A Lesson from the History of Clean Energy Research

On 01.27.11, In Opinion, By Tucker Willsie

The focus on innovation in Obama’s State of the Union marks a new high point for clean energy R&D advocacy. In the coming months, politicians and policy makers will likely align around proposals to encourage everything from basic research to putting solar panels on our roofs and hybrids in our garages. It is easy, in such an environment, to forget the barren stretch of time between the oil crisis induced renewable energy craze of the 1970s and the present day. During this time, funding dried up, programs were cut, and renewable energy research and deployment was forced to go abroad or wither in an apathetic United States.

Politicians, policymakers and enthusiasts talk about ways that new programs will help America race past its competitors as it did in the space race, but there is not enough attention on how the old programs died and what was the full impact of their disappearance. There are important lessons to learn, the biggest of which is that inconsistency in policy can be crippling to research. While proponents of clean and renewable technologies should welcome the renewed interest and funding, it is important that they learn from the past and focus on creating a support system that is not only robust but also provides some assurances of long-term commitments.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • •
 
1 Comments
Leave A Response

Will Fixing Market Externalities Speed Clean Energy Innovation?

On 01.12.11, In Opinion, By Tucker Willsie

For proponents of clean energy technology, the holy grail is to reach price parity with conventional power sources such as coal. For photovoltaics, this tipping point is generally regarded as a dollar per watt ($1/Wp), a measure that indicates the generation capacity of a cell in peak sunlight.  At this point the stage will be set for a massive explosion in the number of solar panels being installed and sold – a situation eagerly anticipated by the PV industry and environmentalists alike.

While most agree that cost competitive solar panels would be a good development, there is a great deal of disagreement on how to reach this point. In this debate, two major schools of though have emerged. The first school recognizes that market externalities such as the cost of pollution must be internalized in order to allow the free market to allocate enough resources to renewable energy. Proponents of this view back programs such as carbon taxes and cap and trade.

The second school of thought acknowledges that market signals need to be corrected, but believes that the free market is not able to support the massive upfront costs required to advance renewable energy technology. This group maintains that the market is excellent for creating incremental advances and lowering costs for existing products, but it does not support the decades of investment required to develop a new technology before profit can be generated. In these cases, it is necessary for government entities to ensure that necessary advances occur despite the lack of a market.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • •
 
5 Comments
Leave A Response

Indo-American Renewable Cooperation: We’ve Only Just Begun

On 01.07.11, In Opinion, By Kerry Harwin

When President Obama recently made his first state visit to India, environmentalists and energy reformers were excited to see renewable energy cooperation on the agenda.  Yet, on further inspection, the scope of cooperation envisioned is narrow indeed.

On the occasion of this visit, President Obama announced the creation of a joint clean energy research and development center, with $5 million to be contributed annually by both the American and Indian governments over the next five years.  The center is to focus on improvements in energy efficiency, solar technology, and advanced biofuels.  This effort, limited though it may be, is to be applauded.

Yet, receiving less attention were agreements to expand U.S. and Indian cooperation on a number of fossil fuel related efforts. If we wish to take an optimistic approach to the recent visit, we will put aside the fact that this clean energy research and development center comes in tandem with an American promise to deploy the United States Geological Survey expertise in identifying potential sites for oil shale extraction.  We won’t dwell on the fact that oil shale contributes to significant environmental damage at the extractions site and increased particulate when burned, nor shall we recall that it is a high-carbon means of energy generation.  Most importantly, we shall disregard the exceptional demands that oil shale extraction would place on scarce water resources in an already very thirsty India.

We also won’t focus on the R&D centers stated focus on clean “clean coal” technologies.  We won’t question the long-term risks of captured and sequestered carbon seeping into the atmosphere should we fail to sequester as effectively as promised.  Nor will we wonder aloud whether we really ought to be turning to a type of coal generation that may well be more costly than many forms of alternative generation.

No.  We won’t dwell on any of the questionably “green” credentials of Indian-American energy cooperation.  Instead, we will merely pose a question. Is that really the best we can do?

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
3 Comments
Leave A Response

The Promise and Challenges of Fuel Economy Standards

On 01.06.11, In Opinion, By Timothy Krueger

Speculation over when gasoline will reach $5 per gallon seems to be a major theme of the new year.  Although the group pushing this story is primarily interested in leveraging America’s emotional attachment to cheap gasoline to push an offshore drilling agenda, a wiser response to the prospect of rising oil costs might be a serious conversation on fuel economy.  The American auto industry faces a number of hurdles in its pursuit to achieve new federal fuel standards, but, smart policy could aid this key industry while acting as a boon for America’s economy and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It is fitting that the first week of 2011 ushered in a new series of federal fuel standards, meaning passenger cars sold this year must achieve at least 30.2 miles per gallon.  This alone is nothing big: the previous standard for passenger cars was 27.5 MPG, it had been on the books since 1985, and the Obama administration’s 2011 standards are even slightly less ambitious than those the Bush administration had been toying around with in 2008.  Far more significant is that the 2011 standards kick-start an annual progression that will bring us to passenger car averages of 39.5 MPH by 2016.  With light trucks required to improve their fuel economy from 24.1 MPG this year to 29.8 by 2016, industry-wide averages five years from now should exceed 35.5 MPG.  The Union of Concerned Scientists calculates that these standards will “reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1.2 million barrels per day by 2020, more petroleum than the United States presently imports from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined,” and in terms of carbon emissions will represent “the equivalent of taking nearly 31 million of today’s cars and light trucks off the road” over the next ten years.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • •
 
2 Comments
Leave A Response

Small Modular Reactors: Miracle, Mirage, or Between?

On 01.04.11, In Opinion, By Dan O'Connor

mini-nuke-990In his February TED talk “Innovating to Zero,” Bill Gates voiced his concern for our inability to meet growing world energy demand while simultaneously limiting our effect on the environment. He observed that we badly need “miracles” in low and zero-emission power generation technology in order to stabilize the earth’s mean surface temperature over the next century. Such a technology, he insisted, must be deployable on an international scale and competitive in the existing market. In the quest to find such a miracle, some are betting on small modular reactor (SMR) technology.

While a handful of possible miracles are in the works, ranging from smarter wind farms to large-scale solar plants to an array of innovative nuclear reactor designs, from an engineering perspective, the nuclear route seems the most likely to yield a game-changer soon. Most recently, in fact, the SMR design’s inherent scalability and supposed affordability have been hyped as an answer to Mr. Gates’ call. Yet, while industry, government, and public enthusiasm for the SMR is certainly welcome, many of the details which may prevent the design from delivering our miracle often go unaddressed. Rather than deeming the SMR a mirage or praising it as a miracle, a more comprehensive discussion on the topic is needed, one which identifies the technology’s unique position as a potentially breakthrough stepping stone toward solving our pressing energy demand and climate change problems. (more…)

Tagged with: • • • • • • •
 
3 Comments
Leave A Response

Thermoelectrics: Promise and Barriers of a Potential Breakthrough

On 12.28.10, In Columns, By David Cohen-Tanugi

The term ‘energy efficiency’ usually brings to mind better-insulated homes and smart power meters. But emerging thermoelectric technology could give energy efficiency a whole new meaning by tackling the huge energy waste that happens before the watts even reach our homes.  Yet, to reach market, thermoelectics will have to overcome a number of technological and policy related barriers.

The Promise

Thermoelectric devices, which enable the conversion of heat into electricity, are still at an early stage in the energy innovation chain, but the principle behind how they work can help to highlight a crucial aspect of energy waste across the world that is often ignored in the policy realm.

You may have heard that homes in developed countries waste 25-35 percent of their energy due to insulation problems and inefficient devices. But the lion’s share of energy waste actually comes at the early stages when the electric power is generated in power plants and carried across transmission lines.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Saving the Oceans or the Oceans Saving Us?

On 12.28.10, In Opinion, By Emily McGlynn

Amidst all the hustle and bustle of the most recent round of UN climate negotiations in Cancun, an important event went overlooked by many: Oceans Day. While this may at first brush sound like a “save the dolphins” affair, over 90 high-level participants from governments, the UN, NGOs and academia gathered to discuss not only how we can save the oceans, but how they can save us.

Oceans are an enormous carbon sink, soaking up nearly as much anthropogenic carbon dioxide as the atmosphere. However, they are also an incredible source of energy through thermal heat, waves, tides, currents, even salinity gradients (differences in “saltiness” across bodies of water), which could ultimately provide for up to 10% of the US energy needs. Oceans Day participants discussed how to use oceans in fighting climate change, both through increasing the CO2 absorptive capacity of marine ecosystems and using ocean energy technologies to displace fossil fuels.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • • •
 
2 Comments
Leave A Response

Foreign Affairs: How to Really Win the Clean-Energy Race

On 12.27.10, In Notes, By Teryn Norris

By Teryn Norris and Kevin Hsu

In a new article for Foreign Affairs, “Globalizing the Energy Revolution: How to Really Win the Clean-Energy Race” (subscript. req’d), Michael Levi and colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations argue that the world is “woefully underspending on clean-energy innovation” and needs to pursue a new international strategy:

“Clean energy is almost always more expensive than energy from fossil fuels, and often by a big margin… Yet the world is woefully underspending on clean-energy innovation… the IEA estimated that the world would need to spend an average of $51-$100 billion each year to support the research, development, and demonstration of clean-energy technologies. Current public spending is a mere $10 billion annually… The shortfall is staggering.”

What should be done?  First, the developed world needs to ramp up its efforts. “Major scientific advances are still most likely to occur in the developed world, alongside much of the work necessary to commercialize clean-energy technologies and the capital required to support those efforts,” they write.  U.S. strategy should include two basic element: first, incentives to create a larger domestic market to drive both deployment and indirect innovation; and second, direct government support for clean energy innovation through research, development, and demonstration.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • • •
 
3 Comments
Leave A Response

Energy Innovation 2010: A New Beginning for U.S. Energy Policy

On 12.16.10, In Events, By Teryn Norris
From Left: Jeffrey Marqusee, Cathy Zoi, Arun Majumdar, Alexis Madrigal (Image Credit: Andrew Revkin)

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?

(more…)

Tagged with: •
 
9 Comments
Leave A Response

Putting the Cart Before the Horse with Nuclear Research

On 12.16.10, In Opinion, By Dan O'Connor

If the Senate receives the Nuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 2010 with the same enthusiasm that the House did in passing it in early December,  H.R. 5866 would be an assertive step toward a more lively U.S. nuclear industry. Senate support would mean renewed U.S. interest in jumpstarting the long dormant industry at home and joining the international nuclear renaissance.

However, this bill may be putting the cart before the horse.  While striving for safer, cheaper, and clever reactor designs is important, the U.S. must first re-learn how to propose and build any type of nuclear power plant an economic and reliable way. It is thus necessary to incentivize the sale of existing or close-to-market technologies which can be built and put to work within the next two decades so that the path to implementation is smoothly paved when promising design innovations are born.

H.R. 5866 is an extension of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (which expired in fiscal year 2009), but focuses solely on nuclear energy research. Its objectives are well-intentioned and valuable: to reduce “the cost of nuclear reactor systems,” to reduce “used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste products generated by civilian nuclear energy,” and to support “technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty.”

The bill properly addresses the need for government funding in research areas like reactor design, spent fuel reduction and disposal, and improvements in current power plant technology. It would provide $419 million in fiscal year 2011, $429 million in 2012, and $439 million in 2013. The money would be distributed as the Department of Energy (DOE) sees fit: probably a mix of donations to its national labs and competitive partnerships with companies that would have to front half of the project cost to receive funding.

(more…)

Tagged with: • • • • • • •
 
3 Comments
Leave A Response
« Previous Entries Next Entries »
Go To Top »