From Left: Jeffrey Marqusee, Cathy Zoi, Arun Majumdar, Alexis Madrigal (Image Credit: Andrew Revkin)

On Wednesday, several of the country’s leading energy experts gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 conference. Their purpose? Reframing the national energy discussion in the aftermath of cap and trade and beginning the transition to a new federal clean energy strategy.

Hosted by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and Breakthrough Institute, and co-sponsored by a large coalition of think tanks across the political spectrum, the conference drew hundreds of attendants for a day of presentations and panels. Speakers and moderators included ARPA-E Director Dr. Arun Majumdar, DOE Under Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi, Nobel Laureate Burton Richter, Andrew Revkin of New York Times, Bryan Walsh of Time Magazine, and many others.

For forty years, the federal government has failed to implement a strategy for cutting U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. And for over a decade, cap and trade has defined the federal policy vision of the U.S. clean energy and environmental community, only to collapse in summer 2010.

This context framed the central question at Energy Innovation 2010: where does the United States go from here, and what kind of approach can finally forge the consensus we need to build a clean energy economy? And what key lessons can the U.S. take from the role of federal policy in driving previous technological and economic transformations?

Throughout a wide range of discussions — including scientists, business leaders, think tankers, policymakers, and administration officials — the overarching consensus was clear: the U.S. must leverage its innovative capacity to drive down the price of clean energy technologies as rapidly as possible through targeted investment across the innovation pipeline, including institutional reforms to the national innovation system.  Just as importantly, this alternative approach has the potential to garner unique and powerful bipartisan support.

This position builds on a growing national consensus, recently represented by U.S. business titans in the American Energy Innovation Council, as well as President Obama’s chief science and technology advisors.  The conference also marked the release of the Energy Innovation Tracker website, and a new Breakthrough Institute report, “Where Good Technologies Come From.”

“The promise of a clean, secure, and prosperous energy future continues to disappoint because it has been, for four decades, premised on the notion that the technologies necessary to deliver that future are close at hand. They are not,” wrote the hosts Dr. Rob Atkinson, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger.  ”It’s time to change that.  It’s time to drive energy innovation… [federal] commitment needs to be stronger, and more strategically built around particular technology pathways and policies focused on innovation.”

This perspective was echoed by nearly all the participating energy scientists and policy experts.  According to Dr. Nate Lewis, a leading energy scientist and director of Caltech’s Energy Innovation Hub, the U.S. cannot unleash an energy technology revolution with the current federal R&D budget.   William Bonvillian, director of MIT’s DC office and author of Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, warned that without a serious energy technology strategy, the U.S. could miss the next great wave of global innovation.  Armond Cohen, Executive Director of the Clean Air Task Force, said the U.S. has seemingly forgotten the critical federal role in technology innovation and needs a new political movement on this front.  Indeed, as Jesse Jenkins and Dr. Daniel Sarewitz presented, U.S. technological leadership has historically depended in large part on public investment.

A similar consensus emerged that the next federal clean energy agenda must break out of the highly polarized climate change debate in order to succeed.  Nobel Laureate Burton Richter argued that advocates have excluded potential allies by focusing so exclusively on climate change as the primary reason for action.  He stressed the importance of the recent “Post-Partisan Power” report from scholars at Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, and Breakthrough Institute for its ideas and bipartisan potential. Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. and Steven Hayward, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that an energy innovation strategy could be justified even without belief in climate change, given the other public benefits.

Energy Innovation 2010 essentially represented the first major national conference focused on discussing a serious federal alternative to cap and trade. As some panelists emphasized, this is the beginning of a long-term discussion and consensus-building effort that will take years to accomplish.

The near-term political challenges for any serious federal energy agenda are considerable. This reality was especially clear in the final panel, “A New Centrism: Making Clean Innovation Policy Bipartisan,” including leading Senate energy staffers and think tankers from the center, left, and right. Despite the benefits of federal energy innovation investment, the current appetite for new spending of any kind makes it highly unlikely in the upcoming Congress.

The measure of success in the near-term, then, should not be whether this type of approach can immediately advance, although advancing specific incremental pieces is an urgent cause.  After all, it took 10 to 15 years for cap and trade to get a real hearing in Congress.  Rather, the measure of near-term success should be whether this approach can continue building consensus among advocates, thought leaders, and committed policymakers, with an eye toward medium and long-term implementation.

Overall, the conference was a display of new optimism and direction for the U.S. clean energy movement.  Transforming the U.S. and global energy industry is a daunting task, and the road to establishing a new national energy consensus will be long.  In many ways this is only the beginning of a different energy and climate dialogue, and much work is left to be done.  But a new framework has finally emerged into the center of discussion after years of effort, and with enough committed thinking and leadership, the United States might just achieve the energy revolution we need.

More coverage:

• NYT Dot Earth: An Energy Menu That Works for the Long Haul
• TIME: Energy: Research Vs. Deployment
• ITIF: Energy Innovation 2010: Moving the Conversation Forward

The warnings of Secretary Chu and the recommendations of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) take on new urgency in light of the report’s findings,”A new world is emerging in the clean energy sector with China now the clear leader in the global renewables market”.  At the same time the LA Times is reporting that clean tech investment in the U.S. fell 45% in the fourth quarter.

It is increasingly becoming clear that what is at stake is jobs.  Ernst and Young recognize an increasing disparity in the job creation in those countries that are “in the fast lane” and those that are “hesitant”. The focus in China and other emerging countries on their clean energy industries is already bearing fruit, “One striking feature of the post-credit-crunch world is the difference between the pedestrian pace of recovery in the West and the rapid turnaround in the new BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China)”.

The wind industry provides a shocking example of China’s ascendence.  In only two year China has leapfrogged Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the United States to become the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down:

“China’s record spending on its wind industry this quarter represented nearly half of all funds invested in new wind projects around the world,” the report states. “Figures released for the second quarter of 2010 showed that China invested around $10 billion in wind out of a global total of $20.5 billion.”

It is becoming increasingly clear that we have reached a historic moment, we must decide to invest in America’s ability to compete on clean tech, or cede our energy independence and crucial economic growth opportunities.  As made clear by PCAST and Secretary Chu, now reiterated by Ernst and Young, to compete for first or even maintain second place we will have to innovate, ”Manufacturers in the West need to be particularly innovative if they are to preserve their share of the market.”

The 14 MW solar farm at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada demonstrates the potential for further energy innovation opportunities within the Department of Defense.

With Congress demurring once again on comprehensive energy innovation reform, creative and practical thinking will be necessary to build America’s clean energy economy. One opportunity often overlooked is to leverage the Department of Defense (DOD), a traditional engine of American innovation,for the task.

Along these lines, the CNA Military Advisory Board today debuted their new report, Powering America’s Economy: Energy Innovation at the Crossroad of National Security Challenges, at an event at the Russell Senate office building. The new report–which foreshadows an upcoming AEL report–explores the growing challenges presented by the close connection between the U.S. energy portfolio and its economic and national security.

As the largest single energy consumer in the nation, the report finds that Department of Defense (DOD) can play a key role in supporting innovation, commercialization, and widespread deployment of clean energy. The report further examines how DOD can harness the leadership characteristics inherent to the military culture, leverage its organizational discipline, and cultivate strategic relationships within the federal interagency network to move America forward in clean energy technology innovation. The briefing–headlined by Sherri Goodman (CNA Senior Vice President), Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (U.S. Navy Ret.; member of CNA Military Advisory Board), Brigadier General Gerald E. Galloway (U.S. Army Ret.; member of CNA Military Advisory Board), Dr. Dorothy Robyn (Deputy Under Secretary for Installations and Environment, U.S. Department of Defense), and Dr. Henry Kelly (Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy)–made a case for expanding federal support for energy research, development, demonstration and deployment at the DOD, as well as a more collaborative relationship with the Department of Energy (DOE).

Energy Action Coalition is taking suggestions for topics at the forum – just send a tweet to @powershift09 and add the hashtag #ClimateQs. There aren’t many suggestions so far, so even a few mentions of RE-ENERGYSE would make a big difference.

Let’s make sure everyone knows we get it – passing RE-ENERGYSE to jumpstart a new era of clean energy education is essential to the economic future of this country.

This will provide the first official introduction to Americans for Energy Leadership (www.leadenergy.org), a new project of Stanford’s Energy Crossroads.  We will discuss the vision for the project and how it will advance President Obama’s energy education proposal, host a summit at Stanford on U.S. clean energy competitiveness, and provide opportunities for students to write and publish about the global clean energy race.

Whether you’re interested in becoming a core team member or you’re generally curious, this will be a good opportunity to learn more and find ways to get involved.

About: Americans for Energy Leadership a student-led project to advance America’s clean energy competitiveness.  Recently launched by Energy Crossroads, we believe that leadership in clean energy is vital for our economic future and America can play a defining role in the global energy revolution. Over the next year, Americans for Energy Leadership will (1) Advocate for President Obama’s energy education initiative; (2) Host a national summit on U.S. clean energy competitiveness; (3) Establish a clearinghouse of information on clean energy competitiveness.

Developing better and cheaper clean energy technologies will be central to addressing climate change, securing U.S. energy independence, and creating new clean energy jobs. Increasingly, nations are seeking to gain competitive advantage in this rapidly growing, high-technology sector and the stakes for the United States are significant: will the United States largely be an importer of these clean technologies and lose the jobs related to them, or can America emerge as a global leader, driving exports and high-wage jobs?

The report analyzes clean energy investments and public policy support for research and innovation, manufacturing, and domestic demand, with a particular focus on six key technologies: wind, solar, nuclear, carbon capture and storage, hybrid and electric vehicles and advanced batteries, and high-speed rail.

Please join the Breakthrough Institute and ITIF for a discussion of the report’s findings.

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Time: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Location: Washington, D.C. – Senate Energy Committee Room, Dirksen Senate Office Building (SD-366)

Moderator and Presenter

Robert Atkinson (bio)
President, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Guests

Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ, bio)

Congressman Ron Klein (D-FL, bio)

Presenters

Jesse Jenkins (bio)
Director of Energy and Climate Policy, The Breakthrough Institute

Michael Shellenberger (bio)
President, The Breakthrough Institute

Gary Fazzino, Vice President of Government Affairs, Applied Materials (Invited)