moron well energy as part of the global response to climate change it is important to see this hearing in the larger context in his first address yesterday to the united nations president obama highlighted the unprecedented investment in american renewables as a concrete sign of american progress on global warming china's premier hu jintao also made an important announcement at the un stating china's commitment to dr more to come last week the speaker and i met with with mr wu who is the chairman of the standing committee of the national people's congress he had just arrived from arizona where they had signed an agreement with for solar for a two thousand megawatt photovoltaic farm to be built in the desert of inner mongolia this will be the world's largest solar solar photovoltaics power plant project and it's projected to cost nearly five billion dollars but it is only a small part of nearly twelve thousand megawatt renewable energy park that is planned there as well thankfully after years of neglect america is no longer just watching other countries racing ahead we are now making real strides to reclaim a leadership role in a technology that was invented on our shores the bureau of land management has received more than one hundred fifty large scale solar plant applications with a projected capacity of ninety seven thousand megawatts of electricity mostly in the sunny southwest i imagine that we have healthy competition for clean energy technology between the barren step of in inner mongolia and the hot desert of nevada and arizona in just over seventy days the nations will of the world will convene in copenhagen to commit to solutions for the common good here in the united states the need to position american industry for new areas of a long term growth is also urgent as americans across the country can attest pink slips at work can be as personally devastating as the threat of melting icecaps rising seas and more frequent floods droughts and hurricanes the climate and the economy  two challenges facing our country that will impact us globally and locally clean energy technology will be a key solution to the global transition to clean energy presents an opportunity for job creation in all areas of the country solar power in the west and southwest wind turbines in the plains and texas and offshore in new england and the mid atlantic biomass in the south and not west all areas of the country have energy resources that can be made and be used that are plentiful clean renewable affordable and made in america and that is a statement that cannot be said about most of the oil which we consume because  that comes marked with made by opec we have taken the first step in assuring that these clean energy jobs stay in the united states and unleash a global energy revolution in june the house passed the  clean energy and security act when enacted this bill will cap the carbon pollution causing global warming require the widespread deployment of renewable energy and schiff ition c and invest two hundred billion dollars in energy technology the clean energy revolution will not happen magically we need to put in place the policies that will accomplish that goal i am pleased that we have such a distinguished panelists that will be testifying today let me turn and recognize the ranking member of the committe the gentleman from wisconsin mrs sensenbrenner thank you very much mr chairman there is no good or evil with energy sources because every energy source curious distinctly different positives and negatives developing a new energy system from the ground up is proving to be an impossible task for policymakers solar power promises to deliver an endless supply of clean energy high costs and other environmental concerns are raising significant problems state mandates like california's renewable portfolio standard have led to small amounts of growth in the solar energy sector but that growth is already being hindered by environmental concerns last week bright source energy was forced to give up its plan build a five thousand one hundred thirty acre solar farm in the mojave desert after democratic senator dianne feinstein responded with plans to make the area a national monument interior secretary ken salazar similar resistance was made to fast track solar development on federal lands because of concerns that the development will disturb the habitat of federally protected wildlife these issues stem from mandating the use of an energy source before the ramifications are fully understood spain's experience with renewable energy serve as a cautionary tale president  a has frequently we should look to spain as an example of how taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy projects will create so called green jobs but economics professor dr a juan carlos university exam the spanish policies and advises against adopting their approach professor khalilzad a study questions the effect in this a pump in massive subsidies into renewable energy as the washington post reported yesterday spain's subsidies for photovoltaics solar power three hundred twenty million dollars in two thousand and seven to a billion six hundred million furthermore only one in ten of the newly created jobs proved to be permanent most were created to build infrastructure but were no longer needed once it was done i have often argued that there is no free lunch in our response to climate change initially spain's massive government investment however in two thousand and eight spain withdrew the subsidies with the subsidies gone the solar bubble burst and many of the new jobs were eliminated and other words the green jobs created by the subsidies proved to be anything but sustainable the subsidies of also introduced market volatility professor cals out of found the spain subsidy of solar energy was five hundred percent higher than the market these subsidies thus far only cause modest rises in electricity prices spanish government officials are already warning the prices might suddenly jump as the true cost of these renewable energy projects reach consumers i'm not against solar power i'm in favor of an all of the above approach to energy production that includes solar power along with when coal hydro power nuclear power and increased energy efficiency but i'm also opposed to government policies that pick winners and losers based on popular sentiment and i am opposed to policies that will increase our energy prices spain's massive use of government subsidies is not an all of the above approach but rather an attempt to choose winners and losers and the one last thing to consider before following spain's lead on green jobs spain's unemployment rate is currently eighteen and a half percent and growing i look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about both the positive and negatives about a lot of solar power and i think this chairman for the time chairman and i appreciate my good friend from wisconsin laying out a fundamental difference in approach you know it's ironic all american energy sources have been heavily subsidized one point or another throughout their development we have a long history of the federal government subsidizing everything from jet aviation semiconductors computers the internet global positioning systems laser technology m r i the list is extensive that has developed into major job engines in the united states i find it a little frustrating that our friends have chosen not really to engage the issue directly of the hearing but  there nor any information provided by established credible experts and pull out of right field a single report that uses unproven theories and accepted assumptions lacks basic statistical analysis to show that a program that only does not exist in the united states and is not being proposed by anyone did not work in my home state of oregon we're watching even though it rains all the time we're watching an emergence of a solar energy industry we're watching in new jersey the garden state where they have some climate issues the second largest state of installations where moving in an era where it's expected that th solar photovoltaic will soon achieve grid parity but era when the united states unlike what happened in the technology explosion mr chairman that you were involved with and actually our ranking member has been deeply concerned with where the united states was an innovator and a global leader in energy technology today the united states has only four of the top thirty countries the rest of the world is moving on i think our witnesses here today can help give a picture of where the world is going and i appreciate your having this hearing is i think it's an important part of the picture to round out i thank the gentleman very much time for opening statements of members has been completed we'll turn to our panel our first witness is steve kline vice president of corporate environmental and federal affairs for the pacific gas and electric company we welcome you gas electric company to obvious some thoughts on this very important subject as p g needs to sustainability officer and vice president of corporate environmental and federal affairs i lead p g and e s climate change strategy programs as well as our habitat conservation planning programs investments in renewable resources including solar resources create jobs reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and move us toward a low important is the support and role of the federal government and expanding the development of solar energy including policies related to federal lands that can help or hinder a lot of elements the federal government in the economic recovery package has made important investments to support and lay foundation for expanding renewable energy resources including financial and programme support but there is an opportunity and a need to do more before going for there let me tell you just a bit about p g and e s support and development of solar and other renewable resources we provide electric and gas service to approximately fifteen million people throughout a seventy thousand square miles service area in northern california we deliver some of the nation's cleanest energy on average approximately one half of the power that we developed that we delivered to our customers is carbon free in two thousand and eight approximately twelve percent of the electricity delivery makes was from cal of california eligible renewable resources and we forecast that to rise to fifteen percent this year we're actively pursuing a diverse portfolio of unknowable generation resources on behalf of our customers and i think the critical word there is portfolio since two thousand and two we've signed more than sixty six contracts with existing and new facilities are planned to use wind geothermal bio gas bio mass and solar as a fuel solar energy is an especially attractive source for us because it's available when power is needed most in california during the peak mid summer period our portfolio includes both solar p v and solar thermal technologies since early two thousand and eight we've entered into fourteen solar contracts five using solar p v technology and nine using solar thermal or concentrated solar power technologies in addition we have a five hundred megawatt photovoltaic program pending before the california public utilities commission to help stimulate immediate renewable energy development through both distributed utility own generation and power purchase agreements with third parties given the current state of the capital markets we'd strongly recommend further extending tax credits grant programs and loan guarantees to help assure that we'll have the renewable energy resources we need to meet california's r p s and we assume soon federal r p s obligation we're also exploring the possibility of developing commercial scale projects ourselves in addition we support exploration of a green bank to provide longer term certainty and expanded options for financing renewable energy programs a stab clean assembling a clean energy to deployment administration as is being discussed in both the house and the senate would assist in reaching those goals were encouraged by department interiors actions to facilitate large scale  public lands in the west this study will capture twenty four solar energy study areas to expedite technologies that are ready for deployment utility scale given the dual imperatives of reducing greenhou as soon as possible and to bring renewal bills online while protecting natural and cultural resources we believe that federal agencies and their state agency analogues must proceed along two parallel paths one path in the short term is identifying and permitting the solar projects most likely to be shovel ready in time to be eligible to receive stimulus funds the other path is longer term namely developing a process to manage solar development on public lands in a more orderly and comprehensive fashion clearly a great deal is being asked of b l m staff in connection with this effort which we strongly support to get more renewable energy generated on line to consumers it's critical b l m have sufficient resources to ensure that these efforts can move forward in a timely and efficient manner while ensuring robust environmental review a significant challenge that will be a surprise to this committee that we face and bringing  will energy online is the lack of transmission lines located where resources are located across the west thousands of miles of transmission lines will be needed to significantly expand renewable  production and link those remote resources to areas where electricity is needed most where people live including pass on or around federal lands it be no exaggeration to say that only with increased transmission capacity can the benefits of renewable resources be fully realized one way to facilitate dad would be through better coordination among agencies in addition to better coordination streamlining the reviews required by state and federal agencies a he is the chief executive officer of next light renewable power and we welcome  thank you for the opportunity to speak about the progress and the challenges we face in developing large scale solar generation next light renewable power is a developer of competitively priced utility scale solar generation we're not a technology company we are our expertise where power plant guys our expertise is in the siting permitting financing construction and operation of power plants we apply the technologies to our projects so as to provide the best products to our utility customers next flight has approximately one thousand megawatts of solar generation in development and permitting in the west in arizona california nevada and the other western states that is sufficient to meet the needs of approximately two hundred thousand residential homes it would create about fifteen hundred construction jobs and one to two hundred permanent jobs during operation i have three main points today first is to restore the two billion dollars that was transferred to cash for clunkers back to the dia we loan guarantee program the second is to extend the i t c grant beyond the december two thousand and ten expiration date and the third is to establish the green bank now why do we need these programs our biggest obstacle in developing these projects is the upfront capital cost of renewable energy generation without carbon costs explicitly included when the utility looks at their their supply portfolio they they see renewable generation as more expensive than fossil if we can close that gap utilities would gladly  cure more renewable generation and more generation would get built without impacting electric rates these three measures go a long way to close the gap at little taxpayer expense by reducing the financing costs of these projects so very briefly the loan aren t program two billion dollars would accelerate twenty billion dollars of renewable generation the i t c grant that was and acted to address the current shortage of tax equity but the fact is that the i t c grant is more efficient than the investment tax credit every dollar of the grant goes to a project as opposed to the the investment tax credit where we need to bring in tax investors who require more than a dollar for a dollar of tax offset and it requires substantial structuring transaction cost to do these very complicated financing arrangements we estimate that fifteen to twenty fifteen to twenty percent loss of in with the investment tax credit compared to the i t c grant lastly the the greenback which was passed by this house and and is in in the senate here like the export import bank it would the purpose would be to lend to renewables at rates basically at federal rates and if you look at the if you compare say a five percent rate long term debt rate under something like the green bank to the eight or nine percent interest rates in the market today that translates to about four cents a kilowatt hour reduction in the cost of renewable generation that's a lot that's enough to close the gap between renewables and fossil generation so it's the most cost effective way to build renewable generation with minimal impact on electric rates or on the federal budget so in conclusion our biggest obstacle is the upfront cost of these capital intensive project and congress ca thank you chairman markey and members of the committee and thank you for pronouncing my name correctly wandering around the southwest with a name like this has been a challenge i work in the public lands campaign of the wilderness society our mission is to protect wilderness and inspire americans to protect our wild places for more than seventy years we've worked to ensure that land management practices are sustainable and based on sound science i lead a part of the organization called the b l m action center which tracks land use planning and policy and dedicated to helping the public effectively engage and participate we appreciate the leadership that chairman mark and others on the committee have demonstrated in seeking clean energy solutions to the impacts of climate change to recently passed legislation you've asked us to present testimony today regarding how public lands can contribute to the solutions to large scale solar energy development by written statement lays out all in a lot of detail the key considerations for the wilderness society today my testimony is going to focus on our optimism regarding the direction that secretary already leading us in our wild lands in our communities are threatened by global warming and our reliance on fossil fuels we see solar energy development and other sources of renewable energy is an important part of responding to these threats and the public lands have a role to play secretary order thirty two eighty five set the stage for a new approach to energy development on the public lands focusing on development and transmission of renewal energy from appropriate areas thoughtful approach is reflected in the ongoing efforts of the department  her energy and we hope honestly to see it applied to other types of energy development the key elements of this strategy are identifying the places that are most appropriate for large scale development while protecting places that are not appropriate or needed providing the financial tools needed to incentivize responsible development and proactive involvement of other interested knowledgeable parties a robust program in this model would be able to increase the likelihood of timely approval of projects and decrease the unacceptable environmental impact and the resulting controversy in opposition to projects that come with that secretary salazar committed the department to identifying and prioritizing the specific locations in the united states best suited for large scale production this is really the centerpiece for responsible development locating it in the right places and with the right protection departments commenced a program out of environmental impact statement for solar energy and designating solar energy zone that will be prioritized the zones are being designated with important criteria both for proximity to of terrain and potential for energy but also from the start excluding sensitive resources from consideration resources like to be a lot of national and conservation system critical habitat for endangered species because solar energy development involves long term use of land damage natural resources and really effectively precludes other uses is real it is extremely important for it to be directed to land that you not have other sensitive resources and for example next lights over say north and south projects in nevada are being cited to avoid b l m areas of critical environmental concern and lands proposed by citizens for wilderness protection another key element of the strategy is that once energy zones are identified development is limited to those  controversy and precluded thoughtful management of the public i'm focusing on lance i don't have cancer resources and are close to transmission will minimize environmental damage and loss of other uses but is honestly associated with large scale solar development an important siting option is found on brownfield and other already disturbed lands like command and mines or fallow agricultural land these are found on both public and private lands but the e p a and the national renewable energy lab have estimated these types of lands could provide up to nine hundred fifty megawatts of utility scale solar sites or close to population centers and transmission and they already zone for industrial uses they actually improve communities by reducing blight there and we're in place already in colorado at fort carson and in my home state of new jersey a landfill has recently approved around field as well both the e p a and arizona b l m have active groundsel program and they really could and should be expanded incentivized including through a nubile electricity standard all types of on site and off site mitigation measures based on my credible science and take into account the many other uses in values of the public lands things like wilderness values wildlife habitat and recreation everything from back country hunting and mountain biking should be accounted for and new transmission is needed but again this must be done with a thoughtful approach to protect the environment and avoid further contribution we would also encourage that while the department of interior is hard at work simultaneously developing a program identifying zones and analyzing many pending applications including those receiving stimulus funding they will need to be assisted with additional resources so that they can actively manage this program similar funding was assigned in the pri oil and gas permitting and the b l m will need similar funding from the ministration they have a unique opportunity although a challenge to develop this from the ground in conclusion we believe that we can move forward with large scale solar energy development while protecting  chairman markey and representative sensenbrenner for extending an invitation to join us today it's an honor and a pleasure to be here as you know america is at the dawn of a new energy era a transformation that will provide us with more clean energy producing options like solar wind and other renewable energy sources the corning is one of the world's leading producers of poly crystal and the like and which powers the solar industry i know firsthand that america's energy transformation is the next to our nation's economic and manufacturing future such a transformation will require that we forge a new path forward through federal leadership the investment and innovation of private industry and integrated policy prescriptions that address each step in their noble energy value chain from education and workforce development to raw material and product manufacturing to deployment and market readiness with forward thinking leadership and management this transformation could bring with it a whole new set of industries hundreds of thousands of new jobs a sustainable source of economic growth and a reduce carbon footprint that is good for our country and for our global environment other nations have an active aggressive policies to support the growth of the renewable energy industry for example china as you mentioned india and germany offer large subsidies for solar manufacturing facilities as a result the u s global market share of solar manufacturing has dropped from about forty five percent to only seven percent in twelve years it is time for america to enact policies that will keep the solar industry here and at home with that in mind let me thank you for including the alternative energy investment credit in the american recovery and reinvestment act this credit is a significant first step towards establishing new clean energy technology manufacturing jobs here in the u s and encouraging companies such as corning to manufacture solar and other renewable energy related materials in america but the potential to create more than three hundred fifteen thousand jobs in construction engineering science skilled trades and others i hope that this credit can be made permanent in an energy bill now under development or in any other tax exten extender packages as that will propel america into an era of sustained renewable energy use and help put americans back to work dow corning is already leading by example we are one of the only companies in the world that is able to provide its vast silicon based materials and services throughout the entire solar value chain from solar cell and pan your panel manufacturing to module assemblies right on through the panel installations and we are making significant progress earlier this month we announced the commercial availability of a breakthrough solar cell and capsule ation technology that improves performance of solar panels and effectively lowers the cost per kilowatt hour of solar power making solar power less expensive to both produce and to use in the past four years we have announced more than four and a half billion dollars in investments in solar technology including last december two point two billion to increase polysilicon production creating eighteen hundred construction jobs and more than one thousand permanent jobs in the months to come all of this to be put in america and we ha construction a new manufacturing facility for years and then solar production which will produce even more solar related jobs and help attract other supply chain investments to the this is a start but in order to truly implement transformation which is before us dow corning proposes a four point plan to address the technical legislative regulatory manufacturing and workforce related factors america's ability to develop a thriving divestiture renewable solar power depends on this first we encourage congress and the obama administration to act new federal policies and regulations that will encourage the rapid growth of a viable renewable energy industry and consumer adoption of renewable energy through federal tax incentives to spur domestic manufacturing a robust federal renewable electricity standard and federal interconnection the net metering standard second we advocate increased federal funding for research and development to accelerate solar technology innovation and advanced solar manufacturing jobs third we support the need to develop a green collar workforce by supporting training programs like the program stop running has co sponsored with local colleges in michigan and in tennessee fourth we need the federal government to lead by example in the implementation of clean technologies through german of on site generation building retrofits for energy efficiency and new green building standards finally but certainly no less important congress must ensure that new policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon tax or cap and trade do not inadvertently discourage growth in the manufacturing and production every noble energy resources in closing as i said earlier america is at a dawn of a new energy era era my company is doing its part to encourage a climate of collaboration creativity and commitment to green energy security is more than just smart business as a global company we know it is fundamental to protecting our nation's competitiveness in the decades to come thank you dr burns very much and the final witness  today start to gabriel is an associate professor in the department of economics at king juan carlos university in spain he is also the author of the report study of the effects on spanish experience in renewable energy specifically and solar energy production as you know has become a world leader in the production of solar energy thanks to a mix of political determination every spanier wanted to enter this business and we've got a waiting list we have a large waiting list for money as a license to produce solar energy but in related to this lot of corruption you may have some reading the newspapers a lot of corruption arose because nobody wants to be at the end of the queue everybody wants to be on the front but even worse than this has been the bubble the renewable bubble in the solar bubble that was created in order to understand the bubble you just have to think  most of the jobs the so called green jobs that have been created are in installation of those people so if you want to keep those jobs you cannot mundane a level of subsidy you have to increase its you always do increase it because you have to keep them working so it means you have to keep them producing new plants but if they produce new plants you will have to subsidize more more more electricity that is produced by those plants in this way is a bubble that grows and grows and the spanish government now has a  very has a lot of problems related with this with this bubble nobody knows exactly how to how to solve the problem another big question is who pays for this all these billion the first thing spanish politicians did this look to the consumer but the distributer say they needed the wait a minute if we have to pay these very high primes to the producers of renewables but government set a very low price in the electricity that we have to sell we will go bankruptcy and the government immediately said don't worry  what we'll do is that we will repay you we promise we repay you in fifteen years if you can years from now when i'm not going to be here anymore another politician is going to repay you arose in the electricity in the spanish electricity market and many many green jobs has been fired since then because the government had to change a little bit the subsidies to the solar industry thanks to th scheme fifty thousand green jobs have been created however if you take into account the huge amount of resources that i just mention that has been taken away from the rest of the economy and put into into this sector you can see things to show your country but i believe as an economist that policy related to renewable specifically solar industry is not one of them thank you dealing with our current tax policies and as a member of the ways and means committee i'm very interested in our being able to game to expand the investment tax credit  working with you and i welcome any suggestions or assistance to make sure that the investment funds that include tax exempt entities are in fact eligible so we can dramatically increase pool of investment that is available which seems to me to be very commonsense and would have affectively no economic impact as far as the federal government is concerned but open up  capital i was interested in mr rhodes or others might have some information for us about the effectiveness of the various tax credits as opposed to using a direct grant you mention the effectiveness where you're not paying a premium to other investors you're not having as much location in terms of accountants and attorneys some of whom are my best friends i have nothing against them but if there would be a way that you might be able to help us clarify the impact and i am not expecting that you have something here that you can pull out of your briefcase but if you could help us just generate information about what the difference is for projects that you're involved with with the grant versus tax credit at a minimum maybe some suggestions that we might simplify the tax credit application as we move forward i would appreciate it i do appreciate dr prince notion about the federal government leading by example as the largest consumer of energy in the world the department of defense or g s a there are lots of things that we could work on together i was interested in dr but listening to your comments and i'm looking at information that we've been provided we find that the united states national renewable energy lab which we think is pretty reputable and straightforward repudiate your report suggesting it lacks transparency in supporting statistics fails to compare renewable energy technologies with comparable energy industry metrics it fails to account for issues such as the role of government in emerging markets fails to account for the success of renewable energy exports in spain fails to account for the fact that renewable energy deployed deployment creates additional indirect jobs in communities where renewables are being deployed and produced i'm from a community that benefits from one of your renewable energy companies that has its american headquarters in portland oregon but i i would like to focus on one element that concerns me or an account of your report and wall street journal says and i quote the study doesn't actually identify those jobs allegedly destroyed by renewable energy spending could you elaborate on specifically what jobs were destroyed and provide the committee with a list of them many has been fired they criticize us for not speculating about hypothetical export sales when the reality is that we have taken them into account we have incorporated them we look at what is in what was an export was expired i would appreciate if you would provide to the committee i don't want to put you on the spot and let me just a minute if you could provide to the committee a list of jobs in spain that were destroyed by virtue of this we would appreciate it thank you very much congressman you would have to add this to the spanish trade unions or to the spanish government i can provide you with what has happened with what has been the reality how many jobs this is standard economic procedure how many jobs would have been created in the rest of the economy if we would have taking away from the economy's a very standard and i'm sure you understand thank you mr chairman gentleman's time has expired the ch having a no net loss policy on a variety of characteristics on federal land for habitat for recreational activities those kind of things i just want to if you could address to what extent you think we we are doing that in the current permitting and how you would suggest we move forward to to in fact effectuate that idea i don't think it's been explicitly laid out in the permanent process i think it's been happening it may be happening in an informal way more of the permitting process today has focused on the siting issues where we've been able to to have input about relocating or redesigning projects it's coming up more in california  already i would say where we are having more anticipated losses of habitat that we can quantify so i haven't seen it happening today has some internal guidance on both onsite not site mitigation that is very broad and allows them to design off that mitigation policy that can take into account a myriad of ways too as long as they identify the values that are being lost and habitat of recreation opportunities they can design ways to do the mitigation it could be done through a fund that was created as part of a project it could be done by identifying additional land that could be acquired for the agency to manage it could also be done at a level of identifying similar areas that could be protected or managed specifically for a last resource one of the analogies that i had heard was for instance one for permits dams they also require applicant to build a boat ramp so that the recreational opportunities can be replaced doesn't fit quite as well for solar energy but that type of model i think works so is the bureau doing that we should some degree now are they looking to mitigate some of these they are they are not doing it at this point that i've seen but i talk to them a lot and they are thinking about how best to do it and they could use some direction about how to follow words but using this very broad the side of the water but i will use this name because that's when you've used for the moment suggesting that it was unwise for us to pursue that since spain and had this bubble develop and  you know i'm not the total expert on the spanish system but i think that our proposal has learned from the spanish experience we have in our proposal incorporated some measures that would prevent a bubble one a step down of the price to take into consideration of the economics of the situation i think our proposal has a more realistic time frame as far as the rate of acceleration i would characterize the spanish acceleration as you have to some degree is precipitating bubble that was and so supportable and just the rate of acceleration was too great and in our legislation we have sought to learn from that experience build in some safeguards and i think looking at the german experience we can succeed in this the spanish experience i don't think should be taken as a you know convicting a feed in tariff or all time that it should ever be pursued it's just the need to design it correctly that's what i would take from the spanish experience so i would if you want to comment on that feel free is that is that really what the lesson we should be we should show some care when we design a feat in terms of some us in this regard and i think they have concluded that your research although i'm sure are sincere was not necessarily the gold standard on evaluating this issue and and we're going to be following their conclusions are going to be moving forward with this by the way i may  that the chinese are now looking they've indicated they will be adopting a similar similar policy this is been spectacularly successful in many places in the world not the least of which is germany and i hope that we'll be able to pursue this thank you found myself voting against that even though i think it's probably a nice thing to do but tripling the program when we didn't know what we were penalizing i'm wondering if you have some thoughts about how we rebalance the equities in terms of replacing that money you have any target subsidies energy anything come to mind but the money back in the bank  i appreciate the question i have not looked into that we would be happy to to to look into it and see if we can come up with some ideas for your consideration but let me elaborate and because we've we've had we've got three witnesses who are very much in the business of trying to develop an american presence in one of the most rapidly growing areas of economic activity globally which the majority of us on the committee thank you critical to survival of the planet the way that we know it and our economic competitiveness  would i would just support the concept that you're putting forward i mean we we are starting material to almost all of the manufacturers in the value chain over sixty five percent of decarbonize the entire economy one way of looking at and evaluating the need for incentives would simply be on carbon content that would naturally move you towards the this committee has documented the consequences of climate change the the i'll say simple it's the most difficult thing but is to to account for the extra knowledge and and then there are no you're not picking winners and losers what you're doing is you are you are making an economy more efficient right now or connally is not efficient right we're using too much energy because all of the alternatives out there to reduce carbon emissions the one that's most proven is renewables and you know where we're just starting in things like carbon seque and so i would say that it's renewables that is actually the market clearing price for what what the true cost of carbon reduction is now you have the difficult task of  but to me it's the it's not the framing it is not difficult thank you very much to recognize the gentleman from washington state thank you i'm very appreciative of the emphasis to make sure we get this money taken out of renewable account or restored i know the speakers totally committed to this i think we're all committed to this i spoke to the chief of staff of the white house last week they are committed t we're going to be diligent to making making sure that happens i have a question about the the cost of solar power has declined on a real basis with increased in volume and a fairly consistent level and gradient is there any reason to believe that that will not continue at that same gradient per volume is there some hope that will actually go down faster can you give us any predictions in that regard or thoughts i am on yes the cost is declining what i am and with with investment in research that is showing how to make the ball more and more efficient and our view of it is a linear line what will help is if we do increase demand and that that increases significantly and exponentially then those costs should go down even greater than the linear line today because you're going to start to get some efficiencies of scale and more investment in new technologies i mean you've seen the sun electronics industry as we've become more more efficient and semiconductor is another thing so i anticipate that what would happen and you've seen great changes and i just read the department of energy payback analysis which from two thousand for their assumption that analysis was the top percent efficiency you know people are up to sixteen eighteen percent and that is even higher than that so i would anticipate any time you put that much research investment into a field you're going to continue incentive that is appropriate to the state of a given technology a renewable energy portfolio we have it's a great tool we're going to adopt it but it's really sort of a one price for all technologies and technologies at different levels of development so it really is an incentive for the next most affordable renewable energy not the second most affordable energy right now frankly wind is still cheaper in most places than solar one of the benefits of a feed in tariff is it it provides an incentive for multiple technologies appropriate to the level of maturation of that particular technology and this has been successful in places that have done that by the way governments have been successful in ramping down that price i was talking to a solar cell manufacturing dresden germany last year and he was you know karen is here out because the german government was forcing down the price but that was appropriate to do it increasing scale and decrease in cost so i guess is that a fair assessment is that a we've done in the united states is a steep decline can speak to this is we've had a competitive process where we have an r p s and and people like us bid competitively to meet that demand i think that that has been slower than people's expectations and so something like a feed in tariff carefully drafted i think could address that well here's my concern my concern is if we rely exclusively on the renewable energy standard it will develop ultimately the next technology in line for cost quite effectively which frankly is wind at the moment in most places but it will not in a time sensitive manner develop the second third and fourth technologies in line of maturation and it is clear to me that we're going to have to have technologies three four and five to get to that eighty percent reduction by two thousand and fifty that we need so i believe that it is imperative that we adopt another tool that will jumpstart numbers two three four and five that i believe this is really the best mechanism for doing that now the alternative is to continue with our yes and years from now we'll get to technologies two three four and five but we don't have ten years to wait in that regard we have to start now and all of these so i will be looking to your advice on how to pursue that and i hope we do so thank you and the department of energy on solar development and als for unanimous consent that these letters be included in the record without objection so included and i also asked for unanimous consent to have a report from the u national renewable energy laboratory responding to the spanish jobs report study also be included in the record at the appropriate point without objection that also is s that would be corning incorporated and actually using our materials in fiber optics but corning is a shareholder of our company yes but they use technology use our technology for optic technology  advanced materials that they converted in fiber optics and that's a very interesting story is it not that up until nine hundred eighty three the only way in which we transmitted information a t t of course was the only meaningful telecommunications company in the united states was over copper wires and then we broke up a t n t as a nation and the first call that went from m c i went to corning to use your materials that corning of new york was putting into these new fiber optic technologies using light as a means of transmitting information and that's where the fiber optic revolution began using your materials and it seems kind of funny that you look back and you say well alexander graham bell who invented the phone one hundred years before and by the way using light but he couldn't figure out a way of dealing with the weather in other circumstances so he was kind of waiting for the kind of materials that you were developing so that it could be transmitted in a way that wouldn't be subject to weather and other sources so all of a sudden alexander graham bell up to one thousand nine hundred three is actually still able to recognize the phone system because it was the way he invented it it's the way a phone call had been moving all those years and in a lot of ways that's really what we're talking about  over here with the smart grid the smart grid makes it possible for us to use the telecommunications revolution to bring in the sun in the in the wind from the deserts in the prairie's off of the ocean off of people's roofs and to begin to integrate it more into the totality of the grid that we have in our country that makes it a lot more affordable because it took the corning the dow corning revolution in fiber optics in o could we have the same kind of revolution here in energy that we had in the telecom sector so my question to you is this you've heard the conversation about solar you talked about a thin film solar technology which dow corning how can you expand a little bit upon that and what your hopes are for thin film solar especially in terms of its price point as each year goes by and maybe using twenty twenty kind of a year in terms of what you believe the price solar generated electricity can be using thin film solar well i think first of all i think there's going to be marching on a path where we are going to reach parity with these technologies that will happen you know there's a lot of variables and equation but we're going to find it in the next two to five years two to five years  it depends on where you're located and how much sunshine you get excited about these technologies are moving more and more efficiently and now when you say grid parity are you talking about equating the cost of generating you know some distant dream that might be achieved in the next generation not something that is basically right over hill and could be in place within five years competing affectively with coal so where where do you think that would be possible that is and what what percent what percentage for example of american consumers do you think could benefit from those kind of better breakthroughs guys guys probably have a better answer than i do because you know i'm so far up in the in the value chain but i you know my view is that you know right now is less than one percent of our energy contribution that should be up in the five to seven percent of our time and i don't know how much time that's going to take but that's a huge expansion in solar power as as a source of electricity when we had dr emanuel sachs testify in july before our committee and he's the founder of the company evergreen and he's found that a new company called thirteen sixty six he testified that he believed that seven percent of all electricity in the world could be generated from photovoltaics by the year twenty twenty do you think that's just some ten glossy in number that is pulled out of the sky or do you think there might be some basis  about it we could achieve now that's just amazing because again people focus so much as mr said on when we did and even in our deliberations on the bill we spent so much time on bio mass and investing in the us to make their whether it's their cells or their modules and how many companies have come to you i would say more than five more than five major players are they buying into this idea that there's a two to five year horizon on film solar there they're making some tremendous investment and that's always based on your business evaluation  is private sector venture capital money being put up to place money on this bass or a large public company who are choosing to invest and as part of their portfolio we do have some smaller companies coming and working with us and to echo some of the issues that were raised here they do have an issue with access to capital and ability to get gets along with they need to make that ok so as you as you use two to five years as the horizon to establish parity between photovoltaics and coal as a source of generating electricity even if you're wrong do you think ten years from of the challenges will be it will be somewhat dependent on two things one on the extent to which we land planning and are able to actually take advantage of areas where there is great celerity and secondly  building the transmission needs i guess you know i guess she would talk about two different technologies you're talking about thin film solar which isn't as dependent upon the bureau of land management time talking about the absolute efficiency of the of the technology solar in general exactly and i say these are these are even bigger and more important issues in terms of how do you where do you put it how do you transmitted how do you make it so you are saying just so we can divide the question you're saying the technology is going to be there the breakthroughs are just happening so quickly the improvement in the efficiency the loring of the cost and so then the question comes where we're going to put it quickly can we do it cal quickly can we do it and how do we raise the capital in i'll come back to you with a related question significant just give us an idea in terms of square miles sure so our antelope valley california project with which we have a power purchase agreement with pacific gas and electric two hundred thirty megawatts will cover about twenty one hundred acres twenty one hundred acres ok so let me let me come back to you in this color if i call much acreage does the bureau of land management have under its control you know over two hundred sixty million about two hundred sixty two hundred sixty million acres and do you know how much of that acreage it leases out to the oil and gas industry for its use believe at last count we were well over forty million so forty million acres of public land under the control of the bureau of land management is now leased to the oil and gas industry forty million over forty and mr drew what are you looking for twenty one hundred acres of twenty one of the size of a farm twenty one hundred acres wow so that's quite a difference in terms of the use of public lands in the united states and you'll be able to generate how much electricity two hundred thirty m ok so or so for the purpose of mid size power plants good size power so out of the out in california diablo canyon is probably a thousand megawatt nuclear power plant twenty twenty two solar technology yes based on capacity based on capacity yes thank you for that clarification yes so i'm just trying to tell a story here so that people can have an idea of the ballpark that we're in and the it's not fenway park it's yellowstone park but just so people are in the conversation and they can understand the scale of what we're talking about so we get going back to forty four million acres for oil and gas industry and over here we're looking for some policy that allows for wind and solar but solar today you know to also be put on public lands and be given giving them that opportunity so as to climb when we come back to you and talk a little bit about the amount of  of stace acres square miles that you think p g and e is going to need in order to generate the solar that you're precise number but i think if you use mr de rose's acreage as as a as an example and you multiply that by what are you talking about well twenty would be about forty forty five hundred forty five hundred megawatts and if you just scale yeah scaled up the amount of acres would be twenty times to that's the incredible and you guys are committed to doing that the other two companies yes you know so and you would not be going down this path if it was not economically viable  future but you've chosen solar the issue for us is that there's bountiful wind in california but it tends to to blow at night and frequently very late at night and until we get a means of storing much money into the stimulus package for battery technology and why we will continue to fund battery technology again the good news here is that if we could store the electricity generated from wind and solar and then use it when we need it and have battery technology massive battery technology which makes that possible and we've really got a good thing going and the good news here is that we're not talking about putting a man on the moon and sending him up there by the way that was thought he nine years ago president kennedy was talking about i can you believe that and we put a man on the moon and brought him back years after the president challenged the nation to that and by the way they were up there all alone and that was tough up there you know they were riding around number they were riding around in a vehicle up there and whatever was powering that probably some renewable energy was definitely powering that vehicle as it will bounce around on the moon and then they figured out how to get back in that thing without houston ground control right next to them and they came back so we're not actually challenging people to do that we're just asking people to build a better battery seems like it's a full prosaic job we just didn't pay attention  it and once we put our minds to it it seems like we should be able to develop batteries that can store electricity mr klein i'm sorry i was just offered even broader than batteries i mean there's a whole assortment of compressed air renewable electricity explosion in california and across the country you give a huge incentive to private sector companies aside investing in the storage technology because those companies are going to become very very wealthy whoever can provide the storage capacity to all fifty states and to every utility in the country that is now going to be generating electricity so again one revolution begets the next so the telecom revolution creates the fiber optic broadband revolution that then makes the electricity internet possible because all it is is a broadband management of electricity and then that revolution begets you know the the smart grid revolution sets to beget the  battery revolution and other revolutions because you have to you know now the private sector companies can see the opportunity as to where they are going to make a fortune maybe become the wealthiest people in the history of the world actually whoever can develop the battery technology competing of course with the people who become the of those thin film solar leaders in the world they might be everyone is going to be in a race he had a past bill gates the wealthiest person in the world to ever makes the breakthrough patents it inside selling it to everyone else and you have to believe this you know in order to move in this direction but again we're not talking about putting a man on the moon was talking about things that are relatively prosaic and incrementally miss dr burns referred to this drop this kind of moore's law and in photovoltaic how it drops eighteen percent every year and cost and improvement in efficiency and it's occurred every year since hundred seventy nine so this is not something that is you know fantastical it is something that is happening in the world world and has reached a point where she sang into the five years it'll match whole match natural gas in terms of the cost if we can create the marketplace mr de rosa and and and we believe that we have next light we believe that and we think that there not only will be cost reductions due to technology efficiencies but it will be cost reductions for the other half of the cost which is the construction of these facilities the construction of it the balance of plant is half half of the cost and that those those economies are just getting started  i think the obstacle we face now is and i and i agree with dr burns that we're going to need all the applications we're going to need the smaller rooftop applications we're going to need these the smaller  urbanized solar applications as well as the large power plants those large power plants have not been built yet and so it's not a technology question it's it's a financial it's a financing question it's we need to demonstrate to the people who are going to put up the money that they will get there they will get their money back and so what would have the financial people concerned about right now they lenders equity investors are they're cautious of investing in something that hasn't been done before so they most concerned about dr burns talked about kind of the incredible advances made in the technology you have as well is it is it the technology that they're uncertain about or is it the b l m regulations the ability to get access to the land the the the guarantee that it's a predictable investment tax policy could you go down the list of the things that you i think our most important in terms of creating an uncertainty in the minds of the private sector sure so at next light we deal with proven technologies where we're not we're not trying to advance that second or third generation want to get that first generation in first and we need to deliver to investors a project with four corners around it that does not have environmental problems that that has its permits that is it is a good product for the utility that has a interconnection  viable interconnection so that's a given then the what the investor will will look at is has it been done before on this scale and that's the hurdle that we're at right now it's it's been done in one megawatt blocks it's been done in five megawatt blocks but a two two hundred thirty megawatt project and it's not just our company there's many companies out there developing utility scale and we all think that's what we need to meet our goals it's even though one one could say well it's just two hundred thirty times the one megawatt project but it's if you're the one putting up the money there's a lot of questions that you ask and you ask about supply chains and you ask about the construction process and and all of those things and so that is that is our challenge it's to  take this proven technology and and convince the investors that it is proven it's it and it will but just by scaling  e cash for clunkers temporary depletion of the renewables program on the house floor the speaker and the gym and of the corporation committee did promise that the money would be completely potential in the southwest on public land we have in the whole country right now we have one million megawatts of electricity that exists that is the and the department of interior has estimated again that there are two point nine million megawatts of soul of potential in the southwest on public lands so that would be almost three times the total  electrical generating capacity of the whole country today is a fantastic number so the department of interior including b l m lands equals about five hundred million acres so could you talk a little bit as called about kind of the regulatory tensions that exist here between the preservation of the environment and the installation of the technologies that put us on a very fast path towards energy independence and solving the problem global warming i think there's been a lot made of the tension has not quite come to bear we have of course had a few conflicts over projects fighting but the solar energy study areas that were recently identified and where the comments have been pouring into the bureau of land management are looking at you know six hundred seventy thousand acres that have been identified as close to existing transmission not having a lot of environmental conflicts and being very much suitable for solar energy development at the utility scale in terms of both the potential it would generate and the terrain so i think at the first stage of the tension has the tension is interesting for people to write about but the tension in the actual process itself has not been quite as high and we are talking about two hundred sixty million acres as we just talked about of the out of the beyond national landscape conservation system which are basically you know the crown jewels of wilderness wilderness study areas national monuments conservation areas it's about twenty six million acres so we're not talking about  of the bureau of land management lands approximately twenty six million more have been added in the last bus but of those are dedicated to the national landscape conservation system which incorporates wilderness wilderness study areas national monuments national conservation areas scenic rivers and national and historic trail so we do not have a situation where the vast majority of the lands are somehow locked up and we're going to have to do  drastic measures of things like fighting over wilderness study areas that it doesn't need to come to that it shouldn't come to that ok great let me come back to you missed much much public land that you going to be using we have a combination are our projects some of them are on public land some are on private land we have two active projects right now you know roughly in the two to four thousand acre range about the same size as we mentioned before two hundred fifty megawatts and there are any environmental issues surrounding those to the land under the management of the b l m in the projects that you are additional projects we'll talk about the two hundred thirty megawatts project so that that is in the antelope valley of california it's on private land land that we own in the former farm that  is not being farmed anymore because there's not enough water so it's fallow land it's a great great location great site for solar because it's as we would describe it it's previously disturbed land it's been cultivated before so so far we've we've had unanimous community support and support from the environmental community as well so what are the obstacles then you don't appear to have any land management issues and run mental issues what are your issues that are remaining  terms of the construction of that project its financing in the financing is contingent upon again if you can just say the words the confidence of the private sector and they're waiting for what they they're they're looking for a democrat they're looking for a demonstration that they will they will get there they will get their money back into work and they will get their money back and what can demonstrate that to them i think it's a combination of as as i said a solid rock solid project with a credit worthy taker for twenty five years sidelines waiting for the project to work and then you'll take it if they can get it done it's the latter and historically when when the markets were working projects like mr rose's went when they had a signed contract from credit worthy in pretty sad shape if you can't rely upon this rock of gibraltar which is p g and e it's not going anywhere it's got a state law saying they have to buy tricity you're going to be able to produce it and if you can get it done you've got a guaranteed market and your there it's moving along she's got the materials she's will not sell to anyone and she's guaranteeing improvements as the years go by ms called her saying those public lands available ninety percent of it that would be usable or solar technology and that it's out there would have a lot of environmental regulatory problems in using it this is a rosary saying that he's he believes that utility scale technology is the way to go and that if you can if you can have a marketplace in california's building it here with the with the mandate that the utilities have to come you have to receive a high percentage of their electricity from renewables that and with a deal we long guarantee program it's just now a question of when this inevitable revolution just breaks through because we are going to continue to see the dramatic decline in the cost of producing this solar generate electricity for  and other projects it'll be twenty two it'll be next year that many hopefully many projects will start construction and why do you point to twenty ten as the date that you think this kind of the dam breaks tw financing just that much more streamlined it a lemonade the need for this complicated tax equity investor in the project so the combination of state renewable electricity standards and the existing and the existence an investment tax break is going to put a lot of pressure on investors to kind of close the deal to get the benefits you know where we're spending millions of dollars at rest developing these projects and  pastors and lenders would be eager to invest with that combination ok that's great you know what i'm going to do i'm going to ask each one of you to give us your summary one minute of what you want us to remember about this  it would say that when you look at new investments especially when there are technologies that are not ready now you should have the feet in the air and look at past experience and of alter what i was already putting in process here and getting the final statement just to say to you dr calls out of that yesterday carter did say that and he was putting the policies in place to do that he did not to abolish the department of energy because he did not want any national planning for energy policies and then while there was a beautiful analogy that every tween doctor dentist james  wind and solar and geothermal and biomass from his vision and unfortunately the reagan administration lasted eight years also something jimmy carter did not predict and unfortunately the next bush administration and the republican control of the house and senate for twelve years did not accommodate that technology either and so if you if you look backward you can learn from history but you have to understand that  so that's a different world and while i love the carter focus on these issues that was thirty years ago and we didn't miss a huge opportunity we should be completing the revolution by now but we were focusing too much on drilling and parity i think we should do more manufacturing investment i think it's a crime that most of the manufacturing is done offshore for our needs and i can tell you green jobs are real i look them in the face united states china is now industrialized india is industrializing germany has targeted solar one of their principal manufacturing sectors so we no longer have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines here otherwise we'll wind up importing it all anyway because we're going to have all the state and national requirements that we have renewable electricity and the only question now is where is it going to be manufactured here overseas because these laws are not only not going to go away they're going to get strengthened as the green generation of young people come along and demand that it be strengthened as every year goes by so that's the challenge  here we do have forty four million acres under lease for oil and gas and we don't have solar projects so what this really shows is we're starting from the ground up it's an opportunity there's a challenge but there's an opportunity and i really want to encourage us to learn the lesson that some of us have learned from the oil and gas program and to embrace this opportunity the program that's being built right now is a revolution in management and i think we need to  forward with this approach of actually identifying and prioritizing and targeting the right plans for development and acknowledging that there are lands that are not appropriate for development right from the start what we've been seeing here is a very different approach where we have multiple opportunities for participation from the public and from state and local experts so we have people who know and care and some of us actually care and we're and we're getting a chance to improve the project and to be able to support them and so i think if we continue down that path the market demand is there we've heard today the technologies are there today with even more impressive technologies coming in the future we have a  determined department of interior and bureau of land management to utilize federal lands for renewable development and we have a  guarantee program we have an i t c c grant let's keep those in place and let's pass the green bank so that this isn't just a first wave but a sustainable development of solar energy and the green bank that you're referring to is the provision in the wax for market bill which will leverage upwards of seventy five billion dollars worth of investment in advanced technologies not just solar and wind but nuclear and other advanced technologies but that green bank would be there as a permanent fund to be suggested some form of a national are yes that's a very well carefully constructed feed in tariff it's something that creates a national scale you know beyond california and a few other states who are doing this  continued financial support is mr de rosa described and predictable transparent land use programs for federal land that allow these projects to get constructed in the transmission related to next several months to ensure that we put the right permanent policies on the books to ensure that we complete this revolution thank you all so so much for your