Table of Contents:
I. Project Summary
II. The Need
III. Meeting the Need
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I. Project Summary
Americans for Energy Leadership is a youth-led project to foster the next generation of energy innovators and advance U.S. leadership in the global clean energy sector. We believe the clean energy race represents one of the greatest opportunities for American leadership in the early 21st century – including greater economic strength, improved national security, and renewed international respect – and that young Americans must take bold and immediate action to secure the nation’s position in this industry.
Over the next year and beyond, we will advance this mission in three ways:
- Mobilize young people behind new federal programs for advanced energy education and innovation: organize college students and young people across the country to support and spread awareness about (1) the Department of Energy’s RE-ENERGYSE proposal, the first comprehensive federal program for clean energy education; (2) a full national energy education initiative that expands upon RE-ENERGYSE to train tens of thousands of clean energy innovators; and (3) an expansion of federal energy R&D to $15-30 billion per year to support the U.S. clean energy industry and develop better energy technologies for here and abroad.
- Train the next generation of energy policy leaders: create tools and programs, including new college and university resources, to educate students and young people about energy policy, especially issues relevant to promoting industrial development and technology innovation. This will include programs targeted to young activists interested in advocacy; young writers and intellectuals interested in commentary and critique; and young analysts interested in research and policy development.
- Establish the first national youth-led think tank for innovation policy: recruit, train, and tap the strengths of leading young analysts and writers to (1) develop new policies and programs for promoting advanced energy education and innovation; (2) work to publish proposals with larger think tanks and organizations and spread our ideas through a range of publications and media outlets; (3) support these proposals at the federal, state, and university level, through creative forms of awareness-building and advocacy.
II. The Need
A new global race to develop competitive clean energy industries has begun, and the United States is quickly falling behind. China, Japan, South Korea, and other countries have already surpassed the U.S. in the production of nearly all clean energy technologies, and these governments are expected to out-invest the U.S. three-to-one in this sector over the next five years. The global clean-tech market is expected to surpass $1 trillion in value within the next few years, and in order to maintain a stable global climate, the world must replace the mass majority of existing fossil fuels with low-carbon energy, all while meeting skyrocketing energy demand from developing countries.
The clean energy race represents one of the greatest challenges and opportunities for American leadership in a generation, and now is a critical moment. As the world leader in science and innovation, the United States has a critical role to play not only in leading this burgeoning global industry, but also in developing cheaper and more abundant forms of clean energy to power international development. If we do not immediately implement a national strategy for energy leadership – including smart investments in energy education and a broad range of efforts to develop and deploy clean energy technology – we will miss a historic opportunity to strengthen our economy, improve our energy security, and lead the world in confronting climate change and global energy poverty.
Unfortunately, the U.S. lacks an effective and coordinated clean energy innovation strategy. China, Japan, and South Korea are launching massive, comprehensive policies based largely on direct government investment, on the scale of $500 billion over the next five years. In contrast, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), passed by the House of Representatives in 2009, includes too few proactive programs and allocates little funding to support the research and development, production, and commercialization of clean energy technologies. Including investments in clean energy R&D, demonstration, manufacturing and deployment in both the U.S. economic recovery package and ACESA, the U.S. government is poised to invest only $172 billion over the next five years.
Meanwhile, a large and growing body of evidence suggests the U.S. educational system and workforce is not prepared to compete. The United States faces major shortcomings in energy workforce development and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The U.S. energy industry expects up to half of its current employees to retire over the next five or ten years, and the majority of U.S. colleges and universities lack degree programs focused on energy. American students earned only 11 percent of the world’s 4 million science and engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2006, compared to 21 percent in China and 19 percent in the European Union. These degrees are only about one-third of U.S. bachelor’s degrees, compared to 63 percent in Japan, 53 percent in China and 51 percent in Singapore.
The U.S. energy workforce deficit and STEM education gap will severely limit the nation’s ability to develop its clean-tech industry, capture opportunities for economic growth, and accelerate clean energy development and deployment at home and abroad. The federal government has started to address the need for “green” technician training, but it has not implemented a higher education strategy to keep the U.S. at the leading edge of energy science, technology, and entrepreneurship. According to the Department of Energy, “The U.S. ranks behind other major nations in making the transitions required to educate students for emerging energy trades, research efforts, and other professions to support the future energy technology mix.” And while ACESA could be an important first step, it lacks a comprehensive energy innovation strategy.
III. Meeting the Need
1. Develop a Skilled Energy Workforce
Federal investment in education was foundational for American leadership, prosperity, and security in the 20th century. Fifty years ago, immediately after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the United States mobilized to lead the space race and regain our scientific and technological competitiveness. The National Defense Education Act of 1958, for example, trained thousands of young scientists and engineers who helped put a man on the moon and develop the technologies that catapulted our world into the Information Age.
Today, in the face of the rapidly emerging clean energy race, American students must develop their capabilities in these advanced fields once again – especially those related to clean energy technologies, or “energy STEM” fields – to levels far beyond what was considered acceptable in the past. The U.S. must develop a highly skilled clean-technology workforce as quickly as possible, including tens of thousands of high-technology scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs, and “green-collar” technicians.
Step #1: RE-ENERGYSE
Over the past two years, a growing number of experts have called upon the federal government to launch a national program to develop a highly skilled clean energy workforce. In April 2009, President Obama responded by proposing the first national energy education initiative to inspire and train young Americans “to tackle the single most important challenge of their generation — the need to develop cheap, abundant, clean energy and accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.”
The proposal, called RE-ENERGYSE (Regaining our Energy Science and Engineering Edge), is part of the Obama administration’s 2011 budget request and would represent the nation’s first comprehensive federal program for clean energy education. With oversight by the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, it would educate thousands of clean energy scientists and engineers, beginning with $74 million for energy-related programs at universities, community and technical colleges, and K-12 schools. It would also include targeted support for under-represented populations and applicants attending Minority Serving Institutions.
RE-ENERGYSE is a critical step toward regaining U.S. leadership in the clean energy industry. As a group of over 100 organizations wrote to Senate leaders in 2009, “RE-ENERGYSE is an innovative program that will train America’s future energy workforce, accelerate our transition to a prosperous clean energy economy, and ensure that we lead the world’s burgeoning clean technology industries.” The FY2011 RE-ENERGYSE proposal comes after Congress rejected the original proposal in the 2010 budget request. Despite this setback and the current budgetary environment, the administration decided not to give up, because it believes this is a significant priority for supporting the nation’s clean energy industry and training the next generation of energy leaders.
Students and young leaders have a unique opportunity and an essential role to play in advancing this initiative. RE-ENERGYSE needs a much stronger base of support to pass Congress this year, and as the primary stakeholders in the program, young people can be particularly influential in organizing a coalition of supporters and directly voicing their concerns to members of Congress. With smart organizing and advocacy, young people across the country can be the driving force behind RE-ENERGYSE in 2010.
Step #2: Competitive Energy Education Act
RE-ENERGYSE is a critical first step, however, it will need to be expanded from its initial funding level of less than $100 million per year and include additional programs. In order to leverage the nation’s innovative capacities toward clean technology and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, the United States will need an energy education project on the scale of the National Defense Education Act, which invested approximately $1.5 billion per year in new education.
Fortunately, technical “green-collar” workforce development programs have already been funded and are currently being implemented under the Green Jobs Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and these efforts would receive further support in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These efforts would receive further support under the American Clean Energy & Security Act. While more resources may eventually be necessary in this area, the most noticeably absent element in the U.S. energy workforce development strategy is advanced higher education. The main source of U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy industry will be scientific and technological innovation, but in order to capture this opportunity, we need advanced human capital.
In spring 2010, Americans for Energy Leadership will develop a proposal for a Competitive Energy Education Act, in collaboration with the Breakthrough Institute and partners like the Association of American Universities, with the potential for introducing such legislation into Congress in 2010 or 2011. This proposal will build on RE-ENERGYSE to develop a full higher education project to train tens of thousands of highly skilled energy scientists and engineers. This expansion will include full undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships for students committed to entering energy STEM fields, along with loan forgiveness and other related programs.
2. Advance Energy Innovation Policy
Beginning in 2010, Americans for Energy Leadership will join a coalition of military leaders, high-tech firms, and energy policy experts in launching a new national effort to increase federal clean energy research and development to $15-30 billion per year. Over the last several years, a strong expert consensus has emerged in support of greater funding for federal clean energy R&D for economic competitiveness, national security, and climate mitigation. At the same time, polls consistently show that increasing clean energy R&D is the most popular energy policy, routinely receiving support from 80 to 90 percent of voters.
Recognizing this expert and popular consensus, President Obama campaigned in 2008 to increase federal clean energy R&D to $15 billion per year. He appointed Nobel Laureate Steven Chu to lead the Department of Energy with the expectation that he would oversee an intensive R&D effort to achieve technological breakthroughs in the performance and price of low-carbon sources of energy. Unfortunately, this national consensus for increased R&D spending has still not translated into policy change, in large part because there has not yet emerged an organized constituency to push for it.
Now is a critical moment. Asian nations are moving quickly to dominate the global clean energy market. In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, there is increasing recognition among policymakers and the press that we do not have all the low-cost, low-carbon technologies we need to reduce emissions. And national security officials and experts increasingly believe the U.S. must take a leadership role in the development and deployment of these new technologies. In this environment, the goal of increasing federal energy R&D to $15-30 billion per year – the amount the National Institutes of Health began receiving in 1998 – is achievable.
On February 1st, Americans for Energy Leadership joined the first strategy meeting for this effort in Washington, DC, hosted by the Truman National Security Project and the Breakthrough Institute, including policy think tanks, university associations, and high-tech firms like Google, Sun Microsystems, and others. We believe there is an emerging bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives who could support this investment once they see a strong, coordinated coalition ready to support them, and students can help mobilize universities and colleges behind this effort.
3. Train Future Leaders & Create a Youth-led Think Tank
Energy is one of the most critical public policy issues of the 21st century, and the clean energy race represents a major opportunity and challenge for American leadership. In order to meet these needs, the United States must develop a new generation of energy policy leaders that possess a strong, interdisciplinary understanding of these issues. In particular, our new energy leaders need to have a deeper understanding of how to promote technology innovation and job creation in strategic economic sectors.
Meanwhile, the U.S. energy and climate movement is large and diverse, yet it lacks a student-led think tank to promote strategies for energy innovation. The majority of national, youth-led organizations are primarily focused on organizing young activists around grassroots petition drives, direct actions, and other forms of lobbying to support existing proposals, along with general awareness building. This model of student activism is supported by larger environmental organizations, which often see young people as “foot soldiers” instead of tapping their potential as creative thought leaders.
Very few youth-led organizations focus on advanced energy education and innovation policy, instead focusing largely on general sustainability and social justice issues related to climate change, the environment, and job creation for low-income or minority workers. For example, the promotion of “green job” creation has emphasized the importance of low-income, technical jobs, instead of high-tech human capital, and campus climate campaigns have focused on “carbon neutrality” instead of efforts to expand clean-tech innovation and education. There remains little clarity about the centrality of technological innovation to confronting climate change and promoting U.S. economic leadership – let alone clarity on how an effective energy innovation strategy should be structured or implemented – and no youth-led organization in the country has adopted a national agenda and strategy based on public investment in technology and advanced education.
Some models have demonstrated an alternative strategy. Founded in 2008, Breakthrough Generation is the young leaders initiative of the Breakthrough Institute, and for two summers its fellowship program has tapped the potential of undergrad and graduate students to make a substantial contribution to federal energy and climate policy – as well as the national climate discourse – through research, analysis, writing, and policy development. With the right focus, support, and leadership, this model shows that young people can serve as important national thought leaders and higher-level policy advocates. The Roosevelt Institution is another example, which engages in policy research and writing and connects the fruits of that research to the political process, delivering sound, progressive proposals to policymakers and advocacy groups.
For these reasons we aim to: Train the next generation of energy policy leaders: create tools and programs, including new college and university resources, to educate students and young people about energy policy, especially issues relevant to promoting industrial development and technology innovation. This will include programs targeted to activists interested in advocacy; writers and intellectuals interested in commentary and critique; and analysts interested in research and policy development.
Establish the first national youth-led think tank for energy innovation policy: recruit, train, and tap the strengths of leading young analysts and writers to (1) develop new policies and programs for promoting advanced energy education and innovation; (2) work to publish proposals with larger think tanks and organizations and spread our ideas through a range of publications and media outlets; (3) support these proposals at the federal, state, and university level, through creative forms of awareness-building and advocacy.