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.
Published by the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster. Cross posted at The Real Ewbank.
By Breakthrough Fellow, Leigh Ewbank
Australia needs a Plan B for climate policy. We need a nation-building project on the scale of the Snowy Mountains Scheme to invest in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. This is the fresh approach needed to drive Australia's transition towards a clean economy and protect the nation from dangerous climate change.
The Prime Minister's announcement yesterday that the government will delay its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme until 2013 is a tacit admission that pricing carbon is not viable in the current political environment.
Labor and proponents of emissions trading have been living a fantasy for too long. They have ignored the realities of politics to pursue a policy that had no reasonable chance of being implemented at a time when climate change experts agree we must act. Now, Australia is set for yet more inaction.
A group of more than 100 university and college student government presidents submitted a letter urging Congress to launch a national program for clean energy science and engineering education.
WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 2010 -- A group of more than 100 university and college student government presidents submitted a letter (PDF download) today urging Congress to launch a national program for clean energy science and engineering education. The presidents - representing more than one million American students -warned Congress that advanced energy education is critical for U.S. leadership in the global clean energy industry.
"The United States is rapidly falling behind in the burgeoning clean energy industry - especially in comparison to China - and our educational system and workforce is not prepared to compete," declared the 107 presidents, including dozens of the country's top universities. "American students are ready and willing to rise to this national challenge, and we need the federal government to support our education and training."
The letter, organized by Americans for Energy Leadership and the Associated Students of Stanford University, calls on Congress to support the RE-ENERGYSE ("Regaining our Energy Science & Engineering Edge") proposal, which would invest tens of millions of dollars annually in energy science and engineering education programs at universities, technical and community colleges, and K-12 schools. It was originally proposed by President Obama in April 2009 and is currently under consideration in Congress as part of the Department of Energy's 2011 budget request.
The U.S. Senate isn't alone in putting the breaks on cap and trade legislation plans. Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has also "put its carbon emissions trading plan on hold," until the end of 2012 according to the New York Times.
Some analysts believe the government's decision was a tactical one. Though Mr. Rudd's approval ratings remain strong, recent polls have suggested that climate change is becoming less important to an electorate that has shifted its focus to education and health care reform, skyrocketing housing costs and immigration. National elections are due this year.
Wondering what to make of all the drama unfolding around the release (or lack thereof) of the Kerry/Graham/Lieberman bill?
Tune in to a webinar hosted by The Energy Collective (TEC) on May 6, 2010 featuring expert commentary from Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) President Fred Krupp, and and moderated by Fortune Magazine and GreenBiz.com's Marc Gunther.
Can the Democrats pass the Kerry-Lieberman bill in 2010? What's the strategy for bringing uncommitted Senators on-board?
What will the total emissions reductions be if the bill is implemented?
Industries will be regulated very differently from each other in the bill - why is comprehensive legislation still necessary?
What is the state of play on distributing free emissions allocations through the bill, which could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars over the course of the legislation?
Why are pricing fees for emissions preferred to an economy-wide emissions cap?
How does the bill address concerns over economic impacts of climate legislation?
How do nuclear energy policies and incentive differ from those in the House bill?
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.
According to an MSNBC news report, 73% of homes in Ghana lack access to electricity. The stories in the video below are just a few of the stories of the 1.6 billion people living in energy poverty today.
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 Australian Greens have put high-speed rail (HSR) back on the national agenda. Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has called on the Rudd government to fund a study identifying the best route for connecting Australia's two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, with HSR.
The ambitious project represents the type of nation building that should be at the heart of national climate policy. The project has the potential to reduce Australia's ballooning carbon emissions, and kick-start the development of a larger HSR network that can one day connect all of Australia's mainland capital cities.
Looks like climate legislation is getting bumped...again. This time around it's taking a back seat to immigration reform (not to mention an imminent Supreme Court Justice nomination), raising some eyebrows about whether or not we'll see a climate bill this year.
In a leadership meeting late Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would bring immigration legislation to the floor this year, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she would try to move the bill if it passed the Senate first, according to three Democratic officials. With limited time available for action this year, both leaders said they would put immigration ahead of energy on their priority list, the officials said.
Previously, leaders were noncommittal on when they would bring the bill up...
News that congressional leaders plan to move immigration higher on their agenda underscores the uncertain prospects for the energy legislation.
In a move that may help boost U.S. competitiveness in the global clean tech industry, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced on Thursday a $200 million investment in solar and water power technologies specifically designed to accelerate the creation of a domestic clean energy manufacturing base.
The investment includes $125 million over five years for university and industry research into new manufacturing processes, as well as $40 million over three years to build out the domestic PV supply chain through the accelerated implementation of innovative component and manufacturing technologies.
Notably, the proposal aims to drive cost reductions in solar technology in order to, according to the press release, "help meet the Department's goal of achieving cost-competitive solar PV systems compared with conventional forms of electricity."
This welcome development demonstrates some innovative thinking from the Department of Energy, and acknowledges that process improvements and innovations in manufacturing are critical to bringing down the price of clean energy technologies.
Research by Breakthrough Senior Fellow Greg Nemet has shown that it's not just increasing scale and market experience that drives down the cost of solar PV, as is commonly assumed. Incorporating improvements made through R&D into commercial manufacturing is also a major factor.
While more must be done to increase the scale and breadth of these types of programs, the announcement by DOE should be applauded as an important step toward developing a competitive domestic solar PV industry and making clean energy cheap.
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."
"Today, on Earth Day, let's celebrate American ingenuity. We have it within ourselves to lead the world to a better place based on our dreams, our engineers and our innovation system."
Today, on the 40th Earth Day, we look back at where we've come from, but also look forward to where we'd like to go. And while, as Americans, we're compelled to look towards Washington and focus on what our politicians have done in past, and may or may not do in the future, on behalf of the environment, we also need to look at our innovation system and how we keep it healthy as well.
At any point in time we can point to past innovations as the root cause of our environmental issues, but we also have a history of being able to innovate better solutions once we understand these impacts. We've gotten lead out of paint, CFCs out of a variety of products, created increasingly efficient internal combustion engines, and on and on.
The transportation sector is responsible for roughly one-third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Yet as we await the release of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman senate climate bill next Monday, there's little clarity about how, if at all, transportation sector emissions will fall under the bill's carbon regulations.
According to severalreports, the trio of senators leading the effort to craft a climate and energy bill for release next Monday are back-peddling from earlier plans to implement a new fee on petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline amidst concerns that any new "gas tax" would trigger voter backlash.
Earlier reports of ongoing, private negotiations on a Senate climate and energy bill led by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) indicated that the trio were planning to drop the 'economy-wide' cap and trade plan included in the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill in favor of a 'three sector' approach to regulating emissions from power plants, industry, and petroleum-based fuels.
A cap would be implemented on the power sector to begin with, with industry phased in at a later date, while the oil sector would be exempted from the plan. Instead, petroleum-based fuels, including gasoline and diesel fuel, would be subject to a "linked fee" that would be tied somehow to the price of carbon pollution credits under the power sector cap and trade program -- in effect, a variable tax on gasoline and other petroleum products.
Now however, the Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Kerry vehemently declares, "There is no gas tax, there was no gas tax and there will never be a gas tax."
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.
This Thursday April 22, 2010, Breakthrough President Michael Shellenberger will debate cap and trade at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club at 6 pm PST. For more information and tickets, click here:
Since the passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill last summer, many have questioned the bills effectiveness in creating a prosperous clean energy economy due to its reliance on dubious carbon offsets, weak renewable electricity standard, and low level of investment in clean energy technology.
A comprehensive analysis of the Waxman-Markey legislation conducted by Breakthrough Institute revealed that the bill would not require emissions reductions in U.S. capped sectors, would not increase the deployment of renewable energy beyond business-as-usual projections, and would invest only a fraction of annual revenues -- less than two percent -- in clean energy innovation.
China is building an ambitious "Solar Valley City" as a new national center for manufacturing, research and development, education, and tourism around solar energy technologies
China is building an ambitious "Solar Valley City" as a new national center for manufacturing, research and development, education, and tourism around solar energy technologies. as part of the Chinese government and industry's efforts to promote clean energy technology and grow the nation's global market share (see video below beginning at 10 seconds).
Solar Valley City is located in Dezhou, Shandong Province, where I visited last month as part of a delegation from Stanford University, and it is unlike any city you've seen before. The city houses over 100 solar enterprises including major firms like Himin Solar Energy Group Ltd, the world's largest manufacturing base of solar thermal products, and Ecco Solar Group. According to reports, around 800,000 people in Dezhou are employed in the solar industry, or one in three people of working age.
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.
A low carbon price and new regulations are not enough to build a globally competitive clean energy manufacturing industry. In a new letter to lawmakers crafting climate and energy legislation, 10 key Democratic Senators write that Congress must invest much more in U.S. manufacturing to build the clean technologies of the future.
Any climate and energy bill that comes out of the U.S. Senate must provide much greater assistance for domestic clean energy manufacturers and support the research, development, and deployment of low-carbon industrial technologies, according to a letter by a group 10 Democratic U.S. Senators led by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. (Click here to download the letter as a PDF)
The letter was addressed to U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who are crafting a Senate climate and energy bill that is expected to be released April 26th.
The letter represents a clear recognition by this group of influential Senators that a low carbon price simply will not be enough to build competitive domestic clean energy industries, particularly as other nations are investing aggressively to gain a competitive advantage in the industry. The Senators acknowledge the high stakes involved:
We know that other countries, in particular China, have already started to vie for leadership in the new clean energy economy. China has already become the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels. This is a contest that America cannot afford to lose.
Last summer I noted that the Obama Administration gave the go-ahead for the building of a new pipeline to bring petroleum from Canadian oil sands to the United States. I am sure that I wasn't alone in wondering why they would do this at the same time that they were pushing to create a cap-and-trade program to put a price on carbon. I got the answer in today's FT in an article on investors who are seeking to increase disclosure from BP on tar sand development.
Accelerating U.S. clean technology innovation, manufacturing, and market creation has become not just an environmental necessity but an economic imperative. A presentation and essay by Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey.
Current climate legislation in Congress, with its low price on carbon, ineffective renewable electricity standard, and collection of efficiency regulations, will not be enough for the United States to catch up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of the future. Without a clean energy competitiveness strategy that can competed with those implemented around the world, America will lose out on one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century.
By Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey
Accelerating U.S. clean technology innovation, manufacturing, and market creation has become not just an environmental necessity but an economic imperative. A recent Pew study showed that the global clean energy industry has experienced rapid investment growth over the last five years. New clean tech investments in 2009 reached $162 billion, which is expected to grow 25 percent to $200 billion in 2010. With the global clean energy economy emerging as one of the largest economic opportunities of the 21st century, government policy and public investment will be critical determinants of which countries come out on top in the race to attract private sector investment in clean energy technologies.
The United States is currently behind other nations in this race, and lacks an effective national strategy to compete. Climate legislation proposed in Congress to date, with its low price on carbon, ineffective renewable electricity standard, and collection of efficiency regulations, will not be enough for the United States to catch up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of the future. To regain leadership in the global clean technology industry, the United States must enact a comprehensive clean energy competitiveness strategy that prioritizes major public investments in clean energy innovation, manufacturing, market development, education, and infrastructure.
This was the topic of a presentation we gave at the World Energy Technologies Summit in New York City last month. The theme of the conference, which was sponsored by TIME Magazine, was providing a "Reality Check" on the current state of energy technology and policy. The two of us therefore presented a wake-up call about America's lagging position in the global clean energy race, uncovered the realities behind several common myths about U.S. clean energy competitiveness, and outlined what the United States government must do to truly compete for the clean energy industries and markets of the future. After the video of our presentation below, this post summarizes each of these three key topics.
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.
The America COMPETES Act, originally passed in 2007 in response to the major challenges to U.S. economic competitiveness spelled out by the National Academies' seminal report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, is up for re-authorization. Brookings' Mark Muro has a great piece outlining the importance of the legislation to America's economic competitiveness and innovation edge at the New Republic.
Muro writes,
The America COMPETES Act is up for reauthorization, and that's a good thing. Or at least, it's a good thing if Congress seizes the opportunity to both invest and innovate as it extends one of the nation's most critical vehicles for keeping the nation competitive.
The COMPETES Act authorized a two-fold increase in the R&D budgets of critical science and technology agencies, including DOE Office of Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). But, as Muro notes, the actual funding appropriations are not (yet) on track to meet that goal.
The re-authorization comes at a time of even greater challenges to U.S. competitiveness, with other nations implementing national innovation policies to build globally competitive industries in critical sectors of their economies. In contrast, the U.S. government has yet to implement such a policy, and is falling behind as a result.
An important report released recently by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) found that the United States is 6th out of 40 nations in innovation capacity and internal competitiveness, but was last out of 40 nations in its improvement on these metrics over the last ten years. ITIF's President, Dr. Rob Atkinson, recently authored a brief on how Congress should strengthen the America COMPETES Act.
One particular industry in which the United States finds itself behind its rivals is clean energy. A joint Breakthrough/ITIF report, "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," has detailed America's decline in the global clean energy race. As Muro notes, COMPETES offers a key opportunity to strengthen clean tech competitiveness by, among other things, creating new regional energy innovation clusters to accelerate the development of a domestic clean tech industry.
Breakthrough, ITIF, and Brookings are sure to have much more to say about this critically important legislation in the weeks to come...stay tuned.
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.
The Breakthrough Institute team works to publish quantitative analysis of Congressional climate and clean energy legislation, often working to publish a series of analyses "in real time" as the Congressional debate unfolds. Here is our collection of analysis of climate bills in the current Congress:
Created in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has done some pretty wondrous things as a result of its efforts to "formulate and execute R&D projects that would expand the frontiers of technology beyond the immediate and specific requirements of the Military Services and their laboratories".
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is different from other federal agencies. For one thing, the agency, known as Darpa, created the Internet (really). For another, it is probably the only agency ever to offer a $40,000 prize for a balloon hunt, a contest that was inspired by Regina Dugan, a 47-year-old expert in mine detection, who took over last summer as its director.
Aside from a number of military innovations such as the Air Force F-117 Stealth Fighter, unmanned aerial drones, and the M16 assault rifle, DARPA is also responsible for a surprising number of innovations that have proven to be gamechangers, even in times of peace.
In addition to the Internet, (which is tough to top), DARPA is responsible for the global positioning satellite system (GPS). In other words, thank DARPA for your handy iPhone.
When I saw this graph it brought to mind a very similar graph of media attention from about 15 years ago, shown below from a paper that I did with Mickey Glantz in 1995 (on how to "sell" scientific programs to policy makers, PDF). Notice any similarities?
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.
Obama invokes this classic imagery in his video message explaining the history of Earth Day.
Forty-one years ago, in the city of Cleveland, people watched in horror as the Cuyahoga river, choked with debris and covered in oil, caught on fire. Images of the burning Cuyahoga shocked the nation and it led one Wisconsin senator, the following year, to organize the first Earth Day to call attention to the dangers of ignoring our environment.
But as Michael and Ted wrote in Break Through in 2007, the image of the burning river that purportedly catalyzed Earth Day and the modern environmental movement was actually taken in 1952, not 1969, because the "historic" latter fire didn't even burn long enough to be photographed.
An Indian Finance Minister recently proposed instating a per-ton tax on coal in order to raise revenue for clean energy research and innovation. The policy is a prime example of the right way to put fees on dirty energy to work -- using them to raise revenue for public investment that can catalyze clean energy innovation and adoption. It is also further evidence that both rich and poor nations can find many reasons, in addition to climate concerns, to decarbonize.
India's recent proposal to tax coal (per ton) and allocate the money to a "National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF)" to finance clean energy innovation largely flew under the radar, but the policy is notable for two important reasons. First, India's plan is a prime example of the right way to put fees on dirty energy to work -- using them to raise revenue for public investment that can catalyze clean energy innovation and adoption. Second, the proposed policy is further evidence that both rich and poor nations can find many reasons, in addition to climate concerns, to decarbonize - another point central to the Breakthrough Institute's energy strategies.
Included by the Indian Minister of Finance, Pranab Mukherjee, as part of the 2010 Budget, the clean energy "cess" (a term for tax), would raise the price of each ton of coal by Rs. 50 (USD$1.10).
A secret White House strategy memo on how to spin reporters and activists in the run-up to talks in Mexico later this year reveals that climate officials were coordinating public relations efforts last fall with the Center for American Progress.
But apparently the White House realized that CAP's help wasn't good enough, since now the memo says that "intimate meetings" between administration staff with "some of the harsher critics" are needed:
Larger group sessions, similar to the one held at CAP prior to Copenhagen, will be useful down the line, but more intimate meetings in the spring are essential to building the foundation of support. Or at the very least, disarming some of the harsher critics.
In their final post on the Climate McCarthyism last fall, Ted and Michael referred to CAP as "the headquarters in Washington," and worried that CAP's influence over the White House would cause Obama to follow in the footsteps of Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, in labeling green critics of cap and trade "global warming deniers." Let's hope that influence is now waning in light of the rapidly failing push for cap and trade in the U.S. and a global climate agreement from the U.N.
Last month, Ted and I argued in Yale e360 that there were reasons for decarbonization other than climate change -- many commenters were incredulous. For example: "Although, fwiw, the content of their message is wrong and frankly stupid as well -- what 'bipartisan agreement has grown on the need to decarbonize our energy' exists that is divorced from climate change concerns?"
"America's 250-year supply of coal will be an important source of energy. But even people not much worried about the supposed climate damage done by carbon emissions should see the wisdom--cheaper electricity, less dependence on foreign sources of energy--of Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's campaign to commit the country to building 100 more nuclear power plants in 20 years."
China recently installed its first offshore wind farm (102 MW) and reports suggest it plans to invest $100 billion in 30,000 more megawatts of offshore wind power by 2020.
"How much is China willing to invest, in terms of wind? The Beijing-based energy consultancy Azure International has predicted that the country is on track to install 514 megawatts of offshore wind over the next three to four years, a $100 billion investment in up 30,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020."
That amount of wind represents more than double China's current land-based wind capacity.
In stark contrast, America's nearly decade-old NIMBY-beleaguered Cape Wind project was dealt another setback last week when the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) recommended that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar not approve the project. Secretary Salazar is expected to make his final decision by the end of April.
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CONTACT: info@leadenergy.org
April 08, 2010 | Washington, DC
Calling Young Leaders: Apply for Policy Fellowship with Americans for Energy Leadership
Americans for Energy Leadership, a new project of Scientists & Engineers for America, is now accepting applications for the position of Policy Fellow, seeking the nation's brightest young adults to perform high-level research, development, reporting, and advocacy on energy and innovation policy. Full-time and part-time positions are available in Washington, DC and across the country.
The position is paid and designed especially for college students, graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals, including a full-time summer track and a non-resident, part-time track. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until May 2nd for the summer track, and May 23rd for the non-resident track. See http://www.leadenergy.org/our-team/positions for more information (also posted below), and for upcoming information on open positions.
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.
"More than 125,000 years ago, your ancestors discovered fire. With it came a source of heat, warmth, and light. Unfortunately, for 1 in 3 people living today, very little has changed. This is energy poverty. Really let that sink in - one third of the world's population lives like this."
Andy Revkin has posted several commenter responses to his great piece at the new Dot Earth 2.0,declaring that a global, "sustained energy quest" should be "an organizing principle if humanity wants to avoid hard knocks in the next few decades."
One response, from Hugh Whalan of New York provides a powerful way to envision the realities of energy poverty and it's central importance to the global energy quest of the 21st century:
More than 125,000 years ago, your ancestors discovered fire. With it came a source of heat, warmth, and light. Unfortunately, for 1 in 3 people living today, very little has changed. This is energy poverty.
Really let that sink in - one third of the world's population lives like this.
Addressing energy poverty is a key step to alleviating poverty - with the IEA noting that an additional 700 million people need to gain access to modern energy services by 2015 if the UN's millennium development poverty alleviation goal is to be met (halving world poverty).
Just as importantly, energy poverty is a huge contributor to climate change, as those stuck in energy poverty are forced to rely on fuels like kerosene and firewood which caused enormous amounts of pollution.
Significantly expanding green energy access to developing countries is a simple solution - addressing poverty and reducing emissions - with the possibility that we can set developing countries on a 'clean energy' path to development.
It won't be easy. It won't be cheap. But importantly companies are starting to show that delivering clean energy to billions of poor can be profitable.
Energy is important to everything. Policy makers, governments and the general public need to be more aware of this because we all too easily take access to energy for granted.
Last week, Michael and Ted wrote an essay for Yale E360 arguing that the primary basis for decarbonization does not need to rest on the certainty of climate science since there are so many other reasons to craft transformative energy policy.
The horrific West Virginia mine explosion that killed at least 25 miners, is a tragic but clear example of a non-climate reason to decarbonize. Dirty, destructive, dangerous, deadly - there are plenty of reasons to transition away from fossil fuels.
Andrew Revkin's well-regarded Dot Earth blog has moved to the Opinion page, now that he has moved on from his staff position at the New York Times. As Curtis Brainerd notes at the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), Revkin "has expressed a desire to move even farther beyond the constraints of traditional news reporting."
To kick off the "new iteration" of his blog, Revkin has an excellent post laying bare his thoughts on the "climate crisis" and the "energy quest" - specifically what we need to do fill the global energy gap and mitigate climate change:
"I'm talking about a sustained [energy] quest, from the household light socket to the boardroom, the laboratory to the classroom, the smart post-industrial American city to the struggling, (literally) powerless sub-Saharan village. This is not some onerous task, but an active, positive assertion that the ways we harvest and use energy -- an asset long taken for granted and priced in ways that mask its broader costs -- really do matter. Dry places do this with water all the time. In Israel, there is no toilet without two flush options. It's not some goofball green concept; it's just the way things are done.
You've heard a lot about an energy revolution of late, involving a (temporary) burst of spending from the stimulus legislation. But it's building from a paltry base of both public and private investment in the energy arenas where breakthroughs could really expand the menu of energy options required to sustain a prospering, healthy planet as the human growth spurt crests. I'm not saying that a sustained investment in scientific research is remotely sufficient, on its own, to drive an energy transformation. But I do see levels of investment in such inquiry as a proxy for our overall interest in this issue."
A new article in U.S. News & World Report notes that the dog food industry invests more in R&D than the electrical sector does. This is something we at Breakthrough Institute have been saying for a while, so it's good to see it's catching on.
From the article:
If technology in the home is racing ahead at broadband speed, the power grid is stuck back in the days of rotary-dial phones. According to industry statistics, the dog food industry spends more on research and development than the electrical sector does. Aging technology means more frequent blackouts, a greater vulnerability to computer hackers, and, perhaps most insidious, colossal inefficiency. As part of the economic stimulus package, the Obama administration has pledged $3.4 billion toward "smart grid" technology--the next generation of infrastructure, meant to stabilize the grid in the event of a failure, incorporate green technology, and vastly improve efficiency. But those billions are a drop in the bucket toward bringing the entire national grid into the 21st century, which could take decades and cost upwards of $100 billion, some experts estimate.
Indeed, the U.S. will have to invest much more in energy R&D and infrastructure if it hopes to finally build a smarter, more reliable electrical grid. But, as Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins has written, the private sector just isn't up to the task. Private sector energy R&D spending, as a percentage of industry revenues, is 100 times smaller than leading sectors like pharmaceuticals and IT.
And public energy R&D investment has not risen to fill this enormous gap.
But is there a silver lining? Even if we don't build a smarter, more secure, and more reliable electrical grid, America's dogs will be healthy and have shiny coats for decades to come.
Environmentalists may fervently hope that if everyone just had complete information about the climate science, they would forsake short-term pleasures and convenience in the name of saving the planet. But a recent study out of the University of Texas at Austin shows that even with full information about the short and long term benefits of a decision, people still go for the "quick payoff."
"You'd think that with more information about your options, a person would make a better decision. Our study suggests the opposite," says Associate Professor Bradley Love, who conducted the research with graduate student Ross Otto. "To fully appreciate a long-term option, you have to choose it repeatedly and begin to feel the benefits."
Since the "Death of Environmentalism" was published in 2004, Breakthrough has been working to motivate a transition to a clean energy economy that aligns with near-term expectations, needs, and human values - specifically advocating for decarbonization through "technology-led policy" that can have real impact on economic development, energy security, and climate change.
Breakthrough President Michael Shellenberger comments in an MSNBC report on why energy efficiency efforts in the economic stimulus package have not delivered jobs as promised.
As the Obama administration promotes a second home energy-savings program -- a $6 billion rebate plan -- some experts are asking whether that will pay off for homeowners or for the planet.
"A very rosy picture was painted that energy efficiency would be a great way to create jobs and save money," said Michael Shellenberger, an energy expert who heads the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland-based think tank that is financed by nonpartisan foundations and works on energy, climate change and health care issues. "The Obama administration risks overpromising again."
John Harwood incorrectly stated that House-passed Waxman-Markey "would reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels over a 10-year period," in a post this week discussing the Kerry/Graham/Lieberman Senate legislation
on the New York Times blog, The Caucus.
In fact, the Waxman-Markey climate bill does not require emissions reductions in the U.S. economy below business-as-usual (BAU) levels for at least a decade. The bill would allow regulated firms to purchase up to two billion tons of carbon offsets in lieu of reducing their own emissions in the capped sector of the U.S. economy. As our comprehensive analysis of Waxman Markey has shown, firms would be legally permitted to continue BAU emissions and practices through 2017 under the most conservative estimates of offset projections (under the CBO) and 2027 under the most expansive estimate (from the EPA).
The reputation of a Kyoto Protocol carbon finance scheme was dealt another blow after a UN climate panel late on Friday suspended the third emissions cut verifier in 15 months, and partially suspended a fourth.
The scheme's executive board suspended emissions auditors TUEV SUED and partially suspended Korea Energy Management Corporation (KEMCO) after spot checks at the companies' offices revealed procedural breaches.
After President Obama's announcement in support of expanded offshore drilling on Wednesday, another GOP energy plan may offer a silver lining that could work to truly strengthen American energy security and make clean energy cheap.
Update: Michael Lynch, an energy consultant and MIT faculty, writes as an op-ed contributor to the New York Times that total oil and gas tax revenues from new offshore production could reach at least $10 billion per year and likely no more than $25 billion. His estimates are quite a bit higher than ours because he counts both royalty payments and other taxes paid by oil and gas exploration and production companies. Lynch also notes that there would be about $20 billion a year in additional taxes if we open up California and other Pacific coastal areas, which he advocates.
Jesse Jenkins and Yael Borofsky
With President Obama's announcement Wednesday that the Administration would support expanded offshore oil and gas extraction, it's now apparent that price pressures on oil make politicalpressures on politicians impossible to ignore and that some expansion of offshore drilling is inevitable.
But despite Green backlash against the Obama administration's apparent embrace of "drill, baby, drill," it's actually another Republican energy plan Obama should turn to if he wants to make a real dent in America's dependence on oil. Embracing a GOP plan to put the hundreds of billions in potential federal revenues from new oil and gas royalties into a fund to accelerate clean technology innovation could offer Obama a bona fide opportunity to "reach across the aisle," strengthen America's energy security, and help make clean energy cheap.
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.
Of all the news and commentary I read about Earth Hour in Australia, not once did I see a mention of the billions of people that now live in energy poverty. Event organizers and commentators failed to discuss the fact that while millions of people around the world symbolically switched off their lights for one hour, billions are desperate to turn their lights on.
"...roughly 1.6 billion people, which is one quarter of the global population, still have no access to electricity and some 2.4 billion people rely on traditional biomass, including wood, agricultural residues and dung, for cooking and heating. More than 99 percent of people without electricity live in developing regions, and four out of five live in rural areas of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa."
For an event that professes to support climate change solutions, one would think that addressing energy poverty without wrecking our climate would feature prominently in Earth Hour campaigning. So why was energy poverty ignored? And what does this say about the environmental thinking that informed Earth Hour?
We are starting a new feature here at Breakthrough where we will be highlighting the accomplishments and thoughts of former Breakthrough Generation Fellows who are still acting as thought leaders and working to realize their visions for social change.
Pretty Thai'd Up? Breakthrough Generation Fellow, Leigh Ewbank, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Leigh Ewbank was a Fellow during the summer of 2009 and was deeply interested in formulating a narrative of climate change that resonated here in the United States, but also in his home country, Australia. Leigh continues to contribute his insights on Australian climate policy to the Breakthrough blog and has also put much of what he learned at Breakthrough to good use in his efforts to impact the climate and energy discourse back home.
What have you been doing since the Breakthrough Generation Fellowship?
I've been back in Australia for about three months after a bit of travelling around the US and Asia. I've decided to keep on writing about climate politics in Australia. One way of getting my opinion out there has been to start a blog called the "The Real Ewbank" as a place to publish my analysis. Blogging is definitely something I picked up in the US through my experience with Breakthrough. In Australia, we don't really have a strong blogging culture, but I think there's a lot of potential to reach new audiences--especially using Twitter as a method of broadcasting--and contribute to the growth of blogging culture in Australia.
Ed. Note: You can follow Leigh on Twitter: @TheRealEwbank
In addition to blogging, I'm working as an Editor's Assistant at the Australian Institute of Architects on their publication, the Environment Design Guide. The Environment Design Guide is an academic journal for practitioners of the design professions that explores cutting-edge technologies and ideas in the field.
