Renewable Electricity Standard: Symbolism or Substance?

On 09.28.10, In Opinion, By Daniel Goldfarb

Originally published at the Huffington Post

By Daniel Goldfarb

Amongst those who have fought for energy reform, the announcement that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D- N.M.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) are pursuing a stand-alone renewable energy standard (RES) should be cause for both cautious celebration and deep concern. While a RES could be an effective tool to help catalyze a market for clean-energy, this particular bill falls short of the ambitious legislation needed to ensure that America is competitive in the global clean-energy economy. In talking about this piece of legislation it is important that we distinguish between the effects of the policy and the symbolism of its potential passage.

Although the final language hasn’t been released, Bingaman’s bill will likely set out of the goal of 15% of renewable production by 2021 with up to 4% coming from efficiency. This proposal is essentially a paired down version of Bingaman’s contribution to the 2009 American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA), which called for a stiffer 20% renewable production goal.

Here are some facts about renewable energy standards in America. 36 states already have some form of an RES in place, most of which are more ambitious than the proposed bill – although it should be noted that some do not contain the enforcement mechanisms that a national bill would. Yet even for those states that don’t have an RES in place it still may have little effect. A 2009 analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a research arm of the Department of Energy, shows that a goal of 15% renewable production by 2021 with 4% coming from efficiency is actually right on track with business-as-usual growth in the industry. Marchant Wentworth, deputy legislative director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the original more ambitious RES standard, “This bill’s renewable standard is so pitiful that it wouldn’t require any new renewable energy development beyond business as usual.”

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National Academies Issues New Warning on U.S. Competitiveness

On 09.27.10, In News, By Staff

In 2005, the National Academies published the definitive report of the decade on American competitiveness, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.” Now, five years later, the same council has released an update, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5,” which issues a stark warning about the ever-growing challenges to the United States.

The original report benchmarked U.S. global economic competitiveness, particularly related to technological innovation and STEM education, while also providing four general and twenty specific recommendations.  It concluded:

“Having reviewed trends in the United States and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength… Although the US economy is doing well today, current trends in each of those criteria indicate that the United States may not fare as well in the future without government intervention. This nation must prepare with great urgency to preserve its strategic and economic security.”

The new report finds the following:

“So where does America stand relative to its position of five years ago when the Gathering Storm report was prepared? The unanimous view of the committee members participating in the preparation of this report is that our nation’s outlook has worsened. While progress has been made in certain areas—for example, launching the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy—the latitude to fix the problems being confronted has been severely diminished by the growth of the national debt over this period from $8 trillion to $13 trillion.  Finally, many other nations have been markedly progressing, thereby affecting America’s relative ability to compete effectively for new factories, research laboratories, administrative centers—and jobs.”

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What’s Next for Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture Technology?

On 09.22.10, In Opinion, By Christopher Head

Cap and trade passed away quietly this summer, possibly for good. For all the effort that went into crafting a comprehensive climate bill, the legislation never made it to the Senate floor, as its failure was all but guaranteed. Some pundits are blaming President Obama, who did not give cap and trade nearly the attention of health care or financial reform. Others say the idea of cap and trade itself was fundamentally flawed and bound to fail on its own merits.

Either way, a national cap and trade policy is effectively off the bargaining table for the foreseeable future. And as expected, this has major implications for the future of clean energy in America.

Two of the most important implications may be for the development of advanced nuclear power and carbon capture and storage technology.  While energy experts agree that renewable energy generation will be an integral part of America’s future energy landscape, renewables are still not dependable enough to supply crucial baseload electricity demand. This means that until scientists can generate a breakthrough in energy storage, wind farms and solar cells cannot replace dirty coal power, which is the source of 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions.

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How Can America Secure Clean Energy Jobs?

On 09.20.10, In News, By Daniel Goldfarb
Senator Bingaman (D-NM)

Senator Bingaman (D-NM)

By Teryn Norris & Daniel Goldfarb

As China continues advancing in the clean energy race, a growing number of policymakers and commentators are decrying the lack of U.S. federal policies to scale the nation’s clean energy industry to secure jobs, manufacturing capacity, and even private research and development.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resource Committee, made a rare entry into Politico’s op-ed page today calling for the establishment of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration.  The United Sates cannot compete solely on the basis of R&D and technological breakthroughs, he argues, and must adopt stronger policies to scale its clean energy industry through direct deployment and manufacturing – which in the long-run will attract the private R&D:

“The United States may still have the world’s strongest R&D pipeline for new technologies and an extremely robust entrepreneurial culture to support new ventures. Yet the fact that leading U.S. clean technology companies are building manufacturing and R&D centers in China, rather than in the United States, is a troubling sign that we could lose our lead. Other nations are seeing the benefit of this new paradigm, in which development of leading manufacturing capabilities results in pulling more R&D operations to their shores as well. The result is not positive for the United States.”

Thomas Friedman identified a similar problem in his Sunday NYT op-ed, arguing that China is securing clean energy jobs much more successfully than the United States due to stronger domestic market demand from government policies.  He highlights Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers, as an example of how federal R&D without broader industry-scaling strategy can produce unintended consequences:

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DOE Announces “Innovation Ecosystems”

On 09.16.10, In News, By Daniel Goldfarb

Yesterday, I attended the Department of Energy’s announcement about their new university based “innovation ecosystems” project.  This $5.3 million initiative will attempt to create and enforce innovation clusters in five locations that have the potential to produce cutting edge renewable energy technologies:

“This is the first time the Department is funding this type of university-based commercialization effort.  The ecosystems will foster collaborative environments, bringing together key players from universities, the private sector, the federal government and Department of Energy National Laboratories to identify and develop new clean energy technologies and help them succeed in the marketplace.”

Dr. Henry Kelly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the EERE, headlined the event with a talk about the unique nature of this project.  Unlike most policy in this arena, which focuses on one aspect of the innovation chain, this initiative seeks to foster the connections between early stage research, development, funding, and deployment.  As a symbol of the comprehensive nature of the effort, Dr. Kelly spoke alongside of member of the venture capitalist community.

In the absence of a comprehensive science and technology education bill such as RE-ENERGYSE, it is good to see the Department of Energy addressing the commercialization of university-based research.  Universities perform over 50% of the nation’s basic research and are continually the launching ground for numerous successful entrepreneurial ventures.  While the Innovation Ecosystems project is only a first step, and will need significantly more resources to be effective in the future, it represents the type of federal program the United States needs to ensure its innovative research is brought into the marketplace.

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China Tops U.S. in Investment Attractiveness for Clean Energy

On 09.13.10, In News, By Daniel Goldfarb

Screen shot 2010-09-13 at 11.54.43 AM

The failure of the United States to pass comprehensive clean energy legislation does not just pose serious long-term climate risks but also more immediate economic repercussions.  A recent Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices shows that for the first time China has surpassed the U.S. to officially become the most desirable destination for clean energy investment. Bloomberg reports that:

“After sharing the lead with the U.S. in the first quarter, China moved ahead of the world’s largest economy to rank as the most appealing nation for investing in wind and solar power projects… In the second quarter of 2010, China attracted $11.5 billion in asset-financing for clean technologies, more than Europe and the U.S. combined, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”

While China has made long term commitments to developing clean energy markets, such as a pledge to produce 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, the United States has failed to implement any long term strategy.   Ben Warren, Ernst and Young’s environment and energy infrastructure advisory leader, noted that “What we’re seeing in the U.S. is a continued resistance to committing to long-term visible and transparent support for the sector.  The U.S. market has always suffered from this boom-and-bust tax-based incentive regime.”

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The Rise of China’s Green Mercantilism

On 09.09.10, In News, By Teryn Norris

By Teryn Norris & Daniel Goldfarb

China is rising to dominate the clean energy industry primarily due to direct government subsidies, according to a new investigative report by the New York Times. The rise of China’s “green mercantilism” marks a new stage in the global clean energy race and raises critical questions for U.S. competitiveness policy. According to the report:

The booming Chinese clean energy sector, now more than a million jobs strong, is quickly coming to dominate the production of technologies essential to slowing global warming… much of China’s clean energy success lies in aggressive government policies that help this crucial export industry in ways most other governments do not… “Who wins this clean energy race,” Mr. Zhao of Sunzone said, “really depends on how much support the government gives.”

China’s clean energy industrial policy is unique in its scale and type, and some of its practices may violate World Trade Organization rules and could spark trade conflict between the United States and China:

These measures risk breaking international rules to which China and almost all other nations subscribe, according to some trade experts… Other countries also try to help their clean energy industries, too, but not to the extent that China does — and not, so far at least, to the point of potentially running afoul of W.T.O. rules.

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The New Supply-and-Demand of Energy Innovation

On 09.08.10, In Columns, By Staff

Guest op-ed by Alex Trembath:supply-and-demand image

Most of us are familiar with the basic economic principle of supply-and-demand. Economists tend to envision the intersection of the supply and demand of goods and services as the “equilibrium point,” where consumer need for a product meets the ability of producers to provide it. That point is what governs fundamental economic indicators and attributes, especially price and market quantity.

Recently, however, a new supply-versus-demand debate has begun to take shape in the minds of activists and policy-makers alike. Put simply, this new paradigm concerns the supply and demand of clean energy technology.

Conventional wisdom, as it has evolved among global warming activists, tells us that society already has the requisite technology supply to decarbonize the economy. Al Gore has said that “we have all the tools we need to solve three or four climate crises,” and influential climate blogger Joe Romm maintains that “we have all the technologies we need and just lack the political will.” This would suggest that the current supply of clean energy technological is sufficient, and that “political will” should come in the form of demand-side, deployment policies.

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Climate Movement at the Crossroads

On 09.07.10, In Columns, By Teryn Norris

Published by National Journal at the Energy & Environment Expert Blog

By Teryn Norris

When future scholars document the history of global warming, one of the watershed years will almost surely be 2010. For over a decade, the primary goal of U.S. climate policy advocates has been to establish a strong carbon pollution cap and a binding global emissions treaty. Armed with large war chests and major electoral victories, climate advocates had one of the best opportunities to achieve these goals.

This agenda has collapsed. In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate negotiations and recent developments in the Senate, it is clear that carbon caps in the U.S. and globally will not happen for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the IEA projects global CO2 emissions will skyrocket 40% above 2007 levels by 2030, and the EIA predicts China’s emissions will more than double over the next 25 years – which would make its emissions greater than the rest of the world combined.

What happens next? The upcoming lame-duck session in Congress could be one of the last opportunities for national reform before 2013. There are a number of incremental proposals worth pushing, from the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, to Senator Alexander and Senator Dorgan’s Electric Vehicle Deployment Act, to Senator Kerry’s latest Clean Energy Technology Leadership Act. Some still hope for a Hail Mary lame-duck pass on cap and trade, but when asked whether it could be revived, Senator Reid recently said, “It doesn’t appear so at this stage. It doesn’t have the traction that a lot of us wish it had.”

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China Blows Past U.S. in Offshore Wind Development

On 09.07.10, In News, By Daniel Goldfarb

donghai wind farmWhile Americans debated the aesthetic ramifications of their first planned offshore wind farm for the last nine years, it seems the Chinese had already jumped ahead in the industry.  A recent Climate Wire article highlights China’s first endeavor into offshore wind, the 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm, and its future plans for the sector.  What becomes clear throughout the piece is that China has moved from simply a manufacturing giant to a technological innovator:

“‘What the U.S. doesn’t realize,’ said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, is that China ‘is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world.’”

The Donghai wind farm is notable not simply in that it beat America to the punch, but that the majority of parts and design came from China. On top of decreasing reliance on foreign firms is the innovative nature of the foundations used on the project, a departure from Europe’s typical deepwater installations.

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