Putting the science back into national energy policy
Describing Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s new job is simple: Oversee the transformation of the United States from a carbon-based economy to one based on clean energy.
Pulling it off, however, will be a little more challenging. It will be a massive undertaking, if it can be done at all — bigger than the Manhattan Project that split the atom and the Apollo program that put man on the moon. Combined.
“We essentially need a second industrial revolution that can generate lots of energy cleanly, cheaply, sustainably,” Mr. Chu told The Los Angeles Times last week.
The good news is that, after eight years of painful national inaction on global climate change, the issue finally is getting the scientific star power and funding priority it urgently demands.
The bad news? Previous administrations already have spent an inflation-adjusted total of more than $117 billion on clean energy research — more than the costs of creating the atom bomb and putting a man on the moon — with only limited success, so far.
Mr. Chu’s second industrial revolution is about to get a tidal wave of new funding. The economic stimulus bill contains about $40 billion in funding for research and capital improvements.
That’s a staggering amount. The Energy Department’s entire budget is just $25 billion, most of which goes to maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up former weapons plants.
Its total research budget now is about $3 billion. The stimulus bill provides about $2 billion just for research on advanced vehicle batteries.
Mr. Chu has said he wants to spend the stimulus funds quickly. But the Energy Department’s track record there isn’t good.
In 2005, Congress authorized billions in loan guarantees for low-emissions, advanced energy projects. But the Energy Department has yet to approve a single one, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Companies that have applied have been snowed under a blizzard of paperwork, while the energy projects they put forth have languished.
That’s not an aberration. The Energy Department has missed so many deadlines to set energy efficiency standards for appliances that President Barack Obama recently was forced to order it to complete the task by August.
In his inaugural address, Mr. Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” He’s made good so far.
Mr. Obama nominated Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist, to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
He picked Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Eric Lander, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to co-chair his council of advisors on science and technology.
Mr. Chu himself, a native of St. Louis (born in 1948 while his father was teaching at Washington University), is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
“We’ve never had a president surrounded in close proximity with so many well-known, top scientific minds,” said Alan Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
It’s going to take more than that to achieve the ambitious goals Mr. Chu outlined and Mr. Obama endorsed.
Achieving them won’t be easy. But without the science, it’s impossible.
I am amused by the Editorial Board of the Post. They are so enamored by everything Obama does, that they have overlooked the consequence of physicist Steven Chu, as Energy Secretary.
Mr. Chu says “We essentially need a second industrial revolution that can generate lots of energy cleanly, cheaply, sustainably.” And that quote is a code phrase for nuclear, the power to save the world.
That is because Mr. Chu knows nuclear is the only power generation technology that can meet those goals and do it 365/year, day/night, rain/shine…
So the Post Editorial board, who to this date based their opposition to nuclear power on the rantings of a self-educated anti-technology gadfly from University City is in a dilemma.
Are they going to respect the education and experience of Steven Chu like Obama does, or is the editorial board going to continue to use Ms. Drey for her ant-nuclear junk science?
The only science the PD editorial board is concerned about is the political science required to replace individual liberty with collectivism and government controls “for the common good.”
First off, the 117 billion spent so far for nothing by the government is EXACTLY why the government needs to stay out of alternative energy development. Let the market sort itself out. It will do it faster and more efficiently than anything directed by the feds.
Obama has made good so far on his “science” promise JUST because he appointed people with science degrees to science positions? What did you think he would do LOL!
The CBO estimates most of this stimulus package won’t reach the economy until after it is already growing again…but I bet the nameless “editorial board” won’t be able to contain themselves when he start hitting positive GNP again. They will slurp Obama like a snow cone in July…
Along the lines of what the first poster stated, if you truly believe in global warming, the only practical solution will be nuclear power plants combined with plug-in hybrid vehicles. Everything else is dreaming considering the size of the US electric grid and the number of cars on the road. Therefore, I can kind of understand the spending on electrical vehicle R&D but the government has a horrible track record of funding research. The P-D editorial mentions the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program, neither of which ever had to develop cost effective solutions for practical application where price is a huge restriction. It also mentions how much the government has spent on R&D to date and not achieved anything in renewable energy.
I firmly believe that all the talk about solar and wind is hype. You can get to a maximum of around 15-20% of total powewr generation from variable load generation before you start having grid stability problems. Neither is cheap either especially considering the need to build additional transmission to site wind plants in the middle of nowhere.
My big problem is that the scientists always want more money so they can fund more research regardless if it makes practical sense. On the other hand, the politicians and environmentalists are typically clueless. As a result, I predict the US government will just waste a lot more money and still not achieve anything.
What is the PD’s point? 117 Billion wasn’t enough? Bush was an idiot so the scientists working must have been idiots also? We all know the sun rises because of Democrats and all evil is because of Republicans.