -- or seeing them created abroad in the first place. After pioneering wind and solar power, electric cars, and nuclear plants, America turned its back on the public investments in cutting edge technology that catalyzed these innovations, forfeiting cleantech industries to foreign countries who did not make the same mistakes. The cap and trade program at the heart of the climate bill authored by Rep. Markey may help create more clean energy jobs overseas, but it won't bring those jobs back to America. Conventional responses to today's competitiveness challenge won't cut it. Here's what will...
During a panel hosted by Waxman-Markey proponent, Center for American Progress, ITIF president Rob Atkinson argued that cap and trade was not sufficient to catalyze a clean energy future, proposing instead, policy focused on public investment in innovation to make clean energy cheap and abundant.
Speaking at a panel on building a clean energy economy, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson declared that current technologies are not enough to create a competitive domestic clean energy industry and that major investments in energy innovation are necessary to make clean energy cheap and abundant.
Nuclear power might just be energy's version of the phoenix -- rising from the metaphoric ashes to play a key role in the solution to climate change.
That's the gist of a Wall Street Journal feature that points out that as climate concerns rise a number of environmentalists are rethinking their position on the viability of nuclear power, including Gaia Theorist James Lovelock and Whole Earth Catalogue pioneer, Stewart Brand. Quoting Breakthrough co-founder and Chairman, Ted Nordhaus, WSJ explains why it's becoming increasingly hard for environmentalists to be anti-nuclear power:
"If you're an environmentalist and you're arguing that catastrophic climate change is a serious problem that we have to deal with, it's increasingly hard to say that we're worried about nuclear power because of what's going to happen to nuclear waste buried inside of a mountain for 10,000 years," says Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, Calif., think tank...
"I'm much more optimistic about these next-generation designs," Mr. Nordhaus says. "If we're going to get serious about a new nuclear strategy, it's going to be with these smaller nuclear designs."
The increased competition for GE from local companies in China is due in part to a massive push by the Chinese government to promote clean energy and R&D. In recent years, it has rolled out a range of renewable energy targets and financial incentives, including significant tax breaks for companies that invest in research related to energy...
The GE research center has also been key for the development of wind-power technology, including power electronics hardware and software that allow wind turbines to keep operating after lightning strikes and other events cause sudden drops in voltage on the power grid. The center has now produced 20 patents in this general area, says Yunfeng Liu, the manager of GE's power conversion lab in Shanghai. Such technology can also make the grid more stable than it would be without the presence of wind turbines, by helping to maintain the necessary voltages and frequencies on transmission lines.
Over at the Energy Tribune, Robert Bryce brings up a long neglected point about electricity use for information technology, inspired by the latest Apple must-have - the iPad:
Like it or not, much of that electricity will be generated by burning coal because that's the cheapest, most available fuel, particularly in developing countries like China, India, South Africa, and others. And as those countries continue their development, a key element of their growth will depend on their uptake of computers, mobile phones, and Internet-based technologies. Thus, to paraphrase Huber and Mills' 1999 article: The iPad is coming. It's time to dig more coal.
Last week I discussed Paul Krugman's views of climate policy (here and here). I argued that he deemphasized the need for technological innovation, which I argue must be at the core of any successful approach to decarbonization of the economy. A few commenters argued rather strenuously that I got things wrong -- Krugman in fact prioritizes technological innovation.
First, power generation has to be "decarbonized": solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, and maybe some fossil fuels with carbon capture have to replace coal-fired plants. This is within the reach of current technologies.
Yes, you read that right. Krugman says that replacing coal-fired power is within the reach of current technologies. Krugman is absolutely correct in a mathematical sense. We could indeed replace all current coal fired generation in the United States with about 325 new nuclear power plants (1 GW) or about 300,000 new wind turbines (the big ones, 2.5 MW, setting aside minor issues like storage or grid integration). (Data from The Climate Fix) However, Krugman is completely wrong from anything resembling a practical sense.
Highlighting China's rapidly developing economy and even more rapidly developing energy sector, John Fleck at the Albuquerque Journal highlighted Senator Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) reflections on the clean energy race after his recent trip to China:
But this is about more than just meeting China's internal needs, according to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. China sees green energy -- wind, solar and the like -- as the global growth industry of the 21st century. And it aims to dominate this new global market.
"The Chinese government has determined that this is an area of substantial opportunity for them," said Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, in an interview last week after returning from a week-long fact-finding trip to learn more about what the Chinese are up to.
If the United States does not respond, we risk losing out on a major global economic growth opportunity, Bingaman said.
Fleck expands on China's clean tech progress, citing our report, "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" and quoting Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Jesse Jenkins:
Some 200 green energy firms are now located [in Baoding, one Chinese clean energy cluster], according to Jesse Jenkins, an energy policy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a California think tank. Jenkins and his colleagues published a report last fall arguing that China and other Asian economic powers are "set to dominate the clean-energy race by out-investing the United States.
With the U.S. looking to make good on long-promised high-speed rail, China is first in line to offer up its technology, engineering know-how, and finances. They're even willing to accommodate our "Buy American" fantasies, allowing "at least 80 percent of the components of any locomotives and system control gear to come from American suppliers, and labor-intensive final assembly would be done in the United States for the American market."
The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China's desire to become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years.
"We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share with the United States," Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of high-speed rail at China's railway ministry, said.
I have been having an interesting debate with a few economists in a previous thread about Paul Krugman's views of climate policy. I read his latest piece as emphasizing energy conservation and de-emphasizing technology. A few economists write in the comments that my reading is "absurd." This matters of course because anyone who thinks that we can stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations at a low level via conservation while de-emphasizing technology just doesn't have a good grasp of the problem.
So I Googled around a bit to see what Krugman has said in the past. And guess what? He advocates energy conservation and de-emphasizes technology! Here are some of his earlier statements that are unambiguous on these matters and consistent with how I interpret his latest piece.
Breakthrough Project Director Devon Swezey discusses the growing clean tech investment gap between the United States and China and what it means for U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy sector.
Devon Swezey, Project Director at Breakthrough Institute, appeared on KPFA radio's Morning Show today to discuss the growing clean tech investment gap between China and the United States, and what the United States needs to do to regain some leadership in the burgeoning clean tech industry.
The segment with Morning Show host Brian Edwards-Tiekert begins at the 22 minute mark. You can listen below or click here to download an MP3 of the segment.
The Jews' exodus from Egypt isn't the only one garnering some attention this week. BusinessWeekreports that BP is going the way of other solar panel producers (Evergreen Solar announced its moving plans earlier last week) and packing up its domestic manufacturing and moving to China - where public investments in clean tech lead to cost reductions that have not been matched domestically despite stimulus dollars.
In Asia, "not only do you get cheaper labor but you also get major tax breaks just not happening here," Bencik said. "They're not getting the same incentives here in the states as elsewhere, and that's pushing these positions overseas."
