Wind Generators or Oil Spills?

Which would you choose? Well fortunately today, Ken Salazar and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced new funding of up to $50.5 million over 5 years, to develop offshore wind energy projects and to reduce the market barriers to its deployment. We should be proud to see the presence of wind generators off our coasts, like flags waving, declaring “energy independence.” Money has been allocated for both deployment and research to increase commercial-scale wind energy development and to spur research of new technologies.

“Offshore wind energy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, diversify our energy supply, and stimulate economic revitalization,” said Secretary Chu.  The National Offshore Wind Strategy: Creating an Offshore Wind Industry in the United States is the first-ever interagency plan on offshore wind energy. The plan outlines challenges faced through implementing offshore wind projects including the relatively high cost; technical challenges from  installation, operations, and grid interconnection; a lack of data and experience.

Secretary Salazar also announced four wind energy areas offshore the mid-Atlantic as part of the “Smart from the Start” approach, a methodical way to identify potential areas, to conduct environmental studies, pursue planning, and to expedite offshore wind energy development. The areas include Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia.

In terms of long term goals for energy independece, the Department of Energy is pursuing a plan with the goal of deploying 10 gigawatts of offshore wind generating capacity by 2020 and 54 gigawatts by 2030. This would  include development in federal and state offshore areas, including along Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts as well as in Great Lakes and Hawaiian waters. Through pursuing offshore projects in these areas, enough energy could be produced to power 2.8 million and 15.2 million average American homes, respectively.

See the EERE announcement for more: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=476

Also, here is a link to Andy Revkin’s blog about the announcement:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/washington-invests-in-making-wind-pay/#more-90601

President Obama’s Clean Energy R&D Plan

THE WHITE HOUSE

President Obama’s Plan to Win the Future by Investing in

Clean Energy Research and Development

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for winning the future through new investments in research and development (R&D) that will grow our economy and allow America to remain competitive in the 21st century. That is why the President’s Budget will propose over $8 billion for research, development, and deployment investments in clean energy technology programs. This represents a one-third increase in funding, which will be paid for with resources that we now spend on subsidizing fossil fuels. The Administration’s clean energy R&D priorities focus on developing cutting-edge technologies with real-world applications to advance a clean energy economy, increase industrial and manufacturing efficiency, reduce energy demand in buildings, and reach our goal of having 1 million advanced technology vehicles on the road by 2015.

The President’s Commitment to Clean Energy R&D

The President’s Budget will advance clean energy through funding a number of priority areas:

 Expanding ARPA-E to spur innovation: The President’s Budget will more than double total funding to-date for the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program. This funding will support transformational and cutting edge energy research with real-world applications across areas ranging from grid technology and power electronics to batteries and energy storage.

 Doubling the number of Energy Innovation Hubs to solve key challenges: Innovation and breakthroughs often happen when scientists and thinkers from different disciplines have a chance to collaborate on some of our toughest problems. We must continue the tradition of

 Expand ARPA-E to spur innovation: The President will propose investing in the innovation of promising new technology by more than doubling pre-existing support for the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program.

 Double the number of Energy Innovation Hubs to solve key challenges: The

President’s plan proposes convening scientists and innovative thinkers from across disciplines to reach breakthroughs on tough problems. New Energy Innovation Hubs will support research in targeted areas.

 Focus on applied R&D to achieve clean energy goals: The President’s Budget will double investment in energy efficiency, including in industrial productivity, vehicle technology R&D for advanced batteries, and building technology R&D to cut energy consumption. This investment will improve our ability to deploy these and other clean energy technologies.

Fostering American technological creativity through cross-discipline collaboration. The Budget will propose establishing three new Energy Innovation Hubs that will bring together top scientists to work in teams on cross-disciplinary research related to critical areas. These new Hubs will join three existing Hubs which are exploring building efficiency, liquid fuel from sunlight, and nuclear reactor modeling and simulation.

 Focusing on applied R&D, innovative manufacturing and deployment to achieve clean energy goals: The Budget will also support the “$1 a Watt” initiative, aimed at making solar energy cost competitive; increased funding for geothermal energy, which can provide 24-hour renewable energy; and industrial efficiency to keep U.S. manufacturing competitive.  The Budget supports research on advanced vehicle technologies. R&D funding will also improve advanced manufacturing for materials technologies related to energy, such as flexible electronics for lighting, batteries, and solar cells, as well as materials for electric vehicles and wind turbines.

Building on Progress

 The Recovery Act funded ARPA-E for the first time in the program’s history: The Obama Administration funded ARPA-E for the first time ever with $400 million as part of the Recovery Act. This funding is being used to support over 100 projects, including several initiatives on battery technology, one of which is geared towards developing a battery that will take an electric vehicle over 300 miles on a single charge. ARPA-E focuses on transformational energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support, the success of which would provide dramatic benefits for the nation. The program is intended to bring freshness, excitement, and urgency to energy research, attracting many of the nation’s best and brightest minds—from experienced scientists and engineers to young students and researchers to entrepreneurs.

 New Energy Innovation Hubs will complement three pre-existing Hubs that were first

funded in FY2010: The new Hubs funded in this year’s Budget will complement existing

Hubs that were established in FY2010. One of these existing Hubs focuses on nuclear energy modeling and simulation, a second on energy efficiency in buildings, and a third explores methods to generate fuel from sunlight.

 Applied R&D priorities dovetail with Administration efforts to deploy advanced technology vehicles, increase efficiency, and achieve clean energy goals: The clean energy R&D priorities that will be supported through the President’s Budget, including increased emphasis on solar and geothermal energy, complement policies that are focused on the deployment of these technologies. For example, investments in vehicle R&D go hand-in-hand with improvements to the electric vehicle tax incentive, as well as the new $200 million “Race to the Top” competitive grant program to encourage communities to improve readiness to adopt electric vehicle technology.

Obama’s State of the Union: Our Sputnik Moment

In the State of The Union address tonight, Obama tipped his hat to the environmentalists and even gave a charming wink and a nod. He transitioned directly from the first topic of the economy and jobs, immediately into the topic of clean energy.  He said 3 incredibly important things for the future of clean energy and therefore for the future course of this country.First, he stated that he is asking Congress to eliminate the billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and use that money to invest in clean energy technology. Second, he framed this as a competition and an opportunity, and coated clean energy in the context of jobs and national security. And thirdly, he issued a bold and impressive challenge to the country: to commit to having 80% of America’s electricity derive from clean energy sources by 2035. He elaborated on the nebulous reference to “clean energy sources,” saying it will necessitate all types of alternative energy including wind, solar, nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas.

The context: He set the stage beautifully by making direct connections between investing in this clean energy technology and unleashing American innovation to create new businesses, new jobs and strengthen national security. Obama developed the context further by painting this as an a challenge, and an opportunity as this generation’s “Sputnik moment.” “Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon. The science wasn’t there yet. NASA didn’t even exist.  But after investing in better research and education, we didn’t just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” Now the competition isn’t Russia, it is the Chinese.

The competition and the opportunity: With the recent visit from the Chinese President Hu Jintao still in the headlines of newspapers, Obama directly referenced China’s advancements in clean technology, citing that they had just become home to the world’s largest private solar research facility. He appropriately mentioned this example to create a bit of urgency and to up the competition and he out-right stated that he was issuing a challenge. He skillfully painted the picture of this competition as an opportunity for the United States, stating “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.”

Bipartisan collaboration: In his characteristic Obama-esque manner, Obama set the stage by stating “We will move forward together, or not at all – for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” It is clear that we lost the “golden opportunity” for passing a cap and trade bill even with a Democratic President and a Democratic majority. Now in order to get any climate legislation passed it must be a bi-partisan effort–as it should be. “Climate change” and “renewable energy” have become extremely politicized but we must do whatever we can to strip them of their political connotations, and drag them out from all the way to the left to sit squarely in the middle. Climate change is the umbrella issue of our time, affecting or impacting nearly everything else from agriculture, the economy, jobs, poverty, disease, infrastructure, security and the list goes on. It is not defined by political boundaries since unfortunately, it impacts everyone.

This State of the Union was necessary to not only re-engage the enervated environmental community but more importantly to set the stage for the new, clean energy economy, one that can create new businesses, employ the unemployed, boost the economy, strengthen our national security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engage the United States’ innovative and competitive spirit.

AREDAY– American Renewable Energy Day

Thank you for visiting the blog for American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY).