In a new report released today, the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program details the unique role that the U.S. Mountain West can play in driving innovation to make clean energy cheap and ubiquitous. New collaborative, public-private clean energy research and commercialization paradigms are needed to overcome major market hurdles for the successful introduction and rapid innovation of emerging clean energy technologies. The Mountain West, with its world-leading energy research facilities, leading science and technology universities, and abundant clean energy resources, can lead the way.
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The United States Mountain West has long been a hotbed of experimentation and innovation, due in no small part to a decades-long partnership between government, universities, and private enterprise. Throughout the 20th century, the federal government invested in dams, transportation infrastructure, and military installations that facilitated economic expansion and the emergence of new private industries.
And according to a new report released today by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, the Mountain West has a pivotal role to play in securing our nation's clean energy future.
Continue reading "Brookings Report: Mountain West Can Lead the Way on Energy Innovation" »
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Earlier this month, China surpassed Japan as the world's second largest economy and since, has snared a flurry of clean tech headlines that collectively tell a very clear story: China is rapidly and effectively securing its position as a global clean technology leader as the U.S. watches in stagnated wonder.
Below we've aggregated some of the most important updates coming out of China over recent weeks as it surges to the front of the global clean technology sector:
Continue reading "Tracking a Rising Tiger: China" »
He has been lambasted by liberals and Greens for being too centrist and failing to show leadership on climate change -- yet while the Left remains busy polishing its critical blogs and columns, Obama's Recovery Act is quietly beginning to transform America's economic paradigm.
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By Jerome E. Roos, Breakthrough Fellow
This article was cross-posted from Reflections on a Revolution
Barack Obama is not stupid. It was probably clear to him from the very start that taking a radically centrist approach would alienate his liberal friends without necessarily bringing him any closer to his conservative opponents. Yet on a range of issues, from health care to climate change, Obama stoically -- or stubbornly, according to some -- continued down his Middle Path.
Granted, his seemingly tepid approach may not be earning him friends. But it is allowing his administration to lay low while it unleashes the most radical transformation of the American economy since World War II. As Michael Grunwald reported in this fascinating article in TIME Magazine yesterday, Obama's Recovery Act is quietly beginning to revolutionize the U.S. energy sector -- the very backbone of the nation's flailing economy -- tearing down an entire economic paradigm in his wake.
Continue reading "Barack Obama: A Quiet Revolutionary" »
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By Stephen Ezell, originally published at Progressive Fix
Last week's The Economist leader and cover story, "Picking winners, saving losers", painted an insidious picture of governments' increasing intervention in market economies, arguing that the hideous Leviathan of the state was gobbling up one sector after another and warning that "picking industrial winners nearly always fails." Now, put aside the fact that the government was forced into some sectors--such as automobiles and financial services--only after mammoth market failures and pleas for rescues from capitalism's chieftains. The more important fact is that the article feeds a Socialism-is-coming hysteria and ignores how picking winners--within limits--has worked in the past for the United States (and Japan, South Korea, etc.) and is needed more than ever to bolster our long-term competitiveness.
Of course, the debate about the appropriate role between the state and the private sector in market economies has raged for centuries. The debate is marred in part by vague terminology, and The Economist perpetuates this problem by throwing around a slew of terms--"picking winners", "industrial policy", "innovation policy"--without adequately distinguishing between them but while uniformly indicting them as inappropriate manifestations of government economic intervention.
It would be more constructive to envision a continuum of government-market engagement, increasing from left to right in four steps from a "laissez faire, leave it to the market" approach to "supporting factor conditions for innovation (such as education)" (which The Economist endorses, as, certainly, does ITIF) to going further by "supporting key technologies/industries" to at the most extreme "picking specific national champion companies", that is, "picking winners." And while it is generally inadvisable for governments to intervene in markets to support specific national champion companies, ITIF believes there is an appropriate role for government in placing strategic bets to support potentially breakthrough nascent technologies and industries.
Continue reading "The Economist's Strange Attack on Industrial Policy" »
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.
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 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.
Bill Gates has been speaking out publicly over the last few months--first in a blog post on his website, then in a talk at the TED conference, and now as part of the American Energy Innovation Council--for radical energy innovation to drive carbon emissions to zero.
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 NYTimes Andy Revkin and TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh each spotlight the interview here and here, respectively.
Continue reading "Gates: Invest in Innovation to Make Clean Energy Cheap" »
Filed under: Cap-and-trade , Decarbonization , Efficiency , Energy , Energy Technology and Innovation , Energy poverty , Global Warming , Innovation , International Climate Policy and Politics , Policy , Pragmatism , Taxation , Technology , U.S. Energy and Climate Policy | Permalink
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With global competition mounting and Recovery Act momentum poised to fade, can the Obama Administration secure a lasting clean energy legacy?
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By Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey
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 report released today on the impacts of the U.S. stimulus bill.
The report, "The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy Through Innovation," is notable for highlighting the multifaceted and relatively comprehensive clean economy strategy now underway with stimulus investments, and for the Administration's welcome focus on making clean energy cheap.
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.
Continue reading "White House Report: Stimulus Driving Clean Energy Innovation, Manufacturing, Markets - But What Comes Next?" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Clean Energy Competitiveness Policy , Economy , Economy and Social Policy , Energy , Energy Technology and Innovation , Innovation , Policy , Recession , Stimulus , Technology , The Clean Energy Race , U.S. Energy and Climate Policy , politics | Permalink
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Cap and trade is not the same as a proactive clean economy strategy, and it won't drive the level of private investment in clean energy we are seeing in other countries. Private investment is moving to countries like China as a result of their major public investments in clean energy R&D, manufacturing, and deployment. It's time to recognize that cap and trade would not have kept the U.S. competitive.
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In a new article at the Washington Independent, Andrew Restuccia falls into the trap of equating the failed cap and trade bill with a proactive clean economy strategy that would drive considerable private investment in clean energy.
We warned about this last Friday, when we argued that cap and trade advocates would use recent news that Deutsche Bank is moving clean energy investment overseas as evidence that cap and trade would have kept investment in the United States.
According to Restuccia:
"It turns out that an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions really is necessary to spur investment in what President Obama likes to call the "clean energy economy." At least for Deutsche Bank."
Actually, according to Deutsche Bank's own reports, a carbon cap would have done little:
"While emissions targets express an intention and carbon markets might deliver a price signal in the long-term, governments must strengthen underlying mandates and incentives immediately if capital is to be deployed to cover the gap, creating more investment and jobs."
Continue reading "Getting it Wrong on Carbon Caps and Clean Tech Investment" »
GOP-sponsored bill would invest tens of billions into renewable energy deployment over the next several decades
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New legislation introduced by Republican Representative Devin Nunes (CA) and backed by several GOP House members would invest billions into renewable energy deployment, signaling an opportunity for bipartisan support for clean energy technology policies.
Over at CNBC, reporter Trevor Curwin has been one of the first to note the significance of the Republican bill, which Nunes' says could "potentially provide hundreds of billions in financing" for renewable energy over the next several decades.
Continue reading "Does New Republican Bill Signal Bipartisan Support for Clean Energy Investment?" »
White House removes $150 billion clean energy R&D investment pledge from Obama Administration website
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Updated, 8/19/10
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).
Continue reading "Unfulfilled Promises on Clean Energy Technology?" »
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.
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Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr.'s blog
The AP describes the continuing presence of coal power in the United States:
Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.
An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade groups shows that more than 30 traditional coal plants have been built since 2008 or are under construction.
The construction wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois and South Carolina to Washington, and comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and social costs of fossil fuels, demonstrated by tragic mine disasters in West Virginia, the Gulf oil spill and wars in the Middle East.
But like everything related to the energy and climate, it is useful to have a sense of proportion. So have a look at the figure above, which comes from a US DOE presentation earlier this year (PDF). The figure shows the coal power build rate - actual and planned -- for the US and China.
The red parts of the bars for 2008 and 2009 (and perhaps part of the yellow for 2010) are what the AP article is describing. The broader context are the blues and greens.
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