The problem is that the industry dynamic behind this trend didn't much resemble the pristine image that the term "experience curve" evokes, of diligent engineers relentlessly focused on continuous improvement. Without diminishing the contribution of a lot of smart people, a key driver was the tough competition for market share between silicon-based PV, which had to overcome a major bottleneck in the supply of its primary raw material, polysilicon--the price for which spiked and subsequently collapsed--and cheaper but less efficient thin-film PV technologies relying on entirely different chemistries such as cadmium telluride and copper, indium, gallium and selenium.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Keystone Round-up
Yesterday the President announced that his decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline would be delayed until after 2012 (read: the election) and that a more thorough State Department review is called. for. The pipeline would open up Canadian tar sands for import and domestic consumption in the United States. Environmental organizations have been protesting this for months, via high-profile tactics that nonetheless received disproportionately low-profile attention in the media. Some really, really smart people weigh in:
Michael Levi at NYT:
Michael Levi at NYT:
For green groups, the shortest route to blocking fossil fuel development appears to be leveraging local opposition. Many will seek to turn this not only against the Canadian oil sands but against United States oil production and coal exports, too. At the same time, they will find themselves increasingly appealing to the federal government for help in overriding local opposition to wind farms, solar plants, long distance transmission lines and other critical pieces of zero-carbon infrastructure. These two endeavors will conflict.
Levi's point here is insightful. His chief criticism is that in order to block the pipeline and protect the climate, enviros had to triangulate with NIMBYs. The ends may justify the means, but will groups like 350.org and NRDC pay a price in credibility when combatting NIMBYism that just so happens to be targeted at clean energy projects? (See last year's round-up on Cape Wind.)
Levi expanded at his blog at Council of Foreign Relations:
Climate change won’t be addressed by rejecting a series of new projects – an effective approach will require positive change. I’m not referring to the endless debate over whether climate advocates need a “positive” message rather than a “negative” one. I’m just stating a simple fact: those who want serious action on climate change ultimately need to change the laws, and doing that will require sixty votes in the Senate and a majority in the House. Neither anti-Keystone style tactics nor the coalition assembled to oppose the pipeline will make that possible.Bill McKibben at 350.org was quite celebratory, but I suspect Levi will be disappointed by his reaction:
In the meantime, since federal action will be in abeyance for a long stretch, we need to figure out how best to support our Canadian brothers and sisters, who are effectively battling against proposed pipelines west from the tar sands to the Pacific. And we need to broaden our work to take on all the forms of ‘extreme energy’ now coming to the fore: mountaintop removal coal mining, deepsea oil drilling, fracking for gas and oil. We’ll keep sending you updates; you keep letting us know what we need to do next.Bryan Walsh weighed in at Time's Ecocentric blog, with a good round-up of coverage and some further cautionary optimism:
If the climate movement is going to make a real difference, it needs to mobilize the same level of popular and political passion towards developing renewable energy, spending more government money on energy research and development and passing climate legislation. This is hardly a secret—there were protests and campaigns for the climate bill in 2009 and 2010, and McKibben's own 350.org campaign is about a lot more than just stopping fossil fuel development. But I've rarely seen the sheer energy towards technocratic policies like cap-and-trade or renewable energy mandates that I've seen when visiting Americans who are vehemently opposed to hydrofracking, for example. Protests and passion may have helped stop the Keystone pipeline, but will it be enough to build a new energy economy?Geoff Styles has a can't-miss look at the math of breaking our "addiction to oil" at his blog Energy Outlook:
Taking all these considerations into account it's not realistic to imagine that we could break our addiction to oil to any great extent for at least another decade. In the interim, we should certainly pursue all options that could alter the feasibility of such a shift in the years ahead, in a manner consistent with the fiscal constraints we face. I'm also not oblivious to what that implies for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, though I would point out that our use of oil in transportation is neither the worst emissions offender, nor the easiest high-emitting segment of the US energy economy to tackle in that time frame. In the meantime, we are committed by virtue of scale, infrastructure and fleet requirements to burn many billions of barrels of oil over the next few decades, from wherever they may come. In that light, the administration's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline could prove to be a costly misstep, no matter how much political pressure they were under to withhold approval.If the #NoKXL victory paves the way towards less carbon infrastructure and more clean energy, sweet. If it paves the way towards uninhibited NIMBYism, then we'll be faced not only with a greater energy challenges but a lamentable shift in our ability as a society to build the future. Even if Keystone is a victory, it represents one victory of many thousands needed to secure a clean energy future. Keep truckin'.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Radical vs. Incremental
Matt Hourihan at ITIF:
It’s true, incremental innovation can help drive new business models, address integration, and resolve other challenges in areas like solar. But it won’t create a step-change up to next-generation nano-based solar modules, when the current generation of panels hit their performance/cost barriers. Nuclear power plays a big role in the California scenario, but deploying more Generation III reactors won’t cause spent fuel recycling technology to spring forth. There are major limits to existing battery and biofuel technology as well, that won’t be solved by putting more electric vehicles on the road or ramping up production mandates. All of these challenges ultimately require the “radical” kind of innovation. Deployment to drive incremental innovation could have some benefits in some areas, and we should be cognizant of those benefits, but the mileage on these will vary.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sandolow's Yale speech on innovation
Robert Sandolow of DOE recently gave a speech at Yale on the government's role in technological innovation. He cited three case studies -- the Internet, shale gas, and Google -- whose origins were directed and sustained government investment. He also glossed over other key examples, like GPS and DNA mapping. He could also have mentioned the jet engine, the microchip, the cell phone, biotech, and the personal computer.
It's a speech worth reading in full. According to Sandolow, there are five key reasons why the government does -- and must -- invest in innovative technologies.
It's a speech worth reading in full. According to Sandolow, there are five key reasons why the government does -- and must -- invest in innovative technologies.
- Government protects intellectual property, with patents and other tools.
- The private sectors under-invests in fundamental research.
- Innovation depends on an educated workforce, which is a job for governments.
- Market failures stifle innovative technologies.
- Government polices and standards can lay strong groundwork for innovation.
There's really no understating #4 on that list. The spillover effect, the Valleys of Death, market externalities, technological lock-in -- all these and more combine to present serious challenges to private sector investors and innovators.
With federal clean energy policy on the verge of collapse, it's encouraging to see Administration officials talking the Big Game -- innovation, cost reductions, and performance improvements. The federal government has and does initiate and drive blockbuster technological advances -- we need it to keep up the good work.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Accelerating rates of technology adoption
Via Sonia Arrison at Volokh Conspiracy:
If developing economies are able to "leap-frog" grid-scale coal-fired power and go straight to clean energy generation, then we may avert climate catastrophe. However, that requires cheap and scalable clean tech, which we just don't have yet.
Fortunately, as Ms. Arrison notes, global rates for technological adoption are accelerating. Energy is complicated, of course, because the end-user buys energy services, not energy-generating technologies. But it's still encouraging to know that when a new, useful technology comes around, we're getting better at picking it up.
New technologies are almost always adopted by the rich first, but over time they eventually reach everyone, and the historical record shows that the distribution of new technology is speeding up, not slowing down.
For instance, it took forty-six years for one-quarter of the population to get electricity and thirty-five years for the telephone to get that far. It took only sixteen years, however, for one-quarter of American households to get a personal computer, thirteen years for a cell phone, and seven years for Internet access. A more vital example may be AIDS drugs which started off costing about $30,000 per patient per year 15 years ago. Now, better drugs are available and cost $100 per patient.I got into a brief related discussion with @RL_Miller this morning on the diffusion of clean tech in developing countries. Global energy use is expected to at least double by 2050, and 90% of that growth will come from developing economies. The generation sources for that energy will make a bigger impact on emissions and climate than any other factor.
If developing economies are able to "leap-frog" grid-scale coal-fired power and go straight to clean energy generation, then we may avert climate catastrophe. However, that requires cheap and scalable clean tech, which we just don't have yet.
Fortunately, as Ms. Arrison notes, global rates for technological adoption are accelerating. Energy is complicated, of course, because the end-user buys energy services, not energy-generating technologies. But it's still encouraging to know that when a new, useful technology comes around, we're getting better at picking it up.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The iPhone and the Invisible Hand of Government
This post was originally published at the Breakthrough Institute Blog.
Following yesterday's announcement of the new iPhone 4S, tech bloggers this morning have been abuzz with the realization that the federal government played a strong role in the new smart phone's innovations. Siri, Apple's new voice-recognition software, is a project straight out of DARPA, the Defense Department's accomplished research agency. The new intelligent programming is just the latest addition to iPhone's many government-backed technology platforms.
Wired blogger Steven Levy tweeted about DOD's hand in Siri's development during the announcement yesterday, news that was quickly picked up by both the Wired national security blog and Adam Clarke Estes of the Atlantic's technology page. As Estes wrote,
Cellular technology is a byproduct of early government investment in radiotelephony and communications. The Internet originated out of DARPA-net, a military communications platform developed in the 60s and 70s. GPS was originally created and deployed by the military's NAVSTAR satellite program in the 1980s. The semiconductor and microchip industry would have been dead on arrival if not for the eager early customers at NASA and the Defense Department. Even the iPhone's multitouch technology was developed by researchers at the University of Delaware, a public institution, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the CIA.
The iPhone is often perceived to be the symbol of private sector ingenuity, a token of entrepreneurial market innovation. It's true that revolutionary engineers and industrial designers at Apple deserve considerable credit for the creation of many blockbuster computing technologies, up to and especially the iPhone 4S. But these discrete technological advances would be wholly impossible without the innovation platforms enabled by direct and sustained government investment.
Following yesterday's announcement of the new iPhone 4S, tech bloggers this morning have been abuzz with the realization that the federal government played a strong role in the new smart phone's innovations. Siri, Apple's new voice-recognition software, is a project straight out of DARPA, the Defense Department's accomplished research agency. The new intelligent programming is just the latest addition to iPhone's many government-backed technology platforms.
Wired blogger Steven Levy tweeted about DOD's hand in Siri's development during the announcement yesterday, news that was quickly picked up by both the Wired national security blog and Adam Clarke Estes of the Atlantic's technology page. As Estes wrote,
Originally a part of the Personal Assistant that Learns (PAL) program from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Siri started out as SRI International. The technology appealed to the DARPA for making everyday tasks more efficient as much as it did for combat tasks.Of course, this isn't really groundbreaking news - as was documented in the Breakthrough Institute's 2010 report "Where Good Technologies Come From," the iPhone's major hardware and software innovations were only possible though initial government investment and procurement, often for military purposes.
Cellular technology is a byproduct of early government investment in radiotelephony and communications. The Internet originated out of DARPA-net, a military communications platform developed in the 60s and 70s. GPS was originally created and deployed by the military's NAVSTAR satellite program in the 1980s. The semiconductor and microchip industry would have been dead on arrival if not for the eager early customers at NASA and the Defense Department. Even the iPhone's multitouch technology was developed by researchers at the University of Delaware, a public institution, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the CIA.
The iPhone is often perceived to be the symbol of private sector ingenuity, a token of entrepreneurial market innovation. It's true that revolutionary engineers and industrial designers at Apple deserve considerable credit for the creation of many blockbuster computing technologies, up to and especially the iPhone 4S. But these discrete technological advances would be wholly impossible without the innovation platforms enabled by direct and sustained government investment.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
DOE Releases First Quadrennial Technology Review
This post was originally published at the Breakthrough Institute Blog.
Today the Department of Energy released the first Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR), a new report that recommends many of the same investment and competitiveness strategies presented by the Breakthrough Institute. Modeled after the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, the QTR was commissioned last year by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and represents what Energy Secretary Steven Chu calls "the necessary first step of a multi-agency Quadrennial Energy Review that could dramatically improve the integration and effectiveness of the government's energy policy."
The QTR establishes six categories for modernizing and improving our energy portfolio:
The United States energy economy needs more than basic research, however. Fortunately, the QTR does not omit strategies for commercialization, maturation, and deployment of innovative clean energy technologies. As the report clarifies in its section on international competitiveness, "US economic competitiveness is a growing challenge in a world made even more competitive by developing countries striving to create sustainable economic growth and establish themselves as technology leaders."
As such, the report recommends advanced technology policy to address deployment, innovation, and manufacturing. These areas are much in line with the competitiveness strategy outlined in Breakthrough's reports "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" and "Post-Partisan Power," which have shown that the US needs a comprehensive and aggressive competitiveness policy in the face of increasing technology investment from China, Korea, Japan and other nations.
But there are also important elements missing from the QTR. While the report effectively covers the broad energy imperatives facing the United States, specific policies and funding mechanisms are glossed over. A multi-year technology policy from DOE will require flexibility, but some policy instruments will prove essential if the nation is to achieve any of the goals laid out in the report: Increasing federal funding for energy technology R&D, as recommended by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology last fall; creating a Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) to build public-private partnerships and bridge technologies from demonstration to full maturation; and reformed subsidy policies that prioritize innovation over deployment. Alternative and additional policy instruments are available, and including them in these discussions is important for building an ambitious and fruitful policy dialogue.
The QTR is an encouraging step, and as Secretary Chu writes, hopefully one on the road to a comprehensive Quadrennial Energy Review. As was proposed in the American Energy Innovation Council's recent report "Catalyzing American Ingenuity," a QER would "serve as a strategic technology and policy roadmap." The ability of the DOE and other federal agencies to drive substantial innovation and growth is increasingly apparent. Outlining and planning for a unified national energy policy will prove vital as we address economic growth, international competitiveness, and a changing climate.
To read DOE's full report on the Quadrennial Technology Review, click here (PDF).
Today the Department of Energy released the first Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR), a new report that recommends many of the same investment and competitiveness strategies presented by the Breakthrough Institute. Modeled after the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, the QTR was commissioned last year by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and represents what Energy Secretary Steven Chu calls "the necessary first step of a multi-agency Quadrennial Energy Review that could dramatically improve the integration and effectiveness of the government's energy policy."
The QTR establishes six categories for modernizing and improving our energy portfolio:
- Deploy Clean Electricity
- Modernize the Grid
- Increase Building and Industrial Efficiency
- Deploy Alternative Hydrocarbon Fuels
- Electrify the Vehicle Fleet
- Increase Vehicle Efficiency
The Department's core strength is its science and technology efforts, which have led to technology improvements and breakthroughs, and these efforts are the focus of this QTR report.The goal of achieving technological breakthroughs to deliver clean, affordable, and abundant energy is clear.
...
Underpinning that Nation's high-tech economy, both basic scientific and fundamental engineering research increase knowledge of nature and integrate that knowledge in ways directly useful for practical engineering applications. In the course of their work, researchers develop new tools and techniques to discover and measure previously inaccessible physical phenomena.
The United States energy economy needs more than basic research, however. Fortunately, the QTR does not omit strategies for commercialization, maturation, and deployment of innovative clean energy technologies. As the report clarifies in its section on international competitiveness, "US economic competitiveness is a growing challenge in a world made even more competitive by developing countries striving to create sustainable economic growth and establish themselves as technology leaders."
As such, the report recommends advanced technology policy to address deployment, innovation, and manufacturing. These areas are much in line with the competitiveness strategy outlined in Breakthrough's reports "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" and "Post-Partisan Power," which have shown that the US needs a comprehensive and aggressive competitiveness policy in the face of increasing technology investment from China, Korea, Japan and other nations.
But there are also important elements missing from the QTR. While the report effectively covers the broad energy imperatives facing the United States, specific policies and funding mechanisms are glossed over. A multi-year technology policy from DOE will require flexibility, but some policy instruments will prove essential if the nation is to achieve any of the goals laid out in the report: Increasing federal funding for energy technology R&D, as recommended by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology last fall; creating a Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) to build public-private partnerships and bridge technologies from demonstration to full maturation; and reformed subsidy policies that prioritize innovation over deployment. Alternative and additional policy instruments are available, and including them in these discussions is important for building an ambitious and fruitful policy dialogue.
The QTR is an encouraging step, and as Secretary Chu writes, hopefully one on the road to a comprehensive Quadrennial Energy Review. As was proposed in the American Energy Innovation Council's recent report "Catalyzing American Ingenuity," a QER would "serve as a strategic technology and policy roadmap." The ability of the DOE and other federal agencies to drive substantial innovation and growth is increasingly apparent. Outlining and planning for a unified national energy policy will prove vital as we address economic growth, international competitiveness, and a changing climate.
To read DOE's full report on the Quadrennial Technology Review, click here (PDF).
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Submerged State
I recently engaged in a discussion with David Zetland, a former economics professor of mine, on the value of public investment in technology (NB: I feel authorized to re-publish his and my comments because they were originally published on his public blog). It's worth noting that his blog, Aguanomics, is spectacular and I enjoy reading it every day.
Compelled by his assertion that the Solyndra case proved government investment is a failure, I pointed out that without government investment in technological innovation, we wouldn't have jet engines, cell phones, the Internet, any major forms of energy generation, and many other game-changing technologies as they exist today. He gave a thorough response, which I will summarize by pulling out this key quote:
What struck me most, however, was not his strange assertion that government should never invest money, but the fact that he seems to be in the majority. There is widespread unawareness of the role of the federal government plays in driving technological innovation and investment, an unawareness that is perhaps a contributing factor in the anger over Solyndra's failure. Several scholars have taken up the job of diagnosing this phenomenon.
Compelled by his assertion that the Solyndra case proved government investment is a failure, I pointed out that without government investment in technological innovation, we wouldn't have jet engines, cell phones, the Internet, any major forms of energy generation, and many other game-changing technologies as they exist today. He gave a thorough response, which I will summarize by pulling out this key quote:
Govt shouldn't take my $ to invest. Ever.The whole exchange is available here. I was left to assume he was unaware of the DARPA investment that made the Internet possible, without which he could not have made that comment on his blog. He also uses Blogger, which is owned and operated by Google, whose founders benefitted from an NSF grant for the creation of their original algorithm. His rebuttal, that since the Defense Department didn't know that the Internet would be the result of their investment, doesn't really hold much water -- he is essentially saying that because they weren't planned, the huge (read: f'ing HUGE) benefits from this particular investment don't count.
What struck me most, however, was not his strange assertion that government should never invest money, but the fact that he seems to be in the majority. There is widespread unawareness of the role of the federal government plays in driving technological innovation and investment, an unawareness that is perhaps a contributing factor in the anger over Solyndra's failure. Several scholars have taken up the job of diagnosing this phenomenon.
- In State of Innovation, a recent (an excellent) compilation of case studies, Fred Block and Matthew Keller demonstrate that "for many technologies, it has not been Adam Smith's invisible hand, but the hand of government has proven decisive in their development." They refer to the Hidden Developmental State, finding that "because these programs [DARPA, SBIR, etc.] contradict the market fundamentalist ideology that celebrates private enterprise and denigrates the public sector, they have remained largely unknown to the public." Throughout the rest of their book, Block, Keller, and their colleagues discuss the role of the state in the development of solar technology, biotech, nanotech, and microelectronics.
- In a journal article (PDF) for "Perspectives on Politics," Suzanne Mettler discusses the political difficulties in restoring faith in a government polices which most people aren't aware of. "Such policies have shrouded the state's role, making it largely invisible to most ordinary citizens, even beneficiaries of existing policies." She proceeds to walk through a strategy for "reconstituting the Submerged State."
- I've already mentioned Mariana Mazzucato's new pamphlet "The Entrepreneurial State" on this blog before, but it's well worth bringing up again. As she writes, "Many of the problems being faced today by the Obama administration are indeed due to the fact that US taxpayers are virtually unaware of how their taxes foster innovation and growth in the USA, and that corporations that have made money from innovations that has been supported by the government are neither returning a significant portion of the profits to the government nor investing in new innovation." Her work is particularly illuminating on the subject of DARPA, the SBIR, the pharmaceutical industry, patents, the and British innovation system (or lack thereof).
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
QOTD: Plumer on the key energy imperative
From Brad Plumer at WaPo. Always good to remember the big picture:
The main, glaringly obvious fact about energy is that we need it, lots of it — and, ideally, we want it to be as cheap as possible, as clean as possible and as dependable as possible.
Global Energy Intensity on the Rise
This post was originally published at the Breakthrough Institute blog.
New analysis from the WorldWatch Institute shows that energy intensity of the global economy has been on the rise for the past two years, reversing a decades-long trend of increasing energy efficiency. As computerized and digital services have paved the way towards technological innovations and the “knowledge economy,” global economic energy intensity has declined an average of 0.8 percent per year since 1981. However, since the economic crisis of 2008, the energy inputs required to produce the same level of economic output has been increasing, by 1.35 percent in 2010 alone.
Basic arithmetic tells us that increasing energy intensity equates to rising carbon emissions as long as carbon intensity of energy remains static. Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr. emphasizes this in his recent book The Climate Fix, in which he employs the “Kaya Identity” to prove his point:
As the WorldWatch report states, the energy intensity of the global economy is projected to decline in the long-term but continue its upward trend over the next several years. With the majority of economic growth coming from the developing world, where rising energy consumption will likely exploit the cheapest technologies available, it is essential that we bring clean tech to price parity with fossil fuels by investing in innovation.
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*The Kaya Identity, more precisely: Carbon = [Population x GDP/Population] x [Total Energy Consumption/GDP] x [Carbon/Total Energy Consumption]
New analysis from the WorldWatch Institute shows that energy intensity of the global economy has been on the rise for the past two years, reversing a decades-long trend of increasing energy efficiency. As computerized and digital services have paved the way towards technological innovations and the “knowledge economy,” global economic energy intensity has declined an average of 0.8 percent per year since 1981. However, since the economic crisis of 2008, the energy inputs required to produce the same level of economic output has been increasing, by 1.35 percent in 2010 alone.
Basic arithmetic tells us that increasing energy intensity equates to rising carbon emissions as long as carbon intensity of energy remains static. Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr. emphasizes this in his recent book The Climate Fix, in which he employs the “Kaya Identity” to prove his point:
Carbon emissions = GDP per capita x energy intensity x carbon intensity
In order to reduce global emissions, at least one of these variables will have to fall substantially: GDP, population, energy intensity, or carbon intensity. With limits to economic growth and population controls unlikely, and with energy intensity making a sudden rise in recent years, we are left with the imperative to reduce carbon intensity by deploying more clean energy technology.As the WorldWatch report states, the energy intensity of the global economy is projected to decline in the long-term but continue its upward trend over the next several years. With the majority of economic growth coming from the developing world, where rising energy consumption will likely exploit the cheapest technologies available, it is essential that we bring clean tech to price parity with fossil fuels by investing in innovation.
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*The Kaya Identity, more precisely: Carbon = [Population x GDP/Population] x [Total Energy Consumption/GDP] x [Carbon/Total Energy Consumption]
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