Energetics Cliff Notes - Friday Edition

The week that was: KGL meltdown and the oilacalypse.

• Check out this Daily Kos post on the bailout of BP.
• Steven Chu at the White House blog on ARPA-E and energy breakthroughs.
• Tom Friedman's latest contribution to his perennial push for a price on carbon.
• Businesses in Michigan are lobbying for legislation to restore competition to electricity markets.
• A decade later, Jerry Brown announces $400 million in rebates for Californians who suffered during the 2000-2001 energy crisis.
• The Economist discusses the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and why the size of the spill isn't as important as where the oil ends up.
• Europe's emissions trading system is in an uproar amid a mounting scandal over 'recycled' carbon permits.
• Ah, remember these guys? Rep. Waxman is requesting info on Halliburton's involvement in the Gulf oil spill.

Quote of the Day

I don't always agree with David Brooks, but the man knows how to write, and when he applies his sharp rhetorical skills to the energy quest...well:

Energy innovation is the railroad legislation of today. This country is studded with venture capitalists, scientists, corporate executives and environmental activists atremble over the great opportunities they see ahead. The energy revolution is a material project that arouses moral fervor -- exactly the sort of enterprise at which Americans excel.

Some reactions to Cape Wind

Yesterday, Secretary Salazar announced the development of the nation's first offshore wind farm six miles off the coast of Cape Cod. What's that, green blogosphere? You have something to say?

• Kate Sheppard (Mother Jones): "The project was especially salient in light of the current drilling catastrophe off the coast of Louisiana, where the Coast Guard today announced that it is planning to light the oil spill on fire in order to protect the sensitive coastline."
• Paul Krugman (New York Times): "The spectacle of affluent clean-energy advocates getting all worked up at the prospect of actually putting windmills where they might see them played right into right-wing caricatures. Let's hope that's now over."
• Frances Beinecke (Natural Resource Defense Council): "I will always return to the Cape, and now, when I look out on the seascapes I love so much, I will be pleased to catch the sight of wind turbines. That is the view to the future."
• Yael Borofsky (The Breakthrough Institute): "As energy demand rises and population grows, we will only continue to have to make difficult, educated decisions about energy production."
• Todd Woody (Grist): "To be sure, there are wind farms, solar installations, and biomass plants East of the Mississippi. But Big Green Power has largely been a phenomenon of the West Coast and the Great Plains, regions rich in wind and sunshine."

Prop 16 lawsuit

The Sacramento Bee is reporting on a lawsuit, filed by a consortium of public utilities and led by Sacramento MUD, that is alleging PG&E intends to choke off electric utility competition in California. I'd say that's implicitly true, what with their $34.5 million campaign for Proposition 16, but the plaintiffs are alleging that Peter Darbee, the Chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric Corp., has acknowledged this goal as the monopoly's explicit motivation behind the June 8 ballot proposition. This is fairly dubious. Robert Cruickshank of Calitics hits the nail on the head, writing "Prop 16's practical effect would be to choke off competition and protect PG&E's existing monopoly across much of Northern California...making it very difficult for a majority of voters to create a public power district or community choice aggregation that can help deliver renewable power to localities." Even more dubious is that PG&E is financing their campaign for Prop 16 with ratepayer funds, and while others are free to disagree with me, I see this as using Californians' money against them.

I can't help but draw the analogy to private health insurance companies and their vendetta against the public option last year. Both campaigns demand that their private-sector, monopolistic (or oligopolistic, as with health insurance) practices are superior to anything the public sector could offer. So why should they be afraid of a little competition? Of course the answer is to protect shareholder profits, no evil motivation by any stretch. But power--like health insurance--is a public good, and PG&E's ratepayers are also citizens of California and thus deserve the choice of renewable, local power if they want it.

We'll find out about the outcome of the lawsuit. Hopefully it will prevent me from having to vote no on Prop 16 by removing it from the ballot completely. Until then, I will continue my own small campaign for more choice and competition in California.

CapeWin

This morning, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar announced the Obama Administration's approval of the United States' first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. First proposed by Cape Wind Associates in November, 2001, the project represents a potentially groundbreaking step in the path towards American clean energy generation. Over the last decade, the story of Cape Wind has been girded with engineering challenges, NIMBYism and environmental impact statements. And despite the opposition of conservationist efforts of groups like the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, I applaud the decision. I concede there are differences in aesthetic preferences, but I would personally prefer the sight of an offshore wind farm to an offshore oil rig, much less and exploding oil rig. At any rate, the Department of Energy predicts that offshore wind farms can account for 4% of the nation's energy generation by 2030, and I think this is an excellent first step...provided it doesn't take a decade for each subsequent offshore wind project.

Support building for RE-ENERGYSE

Teryn Norris, founder of Americans for Energy Leadership, talks about RE-ENERGYSE:

"50 years ago, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the United States mobilized at a massive scale to regain its competitiveness in science and technology. Investment in higher education was a cornerstone of our strategy. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 invested billions of dollars to inspire and train a new generation of scientists and engineers that went on to put a man on the moon and develop many of the technologies that launched our world into the information age. And now today, in the face of a new global clean energy race, the United States must mobilize in a similar fashion to regain our leadership."

Energy Collective climate bill webinar

For enthusiasts, be sure to check out this upcoming webinar. Hosted by the Energy Collective, the topic for discussion is "Climate Legislation in the Senate: Will Obama Get a Bill?" We'll hear from Senator and Republican Conference Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Fred Krupp from EDF, journalist Mark Gunther, and Jesse Jenkins from The Breakthrough Institute. The webinar will take place Thursday, May 6, at 11:30am PT. I'll be live-tweeting the event at http://twitter.com/atrembath. Get excited.

Cracked on Hybrid Cars

From Cracked, maybe one the most succinct explanations I've seen for what it'll take to save the planet:

...if you buy a hybrid, don't fool yourself into thinking that you're single-handedly saving the Earth. You're maybe helping a bit, but if the planet's ever going to be saved, it will require a concerted effort from everyone, including consumers, businesses, governments and, most importantly, Batman.

Energetics Cliff Notes - Tuesday Edition

• T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner in a video at Fox Business, discussing renewable energy and energy security.
• Here's a Forbes piece on "Nine more myths about electric cars" -- Robert Bryce should take a look.
• Australia has shelved its cap-and-trade program. PM Kevin Rudd blames "political opposition," and the plan will be put on hold unto Kyoto expires in 2012.
• Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin fortune, predicts $200/bbl oil prices in the near future.
• Valero Oil is raking in cash and using it to finance its war against AB 32.
• Spill, baby, spill -- The Economist reports on the recent rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana.
• Solar Feeds provides 10 reasons why Israel is becoming a global clean tech powerhouse.
• Mark Muro at Brookings offers his thoughts on how the COMPETES Act should be implemented.
• Philip Radford of Greenpeace trashes the state-preemption provisions in KGL.
• The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth a) needs a new name and b) has called for an international climate court.

Five "myths" about green energy

I don't know how much play this op-ed in the Washington Post is getting, but it came across my path so I'll share my thoughts. Robert Bryce writes "Five myths about green energy," ostensibly making the point that clean energy isn't that good a solution to a problem that's overblown anyway. Okay, fine. But he builds his case by categorizing the following as "myths," whereas I'd refer to most as challenges:

Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.

Bryce uses a couple conceptual tricks here, one of which is ignoring both the existence and benefits of decentralized power production. Solar and wind generation aren't that green, he contends, because of how much square mileage they require and their intermittency, which must be supplemented by carbon fuels like coal and natural gas. Yes, wind and solar farms take up a lot of space, are located far from populations and therefore require significant transmission -- much like coal, oil and natural gas. He excludes the benefits of phasing out carbon transmission (with its continuous import and mining infrastructure), but includes the costs of new transmission and land-use requirements in this cost-benefit analysis. Nor does he mention small-scale solar and wind generation, which have the capacity to power average homes and businesses. This capacity will only increase with future investment and deployment, and has the added benefit of making power generation much less vulnerable to attack/disaster. Lastly, he ignores the potential that battery storage has to eventually contribute. Some combination of significant deployment and advanced battery technology can create a critical mass of solar and wind generation to render his argument on intermittency completely moot.

Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.

To prove this as a "myth," Bryce notes that shifting to clean technology simply substitutes energy imports like natural gas and oil for "'rare earth' elements that are essential ingredients in most alternative energy technology." He focuses on one type of these rare earth elements, lanthanides, the increased reliance on which would make the United States too dependent on China, which "controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements." Okay, well, it's useful to ignore other vital ingredients to clean energy like silicon, bauxite, uranium, and copper--of which there are vast reserves in Africa--and predict that our trade deficit in lanthanides will make the US economically subservient to China. And personally, I'd rather import the clean technology components from China than the clean technology itself, which is where we're headed--China is investing $9 billion monthly in clean tech, and Pew Research found China surging ahead as a global player in clean tech.

A green American economy will create green American jobs.

I imagine it's tempting to compare the manufacturing of wind mills and solar panels to shoes to make this point, but I think it's misleading--we may not like American cars, but we don't buy Japanese and German ones because of cheaper labor going into them, and cars are a much better comparison for clean technology than shoes. Bryce does ask the pertinent question of how to define a green job, but then uses the ethanol subsidy to argue that green jobs are too expensive. That'd be a more effective argument if there were a single environmental policy wonk who thought that America's ethanol program was effective at doing anything. Bryce also ignores green jobs in clean tech research, development, innovation, installation/weatherization, finance, and construction. If America plans to add millions of jobs by subsidizing each one, then sure, building a green economy will be too expensive. But if the United States sets up a basic policy structure of R&D investment, infrastructure/grid planning, weatherization/construction projects, feed-in tariffs and maybe carbon pricing, then a green economy can grow more organically from a private sector that appreciates clear market signals.

Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.

This is Bryce's most accurate, if unoriginal, complaint about clean energy. Yes, electric cars still rely on fossil fuel-generated electricity; yes, current battery technology isn't energy-dense enough to perfectly replace the internal combustion engine; yes, we are severely lacking in infrastructure to support an electric vehicle fleet. Bryce is correct on all counts, but again, I'd characterize these as difficult technological challenges, and certainly not insurmountable ones.

The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.

Here, Bryce notes that the United States has been among the most effective of rich countries in reducing our per-capita emissions over the last few decades. Okay, well first of all that depends on how you measure emissions. But more importantly, our emissions are rising anyway. Even if "the United States has improved its energy efficiency as much as or more than other developed countries," we still started out in a worse position and are still emitting more carbon than anyone but China. California has been especially successful when it comes to energy efficiency, with per-capita energy use staying virtually flat since the last 1970s, but we still rely heavily on carbon fuels. Denmark generates 20% of its power from wind (compared to the US's <1%); France gets 70% of its power from nuclear (compared to the US's 20%); add in China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Germany and others and the US starts to look pretty infantile on the global clean energy playing field.>

Energy is important, and clean energy is coming whether Robert Bryce likes it or not. To build a green economy from scratch, and to compete with rising juggernauts like China, will require significant public investment and policy. There are a myriad of political and economic obstacles to success, but that's a perennial truth in the American story. We can approach these challenges with pessimism and doubt, which Bryce does proudly in his piece, or we can throw our hats over the wall and rise to the occasion.

The Senate bill fiasco

I won't comment too heavily on the clusterfuck that the Senate negotiating process has become, except to say a few quick things. One, I don't believe Lindsey Graham was looking for a way out and picked this one -- that's a pretty cynical thing to assume, even when it comes to Senate Republicans. Two, this is what happens when you delay releasing a bill, even by just a few days. And three, I still have hope that an energy/climate bill will pass this year...although I'm not 100% sure I want it to.

Globama

I just signed this petition, urging the President to install a 17kW PV system on the White House roof. Some of you might know that President Carter had a solar thermal system installed during his time in the White House...which President Reagan had taken down. I encourage all my readers to sign the petition too. Here's the text:

Dear President Obama,

We proudly support the initiative to put solar on the White House and strongly urge you to accept Sungevity's offer to donate and install a comprehensive solar system, at no cost to you or taxpayers. This achievement will be an important symbol to the world that the United States is committed to realizing the environmental and economic benefits of clean energy.

Sincerely,

People for Solar on the White House

And here's the original letter [.pdf], sent by Sungevity to President Obama.

Carbon deaths

Given yesterday's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, just a few weeks after the terrible West Virginia coal mine explosion, I would think one of the more politically effective tracks for pursuing decarbonization would be to demand an end to a system that causes all too frequent 'carbon deaths.' However, I worry about using terminology like 'carbon deaths' to advocate for a clean energy future. On the one hand, I consider myself a proud advocate of decarbonization for the very purpose of ending the needless suffering and death created by the extraction and refining of fossil fuels. On the other hand, it seems disrespectful to ostensibly use the death of these miners to my inevitably political advantage. It's a tricky needle to thread - am I eulogizing miners whose fate could have been avoided, or am I exploiting their deaths for my own purposes? I assure everyone that I intend the former, but I can see how this tactic could be perceived as cheap and flippant, especially in a discourse already loaded with controversy. Thoughts?

Energetics Cliff Notes - Friday Edition

The week that was: Earth Day and the death of the linked fee.

• Bill McKibben talks about Eaarth, his conception of the new planet humans have created.
• A blogger at the Council on Foreign Relations performs an autopsy on the linked fee in KGL.
• What's it like to live without electricity? (via @BillGates.)
• A holistic and promising state climate-energy bill was killed yesterday in Wisconsin.
• 11 workers are still missing after an oil rig SANK yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Secretary Chu announced more than $200 million for solar and water power tech yesterday--glad to see someone in government approaching the energy quest as a technological problem.
• Accenture, a technology consultant, recently published the results of a survey of 9000 consumers on integrated grid management.
• Sen. Lamar Alexander's Earth Day post on nuclear power (via Energy Collective).
• The Energy Bulletin calls April a 'watershed month' for peak oil research.
• Vinod Khosla talks about his venture capital firm's work on energy and transportation technologies.

Earth Day roundup

Here are some at-a-glance reactions to Earth Day:

• Al Gore (Repower America): "Remember, Earth Day is about people -- and our future on this planet."
• John Kerry (Politico): "No matter what conventional wisdom says, this is the year - perhaps our last, best chance - to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation."
• Kate Sheppard (Mother Jones): "With all the not-very-hope-inspiring news of late, I'm really hoping that this is neither the "last" nor the "best" shot at getting the policy right. But Kerry is certainly right that Earth Day should be treated as the impetus for action."
• Yael Borofsky (The Breakthrough Blog): "... the posts we highlight together indicate that it is time to move past this traditional conception of Earth Day and into the Innovation Century."
• Van Jones (Center for American Progress): "The next 40 years of environmental policy will be economic policy."
• Andrew Revkin (Dot Earth): "A quick photographic Earth Day note: even as societies ponder how to smooth the human journey on a finite planet at a global scale, it doesn't hurt to try to get things reasonably right in our own neighborhoods."
• Jeff Mann (It's Getting Hot in Here): "There is no option of failure. This day, some 40 years after the first one, represents that. This is the fight of our lives, but the one we absolutely cannot lose."
• Bracken Hendricks (Climate Progress): "This Earth Day, let's get to work immediately, one home at a time, creating clean energy jobs and a better future for the planet through energy efficiency."
• NearWalden: "So today, on Earth Day, let's celebrate American ingenuity."

An Earth Day message from Van Jones

This is what we like to hear:

Earth Day at 40 is very different from Earth Day at 20. I remember Earth Day at 20. I was in college and it was really all about the birds and the bees and that kind of stuff. Now, it's much more about economic opportunity. The next 40 years of environmental policy will be primarily economic policy as we begin to repower America with cleaner energy.

That's from an interview with Van Jones, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former Obama Administration official.

BTW - Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Lies, damn lies and the American Power Act

The American Power Act (aka KGL or "Keggles") is scheduled to be released on April 26. Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have been working on it for some months now. The exact provisions of the bill will be revealed on that date, but that hasn't stopped the speculation from the media and early hints from the legislators, especially Kerry and Graham. In March, the three released an eight-page draft of the bill, which included language on a cap-and-trade scheme for utilities/manufacturing and a fuel carbon fee.

Of course, the inclusion of a cap-and-trade program didn't stop Lindsey Graham from pronouncing cap-and-trade "dead." Nor did the fuel carbon fee stop John Kerry from acting like there was never any talk of a gas tax. It's a pretty fascinating political strategy: write a law putting these carbon reduction programs into effect, and then deny everything when asked about it. Maybe the Democrats could have passed a single payer system for health insurance if they had simply called it the "Maintaining the Health Care Status Quo Act." Or maybe this strategy of misdirection (read: lies) will backfire, compelling the Senators to defend their bill against accusations of dishonesty and trickery.

What should energy legislation do?

The good folks over at It's Getting Hot in Here are preparing for the release of the American Power Act, due out next week. They put together a bullet points strategy for effective energy/climate legislation:

• Regulates carbon emissions from manufacturing before 2016
• Addresses global warming with a sound carbon pricing and reduction mechanism
• Preserves the Clean Air Act authority to regulate dangerous emissions
• Maintains state authority to regulate emissions - their innovation helps to craft effective policy across the country
• Strengthens clean energy standards to spur clean energy innovation and jobs here in America

A glossed-over, but satisfying, summary. They leave out the specifics - how much for clean tech R&D, how to optimally price carbon across sectors, what to do about carbon tariffs, infrastructure policy, electricity markets, offshore royalties and carbon revenues, and a permit trading mechanism - but I like the general formula. We'll see what happens next.

CA Dems on Prop 16

BTW, the California Democratic Convention officially opposed Prop 16 over the weekend. Cool.

Update: PG&E chipped another $6 million into their campaign to fund Prop 16, bringing their total contribution to $34.5 million. All this to impose a law that would require a 2/3 majority for a local government to institute a public power plan, though Prop 16 would only require a simple majority to pass.

Energetics Cliff Notes - Tuesday Edition

• Tree Hugger has some fascinating things to say about "Peak Everything," noting the looming shortages in gold, asphalt and olive oil.
• Carol Browner seems to have reversed the Administration's position on trade protection, voicing support from the President for carbon tariffs.
• John Yemma, from Christian Science Monitor, breaks down the problems with carbon offsets.
• The Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank that deals in climate skepticism, is basically controlled by high-level players in the fossil fuel industry.
• A Grist discussion on the SEC's January decision to urge businesses to disclose the carbon intensity of their activity.
• Where will the revenue from offshore royalties accrue most heavily? Three Senators weigh in.
• Perhaps marking an astounding new precedent in international law, the Federated States of Micronesia are suing Prunéřov - the Czech Republic's biggest polluter - on the grounds of transboundary harm (more on this over at Slate).
• A reaction to the UNFCCC and against the Copenhagen Accord, the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth convenes this week (pdf).
• Sheila McNulty over at FT thinks replacing all coal-fired plants with natural gas in the US is entirely feasible.
• EnviroKnow responds to Maggie Fox's op-ed on climate politics pessimism.

The Climate Desk

I'm pretty excited about this new online collaboration in climate journalism. Launched earlier in the week, The Climate Desk is a partnership of The Atlantic, The Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS's Need to Know. Since climate/energy news generally overlaps several academic disciplines and social interest levels (politics, physical and natural science, ethics, economics, etc.), I think the creation of this partnership is very wise and useful. Chris Mooney at Discover Magazine puts it best:

There has never been a joining of forces like this...but there is every reason to expect it will produce much valuable content.

Eyjafjallajökull

The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull and massive ensuing ash cloud should remind us to be cognizant of nature's dominating role in our lives. But let's not let this ominous specter diminish the magnitude human activity has on the biosphere. Check out this infographic:

And that's just planes alone. This eruption is being regarded as the first carbon-negative one of its kind in history - that is, the amount of CO₂ emitted from the volcano (not inconsiderable) was dwarfed by the CO₂ it prevented from being emitted by air travel in and out of Europe. The ash cloud blocking air traffic vectors is still going strong five days after the initial eruption, and poses hazardous threats to all sorts of European economic activity. What's my point? That there are scarier things than gargantuan terrestrial explosions.

Equally important, though, is to understand that we are all citizens in a global ecosystem. I am not a fan of climate sensationalism or global warming scare tactics, but I do understand the call for a sense of humility on the part of our species. The Invisible Hand of the Market is puny when compared to the very visible and quite powerful hand of natural earth systems*. The interplay of biospheric activity and political economy should not be underestimated. Ecologists and ecological economists talk a lot about ecosystem services (pdf) - this eruption is an example of the exact opposite.

______________________________

*That's me trying to avoid using the phrase "Mother Nature."

Sweden uses body heat as new green energy source

This is cool:

It's 7:30 on a wintry morning in downtown Stockholm and a sea of Swedes are flooding Central Station to catch a train to work. The station is toasty thanks to the busy shops and restaurants and the body heat being generated by the 250,000 commuters who crowd Scandinavia's busiest travel hub each day. This heat used to be lost by the end of the morning rush hour. Now, however, engineers have figured out a way to harness it and transfer it to a newly refurbished office building down the block. Unbeknownst to them, these sweaty Swedes have become a green energy source: "They're cheap and renewable*," says Karl Sundholm, a project manager at Jernhusen, a Stockholm real estate company, and one of the creators of the system.

Awesome engineering aside, this is just one small example of the type of innovation needed to decarbonize the economy. I always liked the idea of powering commercial gyms with energy generated by ellipticals, ergometers, weight machines and stationary bikes. What other innovative ways can we think of to lower our emissions?

___________________________
*OTOH, this sounds suspiciously like another plan to generate power using human body heat.

Energetics Cliff Notes - Friday Edition

The week that was: coal hearings and Lindsey Graham on Earth Day.

• DOE has a report (pdf) on deficiencies in workforce education and training for smart grid jobs.
• Kate Sheppard sums up coal news, from subsidies in Waxman-Markey to the hearings and student protests this week.
• Surprise, surprise - despite a decrease in 2009, global oil demand hits a new high.
• That said, there's a growing chorus of researchers warning of a coming oil supply crunch.
• Ben Tribbett at Huffington Post calls the Southern States the "Saudi Arabia of energy efficiency savings" - in other words, the South has a huge opportunity in negawatt power.
• The Hill's Energy and Environment Blog has the scoop on a new bipartisan effort to invest in electrification of the transportation industry.
• Energy Secretary Steven Chu has some tough love for the US on its clean tech competitiveness.
• President Obama talks mine safety.
• Just for fun, someone should ask Professor of Climatology Sean Hannity what he makes of March 2010 being the warmest March ever recorded.
• Obama budget proposals seek a shift from incentivizing fossil fuels to incentivizing renewables.

Phase out tax subsidies for Big Oil

I just added my name to the Sierra Club's letter to Congress, demanding "Big Oil pay their fair share." Here's the text of the letter:

Dear Congress,

As Americans their fair share of taxes to the federal government this week, we urge you to end subsidies and tax credits for fossil fuel production. At a time when we need to begin reducing global warming pollution, Congress should not waste taxpayer dollars on dirty and polluting fuel sources. Big Oil needs to pay their fair share. Tax payers should not be required to underwrite this dirty, expensive and inefficient fuel. These subsidies and tax shelters must be removed.

Now is a time when we need to invest in truly advances, low-emission energy technologies that will move us away from our addiction to fossil fuels, help protect public health, and create good, green American jobs. Act quickly to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most devastating and costly impacts of global warming. The U.S. Government should not continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. Please help make the shift to a clean energy future by removing the tax credits and subsidies.

Click here to sign the letter.

The COMPETES Act and the road to discovery

Update: Cross-posted at the Breakthrough Generation Blog.

via The Breakthrough Blog: "The America COMPETES Act, originally passed in 2007 in response to major challenges to US economic competitiveness spelled out by the National Academies' seminal report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, is up for re-authorization."

The COMPETES Act is designed to strengthen R&D funding for "critical science and technology agencies," and so represents a vital component of any US action on energy policy. The process of decarbonizing the economy and replacing our ubiquitous carbon-fueled energy infrastructure is certainly the most massive and urgent technological challenge of our time, and we will need not just carbon prices and conservation but unprecedented scientific and social breakthroughs to guide our path. The best way to locate and realize those breakthroughs is through public and private activity, research and experimentation.

This whole story reminded me of a quotation from The West Wing, which I labored to dig up for my loyal readers:

"Great achievement has no road map. But the X-ray's pretty good. So is penicillin. And neither were discovered with any practical objective in mind. When the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless; and now we have a whole world run on electronics. Hayden and Mozart never studied the classics - they couldn't. They invented them. "

- Dr. Dalton Milgate, "Dead Irish Writers"

The energy quest requires great achievement, practical objectives and a complete redesign of global infrastructure and economies. Dr. Milbank's invocation of the electron and his overall motivation in The West Wing is very appropriate for our discussion - his above soliloquy was intended to persuade a US Senator to invest $12 billion in particle physics for one simple purpose: discovery.

The fate of the COMPETES Act (along with RE-ENERGYSE, the climate/energy bills in Congress, and our nation's long-term effort on energy technology policy) will determine if America is serious about discovery, about competitiveness. If we fail, we will take our place in the new world order as a second-rate nation - once the standard bearer of free enterprise and scientific ambition, but now too economically short-sighted and politically gridlocked to rise to the challenges of our times.