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29–851PS 2007

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S PLAN FOR

CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

Serial No. 109–62

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science

(II)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

KEN CALVERT, California

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JO BONNER, Alabama

TOM FEENEY, Florida

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

JOHN J.H. ‘‘JOE’’ SCHWARZ, Michigan

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

BART GORDON, Tennessee

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAVID WU, Oregon

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas

BRAD SHERMAN, California

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

JIM MATHESON, Utah

JIM COSTA, California

AL GREEN, Texas

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas

DORIS MATSUI, California

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois, Chair

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

JO BONNER, Alabama

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington

MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana

JOHN J.H. ‘‘JOE’’ SCHWARZ, Michigan

SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

JIM MATHESON, Utah

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas

BRAD SHERMAN, California

AL GREEN, Texas

BART GORDON, Tennessee

DAHLIA SOKOLOV Subcommittee Staff Director

CHRIS KING Democratic Professional Staff Member

MIKE HOLLAND Chairman’s Designee ́

COLIN HUBBELL Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

September 20, 2006

Page

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Judy Biggert, Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ........................... 14

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16

Statement by Representative Michael M. Honda, Ranking Minority Member,

Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 17

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18

Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Member, Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 19

Witnesses:

Mr. Stephen Eule, Director of U.S. Climate Change Technology Program,

Department of Energy

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22

Biography .......................................................................................................... 34

Ms. Judith M. Greenwald, Director of Innovative Solutions, Pew Center on

Global Climate Change

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 34

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 36

Biography .......................................................................................................... 39

Financial Disclosure ......................................................................................... 40

Mr. Chris Mottershead, Distinguished Advisor on Energy and the Environment, BP

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 41

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41

Biography .......................................................................................................... 43

Dr. Martin I. Hoffert, Emeritus Professor of Physics, New York University

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 43

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 46

Biography .......................................................................................................... 59

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 59

Appendix 1: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Mr. Stephen Eule, Director of U.S. Climate Change Technology Program,

Department of Energy ......................................................................................... 80

Ms. Judith M. Greenwald, Director of Innovative Solutions, Pew Center on

Global Climate Change ........................................................................................ 87

Dr. Martin I. Hoffert, Emeritus Professor of Physics, New York University ..... 89

Page

IV

Appendix 2: Additional Material for the Record

Statement of United Technologies Corporation .................................................... 98

Statement of Dr. Daniel Kammen, Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley ......................................... 103

The Rise of Renewable Energy by Daniel M. Kammen ......................................... 123

(1)

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S PLAN FOR

CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY,

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Judy Biggert

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

2

3

1 Climate change technologies reduce or avoid emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon

dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated compounds. 2 U.S. Climate Change Technology Program, U.S. Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan—Draft for Public Comment, (September 2005). See: http://www.climatetechnology.gov/

stratplan/draft/CCTP-SratPlan-Sept-2005.pdf

HEARING CHARTER

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Department of Energy’s Plan for

Climate Change Technology Programs

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

2:00 P.M.–4:00 P.M. 2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

1. Purpose

On September 20, 2006 at 2:00 p.m., the Energy Subcommittee of the House

Science Committee will hold a hearing to examine the Administration’s Climate

Change Technology1 Program’s (CCTP) Strategic Plan.2 The hearing is designed to

review the plan and the CCTP in the light of the Administration’s own stated goals

for the program and for action on climate change. The final strategic plan (a revision of the draft plan released last September) will be released at the hearing.

2. Witnesses

Mr. Stephen Eule is the Director of the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program

at the Department of Energy.

Ms. Judi Greenwald is the Director of Innovative Solutions for the Pew Center

on Global Climate Change.

Dr. Martin Hoffert is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at New York University.

Mr. Chris Mottershead is a Distinguished Advisor on Energy and the Environment at BP. He is also a Director of the Carbon Trust in the United Kingdom and

the Center for Clean Air Policy in the United States.

3. Overarching Questions

The hearing will address the following overarching questions:

• Does the CCTP draft strategic plan provide a clear blueprint for future federal investments in climate change technologies? What program priorities are

specified in the CCTP plan?

• To what extent will the CCTP plan enable the United States to achieve the

Administration’s stated goal of cutting greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent

over the 2002 to 2012 timeframe? Does the plan set or assume a stabilization

level for concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide?

• How could the CCTP plan be improved? What next steps are needed to implement a clear climate change technology strategy?

4. Brief Overview

• On June 11, 2001, President Bush announced the establishment of CCTP, a

multi-agency research and development (R&D) coordination activity led by

the Department of Energy (DOE), to focus R&D activities more effectively on

the President’s near- and long-term climate change goals. At the same time,

the President established an interagency Climate Change Science Program

(CCSP), led by the Department of Commerce, to coordinate scientific research.

According to the Strategic Plan, the Federal Government will spend about

$2.8 billion on CCTP in Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 in nine agencies. The FY07

request is close to $3 billion. (See Appendix II.)

4

3See: http://www.climatetechnology.gov/stratplan/comments/index.htm

4See: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/eere/PDFs/CCTP¥Wkshp¥Rpt¥6-28Final.pdf

• On November 21, 2002, the Secretary of Energy established a CCTP office to

provide staff and technical support for CCTP coordination and planning activities.

• In 2002, Under Secretary of Energy Robert Card indicated that DOE was developing a draft strategic plan for CCTP that would be released to the public

by July, 2002. The plan would define the role for advanced technology in addressing climate change, establish a framework to guide R&D investment decisions for federal agencies involved in climate technology development, and

identify steps toward implementation of the Administration’s climate change

program goals. (CSSP began a similar process and released a draft plan in

November, 2002.)

• The CCTP draft plan was not released for public comment until September,

2005. Approximately 30 individuals and organizations (individual scientists,

companies, consultants and interest groups) commented on the draft strategic

plan, and their comments are posted on the CCTP website.3 (A list of those

commenting is Appendix III.) DOE reviewed the comments as part of its process of completing a final strategic plan. The final plan, which was delivered

to the Committee on the afternoon of Sept. 19, will be released at the hearing.

At first glance, the final plan does not seem to eliminate the concerns expressed by the commenters, but rather ‘‘fine tunes’’ the draft text.

• In general, commenters were critical of the approximately 200-page draft

strategic plan, suggesting that it was a description of currently ongoing activities that provided relatively little guidance on how to direct federal climate

technology R&D activities more effectively toward achieving the Administration’s stated climate change program goals. Some commenters did say that

the plan provided a useful inventory of existing efforts.

• In addition to the public comments, DOE organized a series of workshops at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory to review the CCTP R&D portfolio. The workshops produced a May, 2006 report, ‘‘Results of a Technical Review of the

U.S. Climate Change Technology Program’s R&D Portfolio.’’ 4 The Technical

Review report included timelines for technology development, identifies R&D

priorities and gaps, and analyzed a subset of the R&D portfolio in terms of

the potential payoff compared to the probability of technical success—elements that were not included in the draft strategic plan.

5. Issues

Does the CCTP draft strategic plan provide a clear blueprint for future federal investments in climate change technologies?

Commenters on the plan generally believed that it did not provide a clear blueprint or a basis for making or evaluating funding or policy decisions. (Chairmen

Boehlert and Biggert reached a similar conclusion. See their letter, Appendix I.)

For each technology research area (e.g., nuclear energy), the plan discusses the

potential role of technology, technology strategy, the current R&D portfolio and possible future research directions. The report also cites existing technology roadmaps

and technical goals for some specific R&D programs.

DOE officials have generally argued that they see the plan as having a narrower

purpose than do the commenters. In the Foreword to the final version of the report,

the goal of the strategic plan is described as providing ‘‘a long-term planning context, taking into account the many uncertainties, in which the nature of both the

challenges and the opportunities for advanced technologies are illuminated and balanced.’’ However, the Foreword goes on to say that, along with other documents, the

plan ‘‘provides a basis for setting priorities through its technology strategy and investment criteria and it highlights those opportunities that are ripe for advancement.’’

But, commenters said, the strategy discussion is quite general. The commenters

noted that the draft plan does not provide any criteria for evaluating individual

technologies. (Possible criteria include technical risk, potential cost, ease of transition to commercialization, likelihood of acceptance by the marketplace, the balance

of risk across alternate technical pathways, and the timing of market entry necessary to stabilize emissions profiles.)

The commenters also complained that the draft plan does not provide criteria for

allocating funding among CCTP programs and projects. (Possible criteria include the

probability of technical success, the cost of adopting that technology, and the potenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
5

5Office of the Press Secretary, President Announces Clear Skies & Global Climate Change Initiatives (February 14, 2002). See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/

20020214-5.html.

tial for market penetration.) In general, they said, the plan neither sets priorities

nor adequately explains how priorities would be set. And while the plan cites existing timelines for some technology programs, it does not integrate them into an overall CCTP timeline.

Commenters also observed that the draft plan is silent on how federal R&D investments will be coordinated with private research efforts. One commenter observed that the draft plan does not discuss the R&D effort in the context of the

broad array of statutes that are relevant to the implementation of this plan. Each

of these critiques calls into question whether the draft plan fulfills the Administration’s intention of having the plan serve as a framework for agencies in formulating

their climate change technology R&D portfolio.

How does the CCTP strategic plan relate to the Administration’s greenhouse gas

emissions goals?

On February 14, 2002, President Bush said, ‘‘My Administration is committed to

cutting our nation’s greenhouse gas intensity—how much we emit per unit of economic activity—by 18 percent over the next 10 years. This will set America on a

path to slow the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions and, as science justifies,

to stop and then reverse the growth of emissions.’’ 5 The Administration has not set

a goal for limiting total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions or for a total greenhouse gas

concentrations in the atmosphere. Critics note that it is the absolute concentration

of gases in the atmosphere that may affect climate, and a reduction in greenhouse

gas intensity will not necessarily result in a drop in total emissions. Moreover, they

note that the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of DOE, has

estimated that greenhouse gas intensity would drop by 17 percent by 2012 without

any government intervention.

All that aside, the draft strategic plan does not relate any of its goals explicitly

to the overall Administration goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity. Moreover,

some critics argue that it is hard to judge among R&D investments without knowing

what level of greenhouse gas concentration one is trying to achieve over what time

period.

What other gaps have been noted in the draft strategic plan?

Commenters noted that the plan is virtually silent on the question of how to bring

new technologies to the marketplace. They view this as a critical question because

technology that is being purchased today will likely be in use for decades. In general, the plan is silent on policy questions.

The plan also explicitly states that it does not deal with technologies for adapting

to climate change (as opposed to technologies to try to limit climate change by reducing or sequestering emissions).

Commenters have also argued that the plan doesn’t adequately distinguish between technology development programs that would produce results in different

time frames (short-, medium- and long-term). The commenters and technical reviewers came to diametrically opposed conclusions regarding which direction the draft

plan was skewed. Many respondents during the public comment period expressed

the view that the plan was too focused on long-term initiatives at the expense of

short- to mid-term opportunities that could have a more immediate impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, experts who participated in the Technical

Review, who had greater access to the plan’s supporting documentation, budget profiles and technology roadmaps, concluded that CCTP’s R&D portfolio was much

stronger in the near-term technology development than it was in providing direction

for the mid- to long-term.

The technical reviewers, in their May 2006 report, recommended greater emphasis on exploratory research addressing novel concepts to uncover breakthrough technology, enabling R&D, and integrative concepts. For example, R&D on enabling

technology, such as nanotechnology, would focus resources on improving the performance of materials and subsystems that find application in a wide variety of energy production and use settings. Integrative R&D would focus resources on combining systems to provide unique advantages. These could include engineered urban

planning for low greenhouse gas emissions, integrated waste management, and integration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with zero-emissions buildings.

6

6The White House, Fact Sheet: President Bush Is Addressing Climate Change (June 30, 2005).

See: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050630-16.html

How does CCTP relate to the Administration’s existing climate change technology

programs?

Since 2001, the Administration has undertaken a number of actions that can

begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many of the Administration’s signature

R&D initiatives have tended to be longer-term projects—the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, FutureGen (clean coal power plant), and ITER (large-scale nuclear fusion experiment). Near-term actions include the 2006 fuel economy increases for light

trucks and voluntary action such as the Methane-to-Markets program and the Climate VISION Partnership, a voluntary registry for reporting greenhouse gas reductions, and targeted incentives for greenhouse gas sequestration. A June 30, 2005

White House fact sheet that outlined the President’s climate change initiatives, as

shown in the table below, includes a broad range of activities. (Italicized entries denote international partnerships).6

The public comments and the comments from the technical reviewers suggest that

the draft strategic plan could better explain how the various activities—both R&D

and other policy initiatives—are linked together to achieve stated national goals.

How is the CCTP portfolio being managed, both within DOE and across agencies?

CCTP is a multi-agency planning and coordination activity with a CCTP Steering

Group and six working groups. However, most of the activities in CCTP take place

within DOE, which has historically struggled to coordinate efforts within the Department and to overcome ‘‘stovepiping,’’ where different parts of an organization

pursue different goals, fail to communicate well, or see other parts of the organization merely as competitors. It is not clear that DOE has solved this problem internally. For example, nuclear power has a prominent role in the CCTP plan because

nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases. However, the Office of Nuclear

Energy and the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management have continued

to have trouble coordinating and making decisions about spent nuclear fuel, an

issue important to both the current fleet of nuclear power plants and deployment

of the next generation of plants.

Beyond describing the basic functions of the various oversight and advisory committees, the draft strategic plan does not describe or address how CCTP will overcome stovepiping and other management challenges at DOE and across agencies, coordinate budgeting activities across agencies, or set priorities to avoid duplication.

One commenter observed that non-DOE activities classified as part of the CCTP for

funding purposes are not a part of the CCTP functions, nor are they included in

the draft plan itself.

7

7Federal Climate Change Expenditures Report to Congress (April 2006). See http://

www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/fy07¥climate¥change.pdf 8 Emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are usually converted to a common and roughly comparable measure of the ‘‘equivalent CO2 emissions.’’ This conversion weights actual emissions

by each gas’ global warming potential (GWP). GWP is the ability of a gas, compared to that

of CO2, to trap heat in the atmosphere over a given timeframe. GWP values allow for a comparison of the impacts of emissions and reductions of different gases, although they typically have

uncertainties of ±35 percent. All non-CO2 gases are compared to CO2, which has a GWP of one.

Other greenhouse gases have GWPs, using a 100-year time horizon, ranging from 23 for methane to 22,200 for sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). (CCTP Draft Strategic Plan, p. 7–2). 9 CTP Draft Strategic Plan, p. 3–28.

How does the plan deal with funding?

The CCTP plan is silent on funding beyond listing funds requested for existing

programs for FY07. It does not give any sense of whether more funding would be

required to pursue the ‘‘future research directions’’ described in the plan.

Has the process for developing the strategic plan been sufficiently open?

DOE officials argue that they have heard from experts outside the government in

developing the plan, citing the posting of the draft plan on the web, the posting and

review of comments, and the workshop with technical experts.

However, critics point out that this seems to be a less open and broad-based process than the CCSP has followed. The draft plan for CCSP was more broadly announced and the workshop on it was more open, and was attended by more than

1,300 participants. More than 900 pages of comments were received. In addition, the

CCSP contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to review the draft plan.

6. Summary of Draft Strategic Plan for Climate Change Technology

The strategic plan describes activities carried out in nine departments and agencies: the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Interior and

Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and

Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. The Department of

Health and Human Services, the Department of State and the Agency for International Development also participate in planning and coordination as members of

the CCTP effort; however, their activities are not included in efforts funded under

CCTP. DOE accounts for 87 percent of the $2.8 billion funding under the CCTP umbrella in fiscal year 2006.7

The Administration’s draft plan states that:

• the necessary cumulative emissions reductions [worldwide] over the course of

the century could be on the order of 200 gigatons of carbon equivalents8 to

800 gigatons of carbon equivalents (or more);

• emissions reductions of that scale potentially could be achieved through combinations of many different technologies, so a diversified approach to technology R&D is important;

• technologies with zero or near-net-zero greenhouse gas emissions would need

to be available and moving into the marketplace many years before the emissions ‘‘peaks’’ occur in [any of] the hypothetical greenhouse gas-constrained

cases; and

• some new technologies may need to be commercially ready for widespread implementation between 2020 and 2040, with initial demonstrations between

2010 and 2030.9

It is against these concrete insights that the six goals of the strategic plan may

be assessed. These goals, articulating what the Administration aims to accomplish

with the strategy, are to:

1. reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy end-use and infrastructure;

2. reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy supply;

3. capture and sequester CO2;

4. reduce emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases;

5. improve capabilities to measure and monitor greenhouse gas emissions; and

6. bolster basic science contributions to technology development.

The Administration proposes to implement the strategic plan using a combination

of the following seven ‘‘core approaches’’:

1. strengthen climate change technology R&D;

2. strengthen basic research at universities and federal research facilities;

8

3. enhance opportunities for partnerships;

4. increase international cooperation;

5. support cutting-edge technology demonstrations;

6. ensure a viable technology workforce of the future through education and

training; and

7. explore and provide, as appropriate, supporting technology policy.

7. Witness Questions

Mr. Stephen Eule

1. How is the Administration using the Climate Change Technology Program

(CCTP) draft strategic plan in preparing future budgets? Specifically, how

will the plan enable the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Administration to choose among competing priorities and set funding requests?

2. Will the CCTP plan enable the Administration to meet its goal of cutting

greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012? If DOE were able to achieve

the programmatic goals for all of the technologies listed in the plan, how

would the U.S. emissions profile change in 15 years? In 25 years?

3. How can the Administration have a comprehensive and effective CCTP plan

without setting as a goal a specific stabilization level for atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases?

4. How do you respond to critics who argue that the plan is simply a description of current activities at DOE rather than a roadmap to help the Administration set priorities and make choices among competing technologies?

Ms. Judi Greenwald, Dr. Martin Hoffert, and Mr. Chris Mottershead

1. What do you see as the key strengths and weaknesses of the plan?

2. Will the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) enable the Administration to meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by

2012? Does CCTP put the United States on a path to stabilizing greenhouse

gas emissions?

3. Does the CCTP draft strategic plan provide an integrated framework of

sound guidance, clear goals and next steps for agencies and researchers to

use when prioritizing and selecting future research efforts? If so, please explain. If not, how should the Administration set research and development

investment priorities among various climate change technologies and CCTP

agencies?

9

Appendix I

10

11

12

13

14

Chairwoman BIGGERT. The hearing of the Energy Subcommittee

of the Science Committee will come to order. I will recognize myself

for an opening statement.

I would like to welcome everybody to the hearing examining the

Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan for a Climate Change Technology Program. Our essential question at this point is was it

worth the wait?

Let me start by reviewing a bit of history here. On June 11,

2001, President Bush announced two initiatives to address climate

change. Those initiatives are now known as the Climate Change

Technology Program, CCTP, and the Climate Change Science Program, CCSP. The Administration has said that these initiatives

form the core of its policy to fulfill the U.S. commitment to stabilize

greenhouse gas concentrations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Administration’s admirable work on the science program can

serve as a model for how best to shape a research program so it

delivers results. Beginning in July 2002, the Department of Commerce undertook the process of preparing a new ten year strategic

plan for the CCSP. Science program managers engaged national

and international stakeholders in a comprehensive review of research and observational systems needs. CCSP submitted its November 2002 draft plan to the National Academy of Sciences for review and to the public for comment. A December 2002 workshop

attended by 1,300 scientists and other participants from 47 states

and 36 nations facilitated extensive discussion and debate.

By July 2003, the CCSP strategic plan was complete. This open

and orderly progress—process established a research agenda that

has been universally supported, and will fill the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s climate.

Today, the Commerce Department is executing its CCSP strategic plan. The first of 21 synthesis and assessment reports were

released in May of this year, and just this week, the Secretary of

Commerce announced a new federal advisory committee to provide

advice as the remaining reports are developed.

Why did I go into such great detail for the CCSP when the topic

of our hearing today is CCTP? Because the thoughtful deliberation

and open process the Administration employed to develop the

CCSP gave Congress and others the confidence that the $1.7 billion

program is on the right track. Can I say the same thing about the

$2.9 billion dollar program, the technological program? Unfortunately, no. Compared to CCSP, the technology program appears

stalled near the starting line.

It is now September 2006, four years and two months after the

deadline, former Department of Energy Under Secretary Robert

Card set for release of the draft technology plan, and the revised

plan is being released today. That is unacceptable, that this hearing should be examining progress in year three of that plan. Don’t

get me wrong. I strongly support the Administration’s stated policy

of addressing climate change through technology development.

Technology investments are like an insurance policy against climate change. Supporting a diverse portfolio of climate change technologies such as energy efficiency, carbon sequestration, and carbon

15

neutral energy technologies, including nuclear energy, will provide

us with the most insurance coverage for the best price.

We have a lot riding on this R&D portfolio. Not only are we relying on it to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, we need it

to secure America’s energy independence. As Chair of the Subcommittee with oversight responsible for nearly 90 percent of the

programs included in CCTP, I know that research and technology

are, by and large, noncontroversial ways we can start addressing

climate change now. That is why I am determined to see progress

on this front.

Since the July 2002 deadline for the release of the initial plan,

the Administration has announced a whole series of energy technology research initiatives: the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Fusion Experiment, ITER, and

the Advanced Energy Initiatives. These are all great energy initiatives that I enthusiastically support.

At the same time, in the absence of a rigorous, well vetted, comprehensive plan, Congress is left to figure out how and to what degree each of these technologies, individually and collectively, will

contribute to achieving our climate change goals. This information

is critical if Congress is to make informed decisions about how best

to allocate technology development resources to address the problems of climate change.

We want DOE to succeed. I think it would be terribly unfair to

our children and grandchildren to leave the Earth in worse condition than in the way we received it. That is why the government,

the research community, and industry must work together to develop technology solutions that make environmental and economic

sense; but for such a collaborative effort to succeed, we need a solid

game plan. I think my colleagues share that sentiment.

We want FutureGen, GNEP, sequestration, and all the other climate change technologies to work and to work well. We have high

expectations. We believe those expectations can be met with a clear

strategic plan. With that, let us get down the business of today’s

hearing. Fundamentally, we want to know whether the strategic

plan can be used to guide R&D investment decisions, and whether

it will enable the United States to achieve the Administration’s

goals.

Most importantly, I cannot stress this enough, we want to know

how the CCTP plan and DOE’s planning process can be improved,

and I look forward to the discussion.

I want to thank the witnesses for sharing their experiences with

us today, particularly Professor Hoffert, who graciously agreed to

our invitation to serve on this panel at a very late hour. We will

make Professor Hoffert’s written testimony available within a few

days.

Professor Dan Kammen of the University of California at Berkeley, originally scheduled as a witness, is not able to attend today

due to a last minute scheduling conflict. I greatly appreciate his

willingness to serve as a witness each time we tried to schedule

this hearing in the past, and we will have his prepared testimony

entered into the hearing record. Without objection.

And with that, I will yield to my colleague, the Ranking Member

of the Subcommittee, Mr. Honda from California.

16

[The prepared statement of Chairman Biggert follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JUDY BIGGERT

The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome you to this Energy Subcommittee hearing examining the Department of Energy’s strategic plan for the Climate Change Technology Program. Our essential question, at this point, is was it

worth the wait?

Let me start by reviewing a bit of the history here. On June 11, 2001, President

Bush announced two initiatives to address climate change. Those initiatives are now

known as the Climate Change Technology Program—CCTP—and the Climate

Change Science Program—CCSP. The Administration has said that these initiatives

form the core of its policy to fulfill the U.S. commitment to stabilize greenhouse gas

concentrations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change.

The Administration’s admirable work on the Science Program can serve as a

model for how best to shape a research program so it delivers results. Beginning

in July 2002, the Department of Commerce undertook the process of preparing a

new 10-year strategic plan for the CCSP. Science Program managers engaged national and international stakeholders in a comprehensive review of research and observational systems needs. CCSP submitted its November 2002 draft strategic plan

to the National Academy of Sciences for review and to the public for comment. A

December 2002 workshop, attended by 1,300 scientists and other participants from

47 states and 36 nations, facilitated extensive discussion and debate.

By July 2003, the CCSP strategic plan was complete. This open and orderly process established a research agenda that has been universally supported and will fill

the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the earth’s climate.

Today, the Commerce Department is executing its CCSP strategic plan. The first

of 21 synthesis and assessment reports was released in May of this year. And just

this week, the Secretary of Commerce announced a new Federal Advisory Committee to provide advice as the remaining reports are developed.

Why did I go into this degree of detail for the CCSP when the topic of our hearing

today is the CCTP? Because the thoughtful, deliberate, open process the Administration employed to develop the CCSP gave Congress and others the confidence that

the $1.7 billion program is on the right track.

Can I say the same thing about the $2.9 billion Technology Program? Unfortunately, no. Compared to CCSP, the Technology Program appears stalled near the

starting line. It is now September 2006—four years and two months after the deadline former DOE Under Secretary Robert Card set for release of the draft technology

plan—and the revised plan is being released today. That is unacceptable. This hearing should be examining progress in year three of that plan.

Don’t get me wrong; I strongly support the Administration’s stated policy of addressing climate change through technology development. Technology investments

are like an insurance policy against climate change. Supporting a diverse portfolio

of climate change technologies such as energy efficiency, carbon sequestration, and

carbon-neutral energy technologies—including nuclear energy—will provide us with

the most insurance coverage for the best price. We have a lot riding on this R&D

portfolio. Not only are we relying on it to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases,

we need it to secure America’s energy independence.

As Chair of the Subcommittee with oversight responsibility for nearly 90 percent

of the programs included in CCTP, I know that research and technology are, by and

large, non-controversial ways we can start addressing climate change now. That’s

why I am determined to see progress on this front.

Since the July 2002 deadline for the release of the initial plan, the Administration

has announced a whole series of energy technology research initiatives: the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the fusion experiment

ITER, and the Advanced Energy Initiative. These are all great energy initiatives

that I enthusiastically support. At the same time, in the absence of a rigorous, wellvetted, comprehensible plan, Congress is left to figure out how and to what degree

each of these technologies—individually and collectively—will contribute to achieving our climate change goals. This information is critical if Congress is to make informed decisions about how best to allocate technology development resources to address the problem of climate change.

We want DOE to succeed—we need DOE to succeed. I think it would be terribly

unfair to our children and grandchildren to leave the Earth in worse condition than

the way in which we received it. That is why the government, the research community, and industry must work together to develop technology solutions that make

17

environmental and economic sense. But for such a collaborative effort to succeed,

we need a solid game plan.

I think my colleagues share that sentiment. We want FutureGen, GNEP, sequestration, and all the other climate change technologies to work and to work well. We

have high expectations. We believe those expectations can be met with a clear strategic plan.

With that, let’s get down to the business of today’s hearing. Fundamentally, we

want to know whether the strategic plan can be used to guide R&D investment decisions and whether it will enable the United States to achieve the Administration’s

stated goals. Most importantly and I cannot stress this enough, we want to know

how the CCTP plan and DOE’s planning process can be improved. I look forward

to the discussion.

I want to thank the witnesses for sharing their expertise with us today, particularly Professor Hoffert, who graciously agreed to our invitation to serve on this

panel at a very late hour. We will make Professor Hoffert’s written testimony available within a few days. Professor Dan Kammen of the University of California at

Berkeley, originally scheduled as a witness, is not able to attend today due to a last

minute scheduling conflict. I greatly appreciate his willingness to serve as a witness

each time we tried to schedule this hearing in the past. We have made his prepared

testimony available and it will be entered into the hearing record.

Mr. HONDA. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I want to

thank you for holding this important hearing today. And thank you

to the witnesses for taking time to prepare your testimony and to

be here personally.

I believe that climate change is one of the most important issues

we face as a nation and as a member of the global community.

James Hansen, a NASA scientist who is one of the country’s leading climate researchers, has said he thinks ‘‘we have a very brief

window of opportunity to deal with climate change, no longer than

a decade, at the most.’’

Most of my colleagues on this committee, from both sides of the

aisle, agree that something must be done, for which I am thankful.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the full membership of

the House, the Senate, or the current Administration.

In 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency released a

report that concluded global warming ‘‘is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years, due mostly to human activities,’’ President Bush quickly dismissed the EPA’s work as a ‘‘report put out by the bureaucracy.’’

Instead, his Administration has used an argument of ‘‘uncertainty’’ to justify more research and no action. On a positive note,

the National Academy of Sciences has declared that the Climate

Change Science Program’s strategic plan ‘‘articulates a guiding vision, is appropriately ambitious, and is broad in scope.’’ However,

the review was critical of the program for its failure to state projected budget requirements and lack of milestones and evaluation

mechanisms.

Both of these failings seem linked to a broader strategy designed

to avoid taking any action on this very real problem. For example,

in August, the House Majority Whip stated that he thought the information on climate change is ‘‘not adequate yet for us to do anything meaningful.’’

This effort to foster ‘‘uncertainty’’ has impacted even the setting

of goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions. Because of ‘‘uncertainty,’’ the Administration has refused to set a goal for the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Instead, a goal for greenhouse intensity, how much we emit per unit

of economic activity, has been identified.

18

The problem with this measure is that if our economy grows,

emission will increase. But the Earth’s systems don’t care about

our economy. It is the absolute amount of emissions that matter,

and more emissions are a problem.

Sadly, even the emissions intensity reductions the Administration has set are week. According to the Energy Information Administration, the goal that has been set is as little as one percent improvement over business as usual.

The main question before us today is whether the Climate

Change Technology Program plan actually lays out a path for how

to achieve even the moderate targets the Administration has set.

From the many comments about the draft plan, the answer appears to be no. The plan may be an excellent compendium of current technologies, but it seems to be lacking in a number of areas.

To wit, there is no mention of cross-cutting enabling technologies

or integrated approaches to greenhouse gas emission reduction.

There are no timelines or technology roadmaps. It places a low priority on measurement and monitoring technologies. It makes no

mention of adaptation to climate change, and there is no mention

of policy framework for making all this happen.

Other problems have been identified with the draft plan, but I

won’t take the time to list any more. They are in the Committee

hearing charter, and I expect that the witnesses will tell us more

about them in greater detail.

If we are going to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gas

emissions in order to address global climate change, it is critical

that we develop the technologies that will allow us to do so.

The Climate Change Technology Program plan is supposed to accelerate the development of those technologies, and so it should be

an important part of our response to climate change.

But I am worried that the draft plan that has been developed

does not provide the roadmap that is necessary to help the Administration set priorities and make choices among competing technologies. I hope the final plan will do so.

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today on how we

can do just that.

And I again want to thank Madam Chairwoman for this hearing,

and I yield back the balance of my time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Honda follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL M. HONDA

Madam Chairwoman, thank you for holding this important hearing today, and

thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to prepare your testimony and to

be here.

I believe that Climate Change is one of the most important issues we face as a

nation and as a member of the global community. James Hansen, a NASA scientist

who is one of the country’s leading climate researchers, has said he thinks ‘‘we have

a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change. . .no longer than

a decade, at the most.’’

Most of my colleagues on this committee, from both sides of the aisle, agree that

something must be done, for which I am thankful. Unfortunately, the same cannot

be said for the full membership of the House, the Senate, or the current Administration.

In 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency released a report that concluded global warming ‘‘is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20

years. . .due mostly to human activities,’’ President Bush quickly dismissed the

EPA’s work as a ‘‘report put out by the bureaucracy.’’

19

Instead, his Administration has used an argument of ‘uncertainty’ to justify more

research and no action. On a positive note, the National Academy of Sciences has

declared that the Climate Change Science Program’s strategic plan ‘‘articulates a

guiding vision, is appropriately ambitious, and is broad in scope.’’ However, the review was critical of the program for its failure to state projected budget requirements and lack of milestones and evaluation mechanisms.

Both of these failings seem linked to a broader strategy designed to avoid taking

any action on this very real problem. For example, in August, the House Majority

Whip stated that he thought the information on climate change is ‘‘not adequate yet

for us to do anything meaningful.’’

This effort to foster ‘uncertainty’ has impacted even the setting of goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions. Because of ‘uncertainty,’ the Administration has refused to set a goal for the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere; instead, a goal for ‘‘greenhouse gas intensity,’’ how much we emit per

unit of economic activity, has been identified.

The problem with this measure is that if our economy grows, emissions will increase. But the Earth’s systems don’t care about our economy—it is the absolute

amount of emissions that matters, and more emissions are a problem.

Sadly, even the emissions intensity reductions the Administration has set are

weak. According to the Energy Information Administration, the goal that has been

set is as little as a one percent improvement over ‘‘business as usual.’’

The main question before us today is whether the Climate Change Technology

Program plan actually lays out a path for how to achieve even the moderate targets

the Administration has set.

From the many comments about the draft plan, the answer appears to be no. The

plan may be an excellent compendium of current technologies, but it seems to be

lacking in a number of areas:

• there is no mention of cross-cutting enabling technologies or integrated approaches to greenhouse gas emissions reduction;

• there are no timelines or technology roadmaps;

• it places a low priority on measurement and monitoring technologies;

• it makes no mention of adaptation to climate change;

• and there is no mention of a policy framework for making this all happen.

Other problems have been identified with the draft plan but I won’t take the time

to list any more, they are in the Committee hearing charter and I expect that the

witnesses will tell us about them in greater detail.

If we are going to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order

to address global climate change, it is critical that we develop the technologies that

will allow us to do so.

The Climate Change Technology Program plan is supposed to accelerate the development of those technologies, and so it should be an important part of our response to climate change.

But I am worried that the draft plan that has been developed does not provide

the roadmap that is necessary to help the Administration set priorities and make

choices among competing technologies. I hope the final plan will do so.

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today on how we can do just that.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman; I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Honda.

With that, any additional opening statements submitted by the

Members may be added to the record. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JERRY F. COSTELLO

Good afternoon. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before our committee

to discuss the Administration’s Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) report

being released today.

In 2002, President Bush set a national goal to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012. To this end, the Administration is

now implementing numerous programs to implement near-term policies and measures to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, advance climate change

science, accelerate technology development and commercialization, and promote

international collaboration.

Climate change plays a role in my district because of the combustion of fossil

fuels. The coal industry is of great importance to my district in Southern Illinois

20

which is rich in high-sulfur coal. The shifting of production to low-sulfur coal has

cost many of my constituents high-paying jobs. The United States and my home

state of Illinois have vast reserves of coal, and about half of its electricity is generated from this fuel. Further, coal is projected to continue to supply one-half of U.S.

electricity demands through the year 2025. In order to continue to use coal, even

under scenarios calling for substantial carbon dioxide emission limitations, I support

research and development (R&D) of clean coal technology and I believe clean coal

R&D projects must be part of a balanced energy plan for this country. We must

burn coal more efficiently and cleanly and I authored provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109–58) to accomplish this goal.

In my congressional district, Southern Illinois University Carbondale operates its

Coal Research Center, one of the field’s most comprehensive programs in the United

States, with a combination of facilities and achievements that make it a unique contributor to our nation’s energy infrastructure. The Coal Research Center conducts

a wide range of studies with direct practical applicability to the commercial development of coal, including carbon sequestration technology. Illinois is a national leader

in developing clean and efficient coal technologies, such as carbon sequestration,

and I am hopeful we will have the ability to host the President’s FutureGen Project

to demonstrate how coal can be used cleanly, efficiently, and represents a viable fuel

source alternative to natural gas and oil.

As Congress continues to debate climate change, I believe we should continue to

further our research and development programs to advance clean coal technology to

improve our air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I welcome our panel of witnesses and look forward to their testimony.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. At this time, I would like to introduce all

of our witnesses, and thank you for being here this afternoon. We

have, first of all, Mr. Stephen Eule is the Director of the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program at the Department of Energy.

Next is Ms. Judi Greenwald, the Director of Innovative Solutions

for the Pew Center on Climate Change. Thank you for coming. Mr.

Chris Mottershead is a Distinguished Advisor on Energy and the

Environment at BP. He is also a Director of the Carbon Trust to

the United Kingdom, and the Center for Clean Air Policy in the

United States. Thank you. Dr. Martin Hoffert is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the New York University. Thank you for being

here.

As the witnesses know, spoken testimony will be limited to five

minutes each, after which the members will have five minutes each

to ask questions.

And we will begin with Mr. Eule. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MR. STEPHEN D. EULE, DIRECTOR OF THE U.S.

CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT

OF ENERGY

Mr. EULE. Madam Chairwoman and Ranking Member Honda,

and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity

to appear before you today. I am particularly pleased to be able to

use the occasion of this hearing to announce the release of the Climate Change Technology Program’s strategic plan.

The Administration believes the most effective way to meet the

challenge of climate change is through an agenda that promotes

economic growth, provides energy security, reduces pollution, and

mitigates greenhouse gases. To meet these goals, the Administration has established a comprehensive approach, major elements of

which include policies and measures to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, advancing climate change science, accelerating technology development, and promoting international collaboration.

21

Since fiscal year 2001, the Federal Government has devoted nearly $29 billion to climate change programs.

In 2002, President Bush set a goal to reduce the Nation’s greenhouse gas intensity, that is, emissions per unit of economic output,

by 18 percent by 2012. To this end, the Administration has implemented about 60 federal programs. Recent data suggests that we

are well on our way toward meeting the President’s goal.

While acting to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in

the near-term, the United States is laying a strong scientific and

technological foundation. In 2002, two multi-agency programs were

established to coordinate federal climate change science and technology R&D activities: the Climate Change Science Program, or

CCSP, and CCTP. CCSP is an interagency planning and coordinating entity charged with: investigating natural and human-induced changes in the Earth’s global environmental system; monitoring, understanding, and predicting global change; and providing

a sound scientific basis for decision-making.

CCTP, which was authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005,

was formed to coordinate and prioritize the Federal Government’s

investment in climate-related technology, which was nearly $3 billion in fiscal year 2006, and to further the President’s National Climate Change Technology Initiative, or NCCTI. Ten R&D agencies

participate in CCTP.

CCTP’s principal aim is to accelerate the development and lower

the cost of advanced technologies that reduce, avoid, or sequester

greenhouse gases. It strives for a diversified Federal R&D portfolio

that will help to reduce technology risk and improve the prospects

that such technologies can be adopted in the marketplace. In August 2005, CCTP issued its Vision and Framework for Strategy and

Planning, which provided broad guidance for the program, and

shortly thereafter released its draft strategic plan for public review.

More than 250 comments were received.

This revised strategic plan articulates a vision for the role of advanced technology in addressing climate change, establishes strategic direction and guiding principles, outlines approaches to

achieve CTCP’s strategic goals, and identifies a series of next steps.

The six CTCP goals are: reducing emissions from energy use and

infrastructure; reducing emissions from energy supply; capturing

and sequestering carbon dioxide; reducing emissions from non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases; measuring and monitoring emissions; and bolstering the contributions of basic science.

The strategic plan defines clear and promising roles for advanced

technologies for the near-, mid-, and long-term, outlines a process

and establishes criteria for setting priorities, such as those in

NCCTI, and provides details of the current climate change technology portfolio with links to individual technology roadmaps.

CCTP’s portfolio includes realigned activities as well as new initiatives, such as the President’s Advanced Energy and Hydrogen

Fuel Initiatives, carbon sequestration, and FutureGen. CCTP agencies also periodically conduct portfolio reviews to assess the ability

of these programs to meet CCTP goals, and to identify gaps and opportunities. In addition, CCTP uses scenario analyses to assess the

potential climate change benefits of different technology mixes over

the century, on the global scale, and across a range of uncertainVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
22

ties. When comparing the costs of achieving different greenhouse

gas constraints, the cost savings for the advanced technologies

cases were 60 percent or more.

The Administration believes that well designed multilateral collaborations can leverage resources and quicken technology development. The International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy,

Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, Generation IV International Forum, Methane to Markets—all U.S. initiatives—and the

ITER fusion project, provide vehicles for international collaboration

to advance these technologies.

The New Global Nuclear Energy Partnership seeks to develop a

worldwide consensus on approaches to expand safe use of zero

emission nuclear power. And of course, through the Asian Pacific

Partnership, the U.S. is working with Australia, China, India, and

South Korea, and Japan, to accelerate the uptake of clean technologies in this rapidly growing region of the world.

The United States has embarked on an ambitious undertake to

develop advanced climate change technologies. CCTP’s strategic

plan, the first of its kind, sets out an overall strategy to guide these

efforts, and provides a long-term planning context in which the nature of both the challenges and the opportunities for advanced

technologies are considered and realized.

Thank you for your kind attention, and I will, of course, be delighted to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eule follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEPHEN D. EULE

INTRODUCTION

Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and report on the Climate Change Technology

Program (CCTP). I am particularly pleased to be able to use the occasion of this

hearing to announce the release of CCTP’s completed Strategic Plan. It represents

the culmination of strong interagency effort, shaped by expert technical input and

public comment.

I would like to begin my testimony by providing a brief overview of the Administration’s approach to climate change, which provides the context in which CCTP operates. I will also discuss the role of CCTP, explain the purpose of the Strategic

Plan, and discuss how the Plan will help the Administration and Congress make

decisions about investments in advanced technologies that can have a significant

impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC), the United States shares with many countries its ultimate objective:

stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that

would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. In

February 2002, President Bush reaffirmed the Administration’s commitment to this

long-term goal of the Framework Convention.

There is a growing recognition that climate change cannot be dealt with effectively in isolation. Rather, it needs to be addressed as part of an integrated agenda

that promotes economic growth, provides energy security, reduces pollution, and

also mitigates greenhouse gas emissions. In July 2005, the G8 leaders, meeting in

Gleneagles, Scotland, agreed to a plan of action that interlinked climate change objectives with these other important considerations.

Meeting these complementary objectives will require a sustained, long-term commitment by all nations over many generations. To this end, the President has established a robust and flexible climate change policy that harnesses the power of markets and technological innovation, maintains economic growth, and encourages global participation.

Major elements of this approach include: (1) implementing near-term policies and

measures to slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions; (2) advancing climate

change science; (3) accelerating technology development and commercialization; and

(4) promoting international collaboration.

23

1See: http://www.climatescience.gov.

From fiscal years 2001 to the end of 2006, the Federal Government will have de- voted nearly $29 billion to science, technology, international assistance, and incentive programs that support climate change objectives, more than any other nation.

The President’s fiscal year 2007 budget calls for $6.5 billion for climate-related activities.

NEAR-TERM POLICIES AND MEASURES

In 2002, President Bush set an ambitious but achievable national goal to reduce

the greenhouse gas intensity—that is, emissions per unit of economic output—of the

U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012. At the time, the Administration estimated that

achieving this commitment would avoid an additional 106 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions in 2012 compared to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2002 business as usual base case projection, and

would result in cumulative savings of more than 500 million metric tons of carbonequivalent emissions over the decade.

To this end, the Administration is now implementing numerous programs—including partnerships, consumer information campaigns, incentives, and mandatory

regulations—that are directed at developing and deploying cleaner, more efficient

energy technologies, conservation, biological sequestration, geological sequestration

and adaptation. For example, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Climate VISION

program and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Leaders and

SmartWay Transport Partnership programs work in voluntary partnership with

specific commitments by industry to verifiably reduce emissions. The Department of

Agriculture (USDA) is using its conservation programs to provide substantial incentives to increase carbon sequestration in soils and trees, and to reduce methane and

nitrous oxide emissions, two additional and potent greenhouse gases, from crop and

animal agricultural systems. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has implemented a new fuel economy standard for light trucks, including sport utility vehicles, that is projected to result in significant reductions in CO2 emissions over the

life of the affected vehicles. DOT has also submitted an Administration proposal to

Congress for authority to reform the setting and calculation of fuel economy standards for passenger automobiles.

In terms of financial incentives, new tax rules on expensing and dividends are

helping to promote substantial new capital investment, including purchases of

cleaner, more efficient equipment and facilities. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 pro- vides for approximately $1.6 billion in tax credits and incentives in fiscal year 2007

to accelerate the market penetration of clean, efficient technologies. For example,

the Act also provides tax credits of up to $3,400 for the most highly fuel efficient

vehicles such as hybrids and clean diesel. It also establishes 15 new appliance efficiency mandates and a 7.5 billion gallon renewable fuel requirement by 2012.

We expect these efforts will contribute to meeting the President’s 18 percent, 10-

year goal, which represents an average annual rate of improvement of about 1.96

percent. Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggest steady

progress. Since 2002, EIA reports annual improvements in greenhouse gas emissions intensity of 1.6 percent and 2.1 percent in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Further, a June 2006 EIA preliminary ‘‘flash estimate’’ estimate of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions—which account for about four fifths of total greenhouse gas

emissions—shows an improvement in carbon dioxide emissions intensity of 3.3 percent in 2005. Although we are only a few years into the effort, the Nation appears

on track to meet the President’s goal.

While acting to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the near-term,

the United States is laying a strong scientific and technological foundation to reduce

uncertainties, clarify risks and benefits, and develop realistic mitigation options

through better integration and management of its climate change related scientific

and technological activities. In February 2002, President Bush announced the creation of a cabinet-level Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration, co-chaired by the Secretaries of Commerce and Energy. Two multi-agency

programs were established to coordinate federal activities in climate change scientific research and advance the President’s vision under his National Climate

Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI). These are the U.S. Climate Change Science

Program (CCSP), led by the Department of Commerce, and CCTP, led by DOE.

CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE PROGRAM1

CCSP is an interagency research planning and coordinating entity charged with

investigating natural and human-induced changes in the Earth’s global environmental system, monitoring, understanding, and predicting global change, and proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
24

2See: http://www.climatetechnology.gov.

viding a sound scientific basis for national and international decision-making. CCSP

combines the near-term focus of the Administration’s Climate Change Research Initiative—including a focus on advancing the understanding of aerosols and carbon

sources and sinks and improvements in climate modeling—with the breadth of the

long-term research elements of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

In July 2003, CCSP released its Strategic Plan for guiding climate research. The

plan is organized around five goals: (1) improving our knowledge of climate history,

variability, and change; (2) improving our ability to quantify factors that affect climate; (3) reducing uncertainty in climate projections; (4) improving our understanding of the sensitivity and adaptability of ecosystems and human systems to climate change; and (5) exploring options to manage risks associated with climate variability and change. CCSP is now in the process of implementing its 10-year Plan.

The President’s fiscal year 2007 budget request includes $1.715 billion for the climate change science. The knowledge gained through CCSP will be invaluable in

helping CCTP plan for needed technology development.

CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM2

To address the challenges of energy security, economic development, and climate

change, there is need for a visionary, long-term perspective. The International Energy Agency estimates there are about two billion people who lack modern energy

services. Many countries are focusing efforts on providing power to their citizens.

Although projections vary considerably, a tripling of energy demand by 2100 is certainly not unreasonable. When one considers further that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions account for about four fifths of all greenhouse gas emissions, the

scale of the challenge becomes apparent. Most anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted over the course of the 21st century will come from equipment and infrastructure

not yet built, a circumstance that poses significant opportunities to reduce or eliminate these emissions.

As we look to the future, providing the energy necessary to power economic

growth and development while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions

is going to require cost-effective transformational technologies that can fundamentally alter the way we produce and use energy. Given the huge capital investment

in existing energy systems, the desired transformation of the global energy system

may take many decades. A robust research effort undertaken today can make new,

competitive technologies available sooner rather than later and accelerate modernization of capital stock.

Other greenhouse gases from non-energy related sources—methane, nitrous oxides, sulfur hexafluoride, and fluorocarbons, among others—also pose a concern.

They have higher warming potentials than carbon dioxide. In aggregate, these gases

present a large opportunity to reduce global radiative forcing and, in many cases,

the technical strategies to reduce their emissions are straightforward and tractable.

Finding ways to mitigate these other greenhouse gases is an important part of

CCTP’s technology strategy.

The United States is leading the development of many advanced technology options that have the potential to reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. CCTP was created in 2002, and subsequently authorized in Title XVI of the

Energy Policy Act of 2005, to coordinate and prioritize the Federal Government’s investment in climate-related technology and to further the President’s National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI). The fiscal year 2007 Budget includes

nearly $3 billion for CCTP-related activities.

CCTP’s principal aim is to accelerate the development and reduce the cost of new

and advanced technologies with the potential to reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. It does this by providing strategic direction for the CCTP-related elements of the overall federal technology portfolio. It also facilitates the coordinated planning, programming, budgeting, and implementation of the technology

development and deployment aspects of U.S. climate change strategy. CCTP also is

assessing different technology options and their potential contributions to reducing

greenhouse gas emissions over the short-, mid-, and long-term to help inform budget

decisions and priorities.

STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT: CCTP conducts its planning under conditions of uncertainty and across a wide range of possible futures. The pace and scope of needed change will be driven partially by future

trends in greenhouse gas emissions that are subject to great a deal of ambiguity.

The complex relationships among population growth, economic development, energy

demand, mix, and intensity, resource availability, technology, and other variables

25

make it impossible to accurately predict future greenhouse gas emissions on a 100-

year time scale.

In August 2005, CCTP issued its Vision and Framework for Strategy and Planning. This document provides an overall strategy to guide and strengthen our technical efforts to reduce emissions. Shortly thereafter, CCTP released its draft Strategic Plan for public review and comment. More than 250 comments were received

and addressed. We appreciate the thoughtful comments we received, which have improved the document.

Today, CCTP issues its completed Strategic Plan. Building on the guidance in the

Vision and Framework, the Strategic Plan articulates a vision of the role for advanced technology in addressing climate change, defines a supporting mission for

CCTP, establishes strategic direction and guiding principles for Federal R&D agencies to use in formulating research and development portfolio, outlines approaches

to attain CCTP’s strategic goals, and identifies a series of next steps toward implementation.

CCTP’s strategic vision has six complementary goals: (1) reducing emissions from

energy use and infrastructure; (2) reducing emissions from energy supply; (3) capturing and sequestering CO2; (4) reducing emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases;

(5) measuring and monitoring emissions; and (6) bolstering the contributions of

basic science.

Ten federal agencies support a broad portfolio of activities within this framework.

Participating federal agencies in CCTP include the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, and

Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

The Strategic Plan provides a comprehensive, long-term look at the nature of the

climate change challenge and its potential solutions. It defines clear and promising

roles for advanced technologies by grouping technologies for near-, mid- and longterm deployment. Together these technologies will facilitate meeting CCTP goals. It

also outlines a process and criteria for setting priorities by organizing and aligning

federal climate change R&D and discusses in detail the current climate change technology portfolio, with links to individual technology roadmaps and goals. CCTP and

the participating agencies periodically conduct and support strategic planning exercises to identify gaps and opportunities in climate change technology and realign the

portfolio as appropriate.

The Strategic Plan also identifies a number of next steps outlining an ambitious

agenda for advancing climate change technology development. These include

strengthening the Federal R&D portfolio, intensifying basic research support of the

applied technology R&D programs, extending international cooperation, and exploring a number of supporting technology policy mechanisms.

Many CCTP activities build on existing work, but the Administration also has expanded and realigned some activities and launched new initiatives in key technology

areas to support the CCTP’s goals. The President’s NCCTI includes 12 discrete activities that could advance technologies to avoid, reduce, or capture and store greenhouse gas emissions on a large scale. The Administration’s budget proposal for fiscal

year 2007 included $306 million for these NCCTI priorities.

CCTP anticipates that a progression of advanced technologies will be available

and enter the marketplace in the near-, mid-, and long-terms. Figure 1 provides a

schematic roadmap for the technologies being pursued under CCTP. Readers wishing a fuller explanation of the technology research described below should consult

CCTP’s Research and Current Activities and Technology Options for the Near- and

Long-Term reports, both of which are available on the CCTP web page. Short descriptions of each of the NCCTI priorities are also available on the CCTP web page.

26

3See: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/about/partnerships/freedomcar/

index.html 4See: http://genomicsgtl.energy.gov/centers/index.shtml

ENERGY USE AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions intensity in transportation, buildings, and industrial processes can contribute greatly to overall greenhouse gas emission reductions.

In addition, improving the electricity transmission and distribution ‘‘grid’’ infrastructure can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making power generation more

efficient of by providing greater grid access for wind and solar power.

Key research activities include FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research)3

program, a cost-shared government-industry partnership that is pursuing fuel cell

and other advanced automotive technologies. Advanced heavy-duty vehicles technologies, zero-energy homes and commercial buildings, solid-state lighting, and

superconducting wires that virtually eliminate electricity transmission losses are

other areas of research that could yield significant emissions reduction.

ENERGY SUPPLY: Fossil fuels, which emit CO2 when burned, remain the world’s

energy supply of choice. A transition to a low-carbon energy future would, therefore,

require the availability of cost-competitive low- or zero-carbon energy supply options. When combined with alternative energy carriers—such as electricity and hydrogen—these options could offer the prospect of considerable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Renewable energy includes a range of different technologies that can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The United States invests considerable resources in wind, solar photovoltaics, and biomass technologies. We have

made much progress in price competitiveness of many of these technologies, but

there still is a need to reduce their manufacturing, operating, and maintenance

costs. For example, new biotechnology breakthroughs offer the potential for extensive domestic production of cellulosic ethanol by both improving feedstocks and increasing the efficiency of converting lignocellulosic material to ethanol. DOE’s Office

of Science has awarded up to $250 million over five years (subject to appropriations)

for two new bioenergy research centers to advance the science needed to develop

new cellulosic conversion technologies, which could decrease greatly the greenhouse

gas emissions from liquid transportation fuels.4

There will be a continuing need for portable, storable energy carriers for heat,

power, and transportation. Hydrogen is an excellent energy carrier, produces no

27

5See: http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/presidents—initiative.html 6See: http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/index.html 7See: http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov 8See: http://nuclear.gov/hydrogen/hydrogenOV.html 9See: http://www.sc.doe.gov/Program—Offices/fes.htm 10See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/energy/index.html 11See: http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/sequestration/index.html

emissions when used in a fuel cell, and can be produced from diverse sources, including renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels (which in the latter case could be combined with carbon capture). President Bush’s $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative5

is exploring these production options as well as the infrastructure needed to store

and deliver hydrogen economically and safely. It is expected that the research being

performed under the program will make possible a commercialization decision by industry in 2015 and possible market introduction of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by

2020.

The United States has vast reserves of coal, and about half of its electricity is generated from this fuel. Advanced fossil-based power and fuels, therefore, is an area

of special interest. The FutureGen6 project is a 10-year, $1 billion government-industry collaboration—which includes India and the Republic of Korea—to build the

world’s first near-zero atmospheric emissions coal-fired power plant. This project

will incorporate the latest technologies in carbon sequestration, oxygen and hydrogen separation membranes, turbines, fuel cells, and coal-to-hydrogen gasification.

This research can help coal remain part of a diverse, secure, and environmentally

acceptable energy portfolio well into the future.

Concerns over resource availability, energy security, and air quality as well as climate change suggest a larger role for nuclear power as an energy supply choice. The

Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative7 is investigating the next-generation reactor and fuel cycle systems that represent a significant leap in economic performance, safety, and proliferation-resistance. While the primary focus for developing a next-generation reactor is on producing electricity in a highly efficient manner, there is also the possibility of coupling a reactor with advanced technology that

would allow for the production of hydrogen. These advanced technologies are being

developed under the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative8 and could possibly enable the production of hydrogen on a scale to meet transportation needs.

Fusion energy9 is a way to generate power that, if successfully developed, could

be used to produce electricity and possibly hydrogen. Fusion has features that make

it is an attractive option from both an environmental and safety perspective. However, the technical hurdles of fusion energy are very high, and with a commercialization objective of 2050, its potential impact would be in the second half of the

century.

In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush outlined plans for an Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI).10 AEI aims to accelerate the development of advanced technologies that could change the way American homes, businesses, and

automobiles are powered. AEI is designed to take advantage of technologies that

with a little push could play a big role in helping to reduce the Nation’s use of foreign sources of energy and its pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. AEI includes

greater investments in near-zero atmospheric emissions coal-fired plants, solar and

wind power, nuclear energy, better battery and fuel cell technologies for pollutionfree cars, and cellulosic biorefining technologies for biofuels production.

CARBON SEQUESTRATION: Carbon capture and sequestration is a central element of CCTP’s strategy because for the foreseeable future, fossil fuels will continue

to be among the world’s most reliable and lowest-cost form of energy. A realistic approach, then, is to find ways to ‘‘sequester’’ the CO2 produced when these fuels—

especially coal—are used. The phrase ‘‘carbon sequestration’’ describes a number of

technologies and methods to capture, transport, and store CO2 or remove it from

the atmosphere.

Advanced techniques to capture gaseous CO2 from energy and industrial facilities

and store it permanently in geologic formations are under development. The Department of Energy’s core Carbon Sequestration Program11 emphasizes technologies

that capture CO2 from large point sources and store the emissions in geologic formations that potentially could hold vast amounts of CO2.

Terrestrial sequestration—removing CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering

it in trees, soils, or other organic materials—has proven to be a low-cost means for

long-term carbon storage. The Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems consortium, supported by DOE’s Office of Science, provides research on mechanisms

that can enhance terrestrial sequestration.

28

12See: http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/sequestration/partnerships/index.html 13 Reducing methane emissions may also have a positive benefit in reducing local ozone problems, as methane is an ozone precursor.

In 2003, DOE launched a nationwide network of seven Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnerships12 that include 40 states, four Canadian Provinces, three Indian

Nations, and over 300 organizations. The partnerships’ main focus is on determining

the best approaches for sequestration in their regions, and they also will examine

regulatory and infrastructure needs. Small-scale validation testing of 35 sites involving terrestrial and geologic sequestration technologies began in 2005, and will

continue until 2009.

NON-CARBON DIOXIDE GREENHOUSE GASES: A main component of the

U.S. strategy is to reduce other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxides

(N2O), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and fluorocarbons, among others.

Improvements in methods and technologies to detect and either collect or prevent

methane emissions from various sources—such as landfills, coal mines, natural gas

pipelines, and oil and gas exploration operations—can prevent this greenhouse gas

from escaping to the atmosphere.13 In agriculture, improved management practices

for fertilizer applications and livestock waste can reduce methane and N2O emissions appreciably.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and SF6 are all high global

warming potential (High GWP) gases. HFCs and PFCs are used as substitutes for

ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons and are used in or emitted during complex manufacturing processes. Advanced methods to reduce the leakage of, reuse, and recycle

these chemicals and lower GWP alternatives are being explored.

Programs aimed at reducing particulate matter have led to significant advances

in fuel combustion and emission control technologies to reduce U.S. black carbon

aerosol emissions. Reducing emissions of black carbon, soot, and other chemical

aerosols can have multiple benefits, including better air quality and public health

and reduced radiative forcing.

MEASURING AND MONITORING: To meet future greenhouse gas emissions

measurement requirements, a wide array of sensors, measuring platforms, monitoring and inventorying systems, and inference methods are being developed. Many

of the baseline measurement, observation, and sensing systems used to advance climate change science are being developed as part of CCSP. CCTP’s efforts focus primarily on validating the performance of various climate change technologies, such

as in terrestrial and geologic sequestration.

BASIC SCIENCE: Basic scientific research is a fundamental element of CCTP.

Meeting the dual challenges of addressing climate change and meeting growing

world energy demand is likely to require discoveries and innovations that can shape

the future in often unexpected ways. The CCTP framework aims to strengthen the

basic research enterprise through strategic research that supports ongoing or projected research activities and exploratory research involving innovative concepts.

SCENARIO ANALYSIS: CCTP uses scenario analyses that incorporate various assumptions about the future to clarify the potential role of climate change technologies and to aid in portfolio planning. Scenarios analyses can provide a relative

indication of the potential climate change benefits of a particular technology mix

compared to others, and it can help determine which classes of technology would

most likely provide larger-scale benefits. Figure 2 offers a glimpse of the range of

emissions reductions new technologies in energy end use, energy supply, carbon sequestration, and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases may make possible on a 100-year

scale and across a range of uncertainties and constraints.

29

14See: http://www.asiapacificpartnership.org

Potential ranges of greenhouse gas emissions reductions to 2100 by category of activity for three technology scenarios characterized by: viable carbon sequestration

(Scenario 1); dramatically expanded nuclear and renewable energy (Scenario 2); and

novel and advanced technologies (Scenario 3). Note also the consistently large potential reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions under all three scenarios (CCTP

2006).

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

The United States believes that well-designed multilateral collaborations focused

on achieving practical results can accelerate development and commercialization of

new technologies. The U.S. has initiated or joined a number of multilateral technology collaborations in hydrogen, carbon sequestration, nuclear energy, and fusion

that address many energy-related concerns (e.g., energy security, climate change,

environmental protection).

Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate14 (APP):

Launched formally in January 2006, APP is a multi-stakeholder partnership working to generate practical and innovative projects promoting clean development and

the mitigation of greenhouse gases. The six APP partnering nations—Australia,

China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the United States—account for about half

of the world’s economy, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions. APP is pursuing

public-private partnerships to build local capacity, improve efficiency and reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, create new investment opportunities, and remove barriers to the introduction of clean energy technologies in the Asia Pacific region. At

the ministerial launch, the APP partners created eight task forces in the following

areas: (1) cleaner fossil energy; (2) renewable energy and distributed generation; (3)

power generation and transmission; (4) steel; (5) aluminum; (6) cement; (7) coal mining; and (8) buildings and appliances. Each Task Force is completing an Action Plan

that will serve as blueprint for cooperation and provide a strategic framework for

identifying and implementing Partnership activities. The President’s fiscal year

2007 budget request includes $52 million to support APP.

30

15See: http://www.iphe.net. IPHE members include the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, European Commission, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand,

Norway, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and United Kingdom. 16See: http://www.cslforum.org. CSLF members include the United States, Australia, Brazil,

Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, European Commission, France, Germany, Greece, India,

Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and United Kingdom. 17See: http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/GENIVintl-gif.asp. GIF member countries include the United

States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, and United

Kingdom. 18See: http://www.iter.org. ITER members include the United States, China, EU, India,

Japan, Russian Federation, and Republic of Korea. 19See: http://www.gnep.energy.gov

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY

(IPHE)15: In November 2003, representatives from 16 governments gathered in

Washington, DC to launch IPHE, a vehicle to coordinate and leverage multinational

hydrogen research programs. Moreover, IPHE will develop common recommendations for internationally-recognized standards and safety protocols to speed market

penetration of hydrogen technologies. An important aspect of IPHE is maintaining

communications with the private sector and other stakeholders to foster public-private collaboration and address the technological, financial, and institutional barriers

to hydrogen.

CARBON SEQUESTRATION LEADERSHIP FORUM (CSLF)16: CSLF is a U.S.

initiative that was established at a ministerial meeting held in Washington, DC, in

June 2003. CSLF is a multilateral initiative that provides a framework for international collaboration on sequestration technologies. CSLF has as members 22 governments representing both developed and developing countries.

The Forum’s main focus is assisting the development of technologies to separate,

capture, transport, and store CO2 safely over the long-term, making carbon sequestration technologies broadly available internationally, and addressing wider issues,

such as regulation and policy, relating to carbon capture and storage. To date, 17

international research projects have been endorsed by the Forum, five of which involve the United States.

GENERATION IV INTERNATIONAL FORUM (GIF)17: In July 2001, nine other

countries and Euratom joined together under U.S. leadership to charter GIF, a multilateral collaboration to fulfill the objective of the Generation IV Nuclear Energy

Systems Initiative. GIF’s goal is to develop a fourth generation of advanced, economical, and safe nuclear systems that offer enhanced proliferation-resistance and

can be adopted commercially by 2030. Six technologies have been selected as the

most promising candidates for future designs, some of which could be commercially

ready in the 2020 to 2030 timeframe. GIF countries are jointly preparing a collaborative research program to develop and demonstrate the projects.

ITER18: In January 2003, President Bush announced that the U.S. was joining the

negotiations for the construction and operation of the international fusion experiment called ITER. ITER is a proposed multilateral collaborative project to design

and demonstrate a fusion energy production system. If successful, this multi-year,

multi-billion dollar project will advance progress toward determining whether fusion

technology can produce clean, abundant, commercially available energy by the middle of the century.

GLOBAL NUCLEAR ENERGY PARTNERSHIP (GNEP)19: GNEP has two

major goals: (1) expand carbon-free nuclear energy to meet growing electricity demand worldwide; and (2) promote non-proliferation objectives through the leasing of

nuclear fuel to countries which agree to forgo enrichment and reprocessing. A more

fully closed fuel cycle model envisioned by this partnership requires development

and deployment of technologies that enable recycling and consumption of long-lived

radioactive waste. The GNEP initiative proposes international partnerships and significant cost-sharing to achieve these goals.

Methane to Markets: The Methane to Markets Partnership is another highly practical major element in the series of international technology partnerships advanced

by the Administration. Launched in November 2004, the Methane to Markets Partnership focuses on advancing cost effective, near-term methane recovery and use as

a clean energy source from coal beds, natural gas facilities, landfills, and agricultural waste management systems. The Partnership will reduce global methane

emissions to enhance economic growth, promote energy security, improve the enviVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
31

ronment, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Other benefits include improving

mine safety, reducing waste, and improving local air quality.

CLOSING OBSERVATIONS

The United States, in partnership with others, has embarked on an ambitious undertaking to develop new and advanced climate change technologies that have the

potential to transform the economic activities that give rise to greenhouse gas emissions. CCTP’s Strategic Plan sets out an overall strategy to guide and strengthen

our technical efforts to reduce emissions, articulates a vision of the role for advanced

technology in addressing climate change, and provides a long-term planning context

in which the nature of both the challenges and the opportunities for advanced technologies are illuminated and balanced.

Innovations can be expected to change the ways in which the world produces and

uses energy, performs industrial processes, grows crops and livestock, manages carbon dioxide, and uses land. In keeping with U.S. climate change strategy, which is

consistent with the United Nations’ Framework Convention, these technologies

could both enable and facilitate a gradual shift toward significantly lower global

greenhouse gas emissions. They would also continue to provide the energy-related

and other services needed to spur and sustain economic growth.

REFERENCES

CCTP 2006—U.S. Climate Change Technology Program, Strategic Plan, Chapter

3, ‘‘Synthesis Assessment of Long-term Climate Change Technology Scenarios,’’

(Washington, DC: CCTP). Available at: www.climatetechnology.gov

32

33

34

BIOGRAPHY FOR STEPHEN D. EULE

Stephen D. Eule is the Director of the Climate Change Technology Program in

the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr.

Eule also manages DOE’s participation in the Climate VISION program and the

Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, and he represents the

Department at various international fora on climate change.

Before joining DOE in June 2003, Mr. Eule spent a decade working in various

public policy positions. He spent a number of years in the U.S. House of Representatives, first as a professional staffer and then Subcommittee Staff Director, with the

Committee on Science and then as Legislative Director in the personal office of Representative Nick Smith (R–MI). He also served in Christie Todd Whitman’s Washington Office as an environmental analyst. Previous to that, he spent about eight

years with The Orkand Corporation as an energy consultant to the Energy Information Administration. His experience also includes a stint with the Heritage Foundation, where he was Assistant Editor on the book Free Market Energy.

Mr. Eule earned a Master of Arts degree in geography from The George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Southern Connecticut State College.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you very much. Ms. Greenwald,

you are recognized for five minutes. Push the button on the——

STATEMENT OF MS. JUDITH M. GREENWALD, DIRECTOR OF

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Ms. GREENWALD. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members of the

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name

is Judi Greenwald, and I am the Director of Innovative Solutions

for the Pew Center of Global Climate Change.

The Pew Center believes that there are three things we in the

United States must do to reduce the real and growing risks posed

by global climate change. First, we must enact and implement a

comprehensive national program to progressively and significantly

reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases in a manner that contributes to sustained economic growth. Given that the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have risen steadily despite 15 years of voluntary efforts, the national program will need to include mandatory reductions.

Second, the United States must work with other countries to establish an international framework that engages all the major

greenhouse gas emitting nations in a fair and effective long-term

effort to protect our global climate. Third, we must strengthen our

efforts to develop and deploy climate-friendly technologies, and to

diffuse those technologies on a global scale.

In your invitation, you asked me to address three specific questions. First, what do you see as the key strengths and weaknesses

of the U.S. Climate Technology Program’s strategic plan? While the

draft strategic plan provides a fine overview of greenhouse gas reducing technologies and the opportunities each could present over

the long-term, it does not provide a plan for deploying these technologies, nor does it provide a path to stabilizing concentrations of

greenhouse gases.

The technologies considered in the plan are vitally important.

However, merely compiling information about them is not sufficient

to ensure their widespread penetration into the marketplace. Markets work when individuals can balance out their own costs and

benefits. As with many environmental problems, individuals generally don’t receive financial benefits from taking action on climate

35

change. There is clearly a value to society of maximizing climate

change—of minimizing damaging climate effects, but the market

does not capture that benefit for those who bear the costs.

Therefore, simply creating a supply of carbon reduction technologies does not mean that there will be a demand for them. A

mandatory constraint on emissions, on the other hand, will make

emission reductions financially valuable to the individual producing

them, creating a demand for emissions reducing technologies in the

marketplace.

Your second question was will the CCTP enable the Administration to meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012, and does the CTCP put the United States on a path

to stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions? Our response is that the

draft plan is likely quite adequate for meeting the current goal of

18 percent reduction in intensity, but that is only because the goal

largely reflects business as usual.

But neither the plan nor the 18 percent intensity reduction goal

will put the U.S. on a path to stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions.

Even if this intensity goal is met, emissions will continue to rise,

rather than stabilize. Interestingly, DOE only examined scenarios

with emissions constraints to determine the estimates of the technologies’ potential contributions to GHG reductions. Thus, DOE’s

own analysis confirms what those who seriously examine this issue

know, that potential reductions are driven by the existence of constraints on emissions.

Further, any effort to reduce emissions should be achieved

through a combination of technology push, i.e., R&D, with technology pull, i.e., emission constraints. According to a report from

the Congressional Budget Office released just this week, a combination of these two policies would be necessary to reduce carbon

emissions at the lowest possible cost. Further, they suggest the

largest gains in economic efficiency are likely to come from pricing

emissions, for example, through a cap and trade program, rather

than from funding R&D. Thus, the Administration’s approach is

necessary, but not sufficient to achieve stabilization.

Your last question was does the draft strategic plan provide a

sound framework? The Pew Center is pleased to see that the plan

does not pick winners, but rather, it examines a broad portfolio of

technologies that have the potential to reduce emissions on a large

scale, making the most cost-effective technologies available for reductions in the future.

The Pew Center supports the portfolio planning and investment

criteria that the CCTP uses to evaluate various technologies, maximizing return on investment, supporting public-private partnerships, focusing on technology with large scale potential, and sequencing R&D investments in a logical developmental order are essential in determining what technologies to support.

In addition to the evaluation of known technologies, we believe

that efforts to explore new and innovative opportunities should also

be promoted. We would also like to see greater assurance that

DOE’s many programs will be adequately funded on a sustained

basis.

I thank and commend the Chair and the Subcommittee for holding this hearing, and for the opportunity to testify. The Pew Center

36

1For more on the Pew Center, see www.pewclimate.org

looks forward to working with the Subcommittee in its oversight

capacity, and on the development, enactment, and implementation

of any future climate change legislation.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Greenwald follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JUDITH M. GREENWALD

Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity

to testify on the U.S. Department of Energy’s plan for climate change technology

programs. My name is Judi Greenwald, and I am the Director of Innovative Solutions for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers

and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change.1 Forty-one

major companies participate in the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC), making the BELC the largest U.S.-based association of corporations focused on addressing the challenges of climate change. Many different

sectors are represented, from high technology to diversified manufacturing; from oil

and gas to transportation; from utilities to chemicals. These companies represent $2

trillion in market capitalization, employ over three million people, and work with

the Center to educate the public on the risks, challenges and solutions to climate

change.

Global climate change is real and likely caused mostly by human activities. While uncertainties remain, they cannot be used as an excuse for inaction. To quote the National Academy of Sciences, in a statement signed by the academies of ten other nations, as well: ‘‘The scientific understanding of climate change

is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It is vital that all

nations identify cost-effective steps that they can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global GHG emissions.’’

The Pew Center believes there are three things we in the United States must do

to reduce the real and growing risks posed by global climate change: First, we must

enact and implement a comprehensive national program to progressively and significantly reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a manner that

contributes to sustained economic growth. Given that U.S. GHG emissions have

risen steadily despite fifteen years of voluntary efforts to reduce them, any such national program must include mandatory reductions. Second, the United States must

work with other countries to establish an international framework that engages all

the major GHG-emitting nations in a fair and effective long-term effort to protect

our global climate. Third, we must strengthen our efforts to develop and deploy climate-friendly technologies and to diffuse those technologies on a global scale.

I would like to address the questions you posed to me directly first:

1. What do you see as the key strengths and weaknesses of the plan?

While the draft Strategic Plan provides a fine overview of GHG-reducing

technologies and the opportunities each could present over the long-term,

it does not provide a plan for deploying these technologies, nor does it provide a path to stabilizing concentrations of GHGs. The technologies considered

in the Plan are vitally important; however, merely compiling information about

them is not sufficient to ensure their widespread penetration into the marketplace.

Markets work when individuals can balance out their own costs and benefits. As

with many environmental problems, individuals generally do not receive financial

benefits from taking action on climate change. There is clearly a value to society

in minimizing damaging climate effects, but the market does not capture that benefit for those who bear the costs. Therefore, simply creating a supply of carbon-reduction technologies does not mean there will be a demand for them. A mandatory

constraint on emissions, on the other hand, will make emissions reductions financially valuable to the individuals producing them, creating a demand for emissionsreducing technologies in the marketplace.

The estimates of the technologies’ potential contributions to emissions reductions

in the Strategic Plan are derived from a report prepared by the Pacific Northwest

National Laboratory. The report, ‘‘Climate Change Technology Scenarios: Energy,

37

2Placet, M., K.K. Humphreys, N.M. Mahasenan. 2004. ‘‘Climate Change Technology Scenarios: Energy, Emissions and Economic Implications,’’ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,

August 2004. 3See Induced Technological Change and Climate Policy, Lawrence H. Goulder, Pew Center

on Global Climate Change, Arlington, Virginia, October 2004. 4http://unfccc.int/essentialG5Øbackground/convention/background/items/1349.php 5 Alley, R.B., et al., 2005. ‘‘Abrupt Climate Change.’’

6 Emanuel, K., et al., 2005. ‘‘Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30

years.’’ 7Mote, P. et al., 2003. ‘‘Preparing for climatic change: The water, salmon, and forecasts of the

Pacific Northwest.’’ 8Thomas, C.D., et al., 2004. ‘‘Climate change and extinction risk.’’

Emissions and Economic Implications,’’ 2 considers a range of energy scenarios accompanied by a range of possible emissions constraints. Three hypothetical scenarios are included, along with a reference (business-as-usual) scenario. The three

scenarios are each evaluated for four different emissions-constrained cases of varying levels of stringency. Only the reference scenario is considered under a ‘‘no emissions constraint’’ case. Yet the reference scenario with no emissions constraint—the

situation that best matches the current U.S. technology market and policy direction—is not noted in the Strategic Plan. Instead, only the analyses that include

emissions constraints—an approach contrary to current U.S. policy—are included in

the estimates of the technologies’ potential contributions to GHG reductions. This

makes it impossible to evaluate the likelihood of the Plan’s success under current

policies, and also supports what most people who seriously examine this issue

know—that potential reductions are driven by the existence of constraints on emissions and the demand for technology to deal with those constraints, rather than

purely on the federal effort invested in technology research and development.

A combination of technology ‘‘pushing’’ activities (such as those discussed

in DOE’s plan) with technology ‘‘pulling’’ legislation that mandates reductions of U.S. GHG emissions would be the most effective and efficient way

to deploy climate-friendly technology throughout the economy. Our analysis

indicates that combining push and pull will give better results than relying on either alone: studies indicate, for example, that combining R&D incentives with carbon caps will cost the economy an order of magnitude less than relying on either

R&D incentives or emissions reduction policies alone.3

2. Will the CCTP enable the Administration to meet its goal of cutting GHG

intensity by 18 percent by 2012? Does the CCTP put the United States

on a path to stabilizing GHG emissions?

The Plan is likely quite adequate for meeting the current goal of 18 percent reduction in intensity, but that is only because the goal largely reflects business as usual.

But neither the Plan nor the 18 percent intensity reduction goal will put the U.S.

on a path to stabilizing GHG emissions. Even if this goal is met, emissions will continue to rise rather than stabilize.

It should also be noted that the U.S. commitment under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is noted in the Plan, is not to stabilize emissions,

but rather to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. The UNFCCC commitment further specifies that concentrations should be stabilized ‘‘at a level that would

prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’’ 4 While

there is not yet a global consensus on the concentration at which this would occur,

it is important to consider the full extent of this commitment in evaluating the

Plan’s success in achieving it. Impacts generally considered to indicate dangerous

interference range from the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, eventually

raising sea levels by as much as 20 feet,5 increased hurricane intensity,

compounding the danger to millions of citizens in the Southeast and Gulf coasts,6

depleted water resources in the Western United States due to reductions in winter

snow pack,7 and the threat of extinction of thousands of species,8 particularly those

dependent on highly sensitive habitat (for example, polar bears, threatened by the

melting of the arctic ice pack; pika, threatened by the desiccation of alpine meadows, and corals threatened by thermal stress and ocean acidification). Most experts

now believe that a doubling of CO2 concentrations (i.e., around 550 ppm) is too high

to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, such as the impacts just

listed. We do not know what a safe level is, though many are proposing 450 ppm

as a level that has potential to avoid large-scale effects on the climate. (See

Schellnhuber, Cramer, Nakicenovic, Wigley and Yohe, 2006, ‘‘Avoiding Dangerous

Climate Change,’’ Cambridge University Press.)

While it is understandable that the CCTP has not chosen a specific atmospheric

concentration of GHGs to be achieved—this is not its charge—the absence of such

38

a target in the Nation’s strategy presents another difficulty in assessing the Plan’s

likelihood of success. While a 450 ppm constraint is considered in the Plan, it is the

most stringent of all options considered. The other cases involve concentrations well

above this level (up to 750 ppm—almost a tripling of pre-industrial levels) and have

a large potential to reflect dangerous anthropogenic interference. Given the Plan’s

consideration of a range of potential stabilization targets, it would be far more helpful if the Plan described the pace and scale of deployment that would be needed to

achieve each of the targets considered. A strategy for CO2 stabilization at 450 ppm

might look very different from a strategy for stabilization at 750 ppm, but those differences would not become evident unless the paths to the targets are outlined. This

would aid policy-makers in understanding the technological implications of various

targets that might be adopted, as well as aid the CCTP in choosing its technology

priorities.

Unfortunately, while the Plan gives a fine overview of GHG-reducing

technologies and the role that each could play, the analysis of potential reductions is limited to scenarios that do not match current conditions or

stated policy directions. As demonstrated in the estimates made in this Plan, it

is mandatory emissions constraints in conjunction with technology investment—

rather than technology investment alone—that will spur technology deployment and

diffusion. In the absence of these constraints, the potential reductions outlined in

this Plan will not be achieved.

3. Does the draft strategic plan provide an integrated framework of sound

guidance, clear goals and next steps for agencies and researchers to use

when prioritizing and selecting future research efforts? If so, please explain. If not, how should the Administration set R&D investment priorities among various climate change technologies and CCTP agencies?

The Pew Center is pleased to see that the plan does not pick winners, but rather

it examines a broad portfolio of technologies that have the potential to reduce emissions on a large scale, making the most cost-effective technologies available for reductions in the future. The Pew Center supports the Portfolio Planning and Investment Criteria that the CCTP uses to evaluate various technologies: maximizing return on investment, supporting public-private partnerships, focusing on technology

with large-scale potential, and sequencing R&D investments in a logical, developmental order are essential in determining what technologies to support. In addition

to this evaluation of known technologies, efforts to explore new and innovative opportunities should also be promoted. The small portion of section 9 that describes

the importance of doing exploratory research aimed at pursuing novel concepts not

elsewhere covered should be given more emphasis. The fact remains that, while

there are myriad technologies that we currently know can contribute to GHG emissions over the long-term, it may be technologies that have not yet been discovered

that will have the most impact. With accommodations for these unknown opportunities, the report acts as a useful summary of the current and future technologies that

may have a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions if deployed.

Regarding your overarching questions 1 and 2, please see my response to questions 2 and 3 above. I would like to address your third overarching question specifically.

3. How could the CCTP plan be improved? What next steps are needed to

implement a clear climate change technology strategy?

The U.S. Department of Energy is doing a good job in running a rational research

and development program for technologies that are likely to contribute to solving

the climate change problem in the future. As mentioned, however, what is lacking

is an emphasis on deployment. Technologies that sit on the shelf are not useful. Deployment depends on private companies deciding to use these new technologies rather than their old, more carbon-intensive technologies. Without a mandatory GHG

constraint, private companies do not have sufficient incentives to do so. The end result is an increase in technology innovation but little demand for those technologies

in the market.

Finally, the technology initiatives discussed in the plan can only be effective if they are adequately funded and managed, and implemented with

some urgency. DOE and the other federal agencies run a mind-boggling collection

of programs that could promote climate-friendly technologies. There are numerous

domestic and internationally focused programs, many of these intended to advance

the climate-friendly technologies we would want deployed, including the Asia-Pacific

Partnership, Climate Leaders, Climate VISION, Climate Challenge, Clean Cities,

the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, the

39

Methane-to-Markets Partnership, the Industrial Technology Project, the SmartWay

Transport Partnership, the Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy, FreedomCAR, Energy STAR, Generation IV Nuclear Initiative, Vision 21, 21st Century Truck, Nuclear Power 2010, ITER22, FutureGen, Future Fuel Cells, Industries of the Future,

and Turbines of Tomorrow.

While it is difficult to tell exactly how much has been budgeted for each of these

programs, according to the Administration’s Federal Climate Change Expenditures

Report to Congress (April 2006), the total FY 2006 budget authority for all CCTP

initiatives amounts to about $2.8 billion, with a $207 million increase proposed for

2007. This increase is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. In addition,

it is crucial not just that these initiatives be funded, but that they be funded in a

long-term, stable way—even forward-funded—to ensure that research managers are

able to make the kind of plans that large-scale technology development requires.

Related to this is the challenge of implementing so many initiatives on a timely

basis. Because it is far easier to explain to the press and public the launch of an

initiative than to explain the boring details of its implementation, the political rewards of launching initiatives greatly outweigh those of implementation. Our sense

is that DOE and the other federal agencies are doing a good job implementing these

programs, but we are concerned that the Administration may not be placing sufficient priority on them.

It would be a shame if three years from now, in another oversight hearing, we

learned that all these programs were under funded and given insufficient priority

within the Administration. We simply cannot afford to lose the time.

I thank and commend the Chair and the Subcommittee for holding this hearing

and for the opportunity to testify. The Pew Center looks forward to working with

the Subcommittee in its oversight capacity and on the development, enactment and

implementation of any future climate change legislation.

BIOGRAPHY FOR JUDITH M. GREENWALD

Judi Greenwald is the Director of Innovative Solutions of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She oversees the Solutions program and develops mechanisms

for learning about and promoting innovative solutions—including research, publications, web-based information and data bases, and workshops. Ms. Greenwald focuses on business solutions, state and regional solutions, and technological innovation.

Ms. Greenwald has over 20 years of experience working on energy and environmental policy. Prior to coming to the Pew Center, she worked as a consultant, focusing on innovative approaches to solving environmental problems, including climate

change. She also served as a senior advisor on the White House Climate Change

Task Force. As a member of the professional staff of the U.S. Congress Energy and

Commerce Committee, she worked on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the 1992

Energy Policy Act, and a number of other energy and environmental statutes. She

was also a Congressional Fellow with then-Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd,

an environmental scientist with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and an

environmental engineer and policy analyst at EPA.

Ms. Greenwald has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, cum laude, from Princeton University, and an M.A. in Science, Technology and Public Policy from George

Washington University.

Ms. Greenwald has published papers on the future of water quality monitoring,

worker and community adjustment to climate change policy, a multi-media approach to radon, environmental policies affecting the development of newer coal

technologies, and the implications for air quality analysis of extended lifetimes for

coal-fired boilers.

40

41

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you, Ms. Greenwald. Mr.

Mottershead, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHRIS MOTTERSHEAD, DISTINGUISHED

ADVISOR ON ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, BP

Mr. MOTTERSHEAD. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman

and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting BP to

give evidence.

We share the overall objective of finding a way to both stabilize

atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, as well as maintaining economic growth, and that we believe that technology is a

key component of managing delivery of these two objectives.

Moving to the plan, we believe it is comprehensive, it has the

necessary breadth, while actually bringing focus to those things

that we believe are most likely to deliver reductions. We believe

that the greenhouse gases will be reduced by the investments that

we make in the future, and I think that the plan clearly reflects

that, and perhaps that challenges some of the short-term questions

about its relevance to 2012.

Fourthly, we think that it resonates with the activities of BP,

and we recognize the activities as they are laid out, and our participation in many of the projects, from solar, to wind, to biofuels, and

to carbon capture and storage.

Fourthly, we do believe that it has weaknesses, but they are

probably more to do with the context in which the plan has to operate, rather than in the plan itself. Particularly, we agree with Pew

that actually to have an effective plan, you have to be clear about

what the overall goal is, and therefore, we would encourage a setting of an overall goal, so that we can see that the necessary reductions are being made for stabilization, and that the optimal cost is

being delivered through that plan.

Secondly, we believe that actually, innovation happens largely

through learning by doing, and that while research is absolutely

necessary and underpins activity, actually, the delivery of the plan

will be most effective when it is actually borne out by deployment,

and therefore, we would like to see more emphasis placed on deployment and diffusion of the technology, as well as further creation.

And finally, we believe that there is a need to better articulate

the relative roles of public and private participation in actually determining the overall outcome. And while there are examples of

new forms of partnership, we think that they need to be extended

in order to fully embrace the creativity of business in delivering the

necessary solutions.

So, Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much, and I would be

happy to answer questions later.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mottershead follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRIS MOTTERSHEAD

Madame Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee—thank you for the opportunity today for BP to participate in this discussion about the Administration’s approach to climate change-related technology research, development, demonstration

and deployment.

BP is involved in many discussions in the U.S. about climate change. Our objective is to establish how we might most effectively contribute to the task of providing

42

the energy that is necessary to underpin economic growth, while avoiding dangerous

interference in the climate system. While the debate continues around the long-term

goal and identifying a full set of policy options, we should take action where there

does appear to be agreement.

One of these areas is technology. Other policy instruments will be necessary to

address climate change, but technological innovation is central. The development of

the Strategic Plan clearly recognizes this critical role of technology.

The Climate Change Technology Program’s Strategic Plan is comprehensive and

well considered. It acknowledges the important role of technology in reducing GHG

emissions, providing a framework for identifying, developing and deploying technologies.

I would like to briefly touch on what we view as important components of the

Plan, and touch upon what we view as opportunities to improve the Plan.

We share the stated ultimate goal of the Strategic Plan—the stabilization of GHG

concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous interference

with the climate system. Of course, there are uncertainties in the science, there always will be, but we believe that based on current science it is only prudent to take

action. The Strategic Plan is an acknowledgement of this need to take action.

The Plan acknowledges that the overwhelming majority of GHG emissions will be

associated with equipment and infrastructure that has yet to be built, but once built

will constrain our future options. So while we recognize the importance of getting

started, and the need for short-term emission reductions, we believe the primary

focus should be on future investment decisions, ensuring that the best technological

options are available and used.

By 2030 the world’s consumption of electricity is expected to double, as economies

grow. However, the power sector is already the largest single source of GHG’s emissions, and as demand grows so will emissions. This growth in demand for electricity

is a business opportunity, as over half of the power plants that will be needed have

yet to be built. The Plan helps to determine what the technological options are for

these investments.

The same is true for the transport sector, where we must develop and invest in

both the best available vehicle and fuel technology, as well as looking to improve

mobility more generally.

The Plan recognizes that we need research on both renewable and fossil fuels.

Solar, wind, biofuels and other alternative energy sources one day will be able to

meet a significant part of U.S. and world energy demand. But we also need to develop the technology that allows the U.S. to utilize fossil fuels, and particularly coal.

Fossil fuels currently supply about 80 percent of all primary energy and will remain

fundamental to global and U.S. competitiveness and energy supply for many decades.

BP is taking action in many areas, including major investments in both the power

and transport sectors. BP Alternative Energy provides clean power from wind, solar,

gas-fired and hydrogen power. We have already committed to investing $8 billion

over the next 10 years in this business. We are pleased to see that these alternatives are comprehensively addressed in the Strategic Plan.

As an example let me briefly talk about Carbon Capture and Storage technology,

which sits at the heart of our new hydrogen power business. Over the next 10 years

BP, in partnership with GE, aims to develop 10 to 15 hydrogen power projects. BP,

together with Edison Mission Energy, has already announced its plans for a hydrogen power plant in Southern California, an investment of over $1 billion dollars.

The facility will utilize a low value by-product of the refining process, petroleum

coke, to generate much needed supplies of electricity to the Southern California

market. The project will accomplish this by gasifying the petroleum coke and using

the resulting hydrogen to drive a turbine to generate electricity. The CO2 produced

by the process will be transported by pipeline to a California oil field where it will

be injected deep underground, both stimulating domestic oil production and permanently storing the CO2.

Where we see opportunity to improve the Strategic Plan is in increased clarity

about the scale of the task, the emphasis we would place on Learning-By-Doing, and

finally a clearer definition of the necessary public and private partnership.

While it is not the role of Plan to determine stabilization goal, without one it is

difficult to know whether the plan will deliver sufficient emission reductions at an

optimal cost.

Many technologies already exist, and we would like to see greater focus upon deployment and diffusion of these technologies, particularly engineering cost reduction, removal of institutional barriers and the building of material new markets.

Many barriers are institutional and behavioral and, as such, the social sciences can

make a significant contribution.

43

Finally, the opportunity exists to better define how government will interact with

the private sector. Government and business each play key but distinct roles in developing and deploying technology. We would like to see more thought given to encouraging innovative public-private partnerships.

In conclusion, let me say that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make a

determination as to whether the Strategic Plan, by itself, is capable of meeting the

President’s goal of reducing GHG intensity. The answer to this question depends

largely on the level of success of individual technologies, having the proper regulatory frameworks in place, public acceptance, and an environment in which companies can feel comfortable making long-term investments in these technologies at the

necessary scale.

What I can say is that the Plan is a helpful and necessary step. BP looks forward

to playing a role in the successful implementation of the Plan.

Thank you and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

BIOGRAPHY FOR CHRIS MOTTERSHEAD

Chris joined BP Research, at its London-based research laboratories in 1978 as

an instrument and control engineer. During the mid-eighties Chris lead a team to

create and commercialize large-scale scientific computers as part of BP’s then new

venture activities. In the late eighties he ran BP’s exploration computing activities

in London, Glasgow and Houston. During the early nineties he became commercial

manager of exploration and production technical activities. Chris then moved to

BP’s North Sea operations, first to Glasgow and then Aberdeen, becoming the central technical manager. He returned to London, becoming the VP Technology, Engineering and HSE for BP’s global gas, power and renewable activities.

He is currently Distinguished Advisor Energy and Environment, and provides

leadership to the BP Group on making its products and operations consistent with

the principles of sustainable energy and the environment.

He is also a Director of the Carbon Trust in London and the Center for Clean

Air Policy in Washington, and on the Advisory Boards of the National Center for

Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the Climate Group, the UK Engineering and

Physical Sciences Research Council and the G8+5 Legislators and Business Leaders

Climate Change Dialogue.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you very much. Dr. Hoffert, you

are recognized. You want to turn—push the button. I don’t think

it is on.

Dr. HOFFERT. Can you hear me?

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Yes.

STATEMENT OF DR. MARTIN I. HOFFERT, EMERITUS

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Dr. HOFFERT. Technology is wonderful, isn’t it?

I, too, would like to thank Madam Chairman and the Subcommittee Members for inviting me, albeit on short notice, and I

would certainly like to associate myself with some of the comments

that have been made thus far regarding the need for goals, and regarding the need for innovation, even more so.

So, I think the best, most effective use of my time might be to

specifically discuss those goals, and how they emerge from our scientific understanding of the program, and to make some specific

suggestions as to how innovative ideas might be introduced into

the program that are not already present in it. In no way does this

imply that I don’t support the CCTP. It is very much needed.

First, as to the goal, I don’t have to belabor any more this issue

of 18 percent decrease in specific energy over ten years. At the time

GDP goes up by 30 percent, emissions will rise by approximately

1.2 percent, which is the historical rate at which global emissions

are rising. So, this is——

44

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Could you pull the mike just a little bit

away from you?

Dr. HOFFERT. Yes, okay. Can you hear me better?

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Yes.

Dr. HOFFERT. With more clarity.

This would certainly not satisfy the objective of the Framework

Climate Convention, albeit how it was very poorly defined when

the Rio Treaty was originally enacted. It was defined as avoiding

dangerous human interference with the climate system without defining that.

Lately, those of us who have worked in climate, I should say parenthetically that I myself have worked both in climate and energy

research for the last 30 years, indeed, I was a colleague of Jim

Hansen’s and Steve Schneider’s 30 years ago when this problem

was a fascinating intellectual exercise, and before we realized that

all of these calculations that we were doing were actually going to

happen.

The point I am trying to make is that our understanding of the

problem should inform our policy, and let me put it this way. If we

were to adopt a goal of not allowing the temperature of the Earth

to exceed two degrees Celsius, this is a goal that many have mentioned in the European Union, Tony Blair, and Jim Hansen has articulated the reasons for this having to do with the potential for irreversible melting of the polar icecaps. And if we want to ensure

that, and at the same time, grow the GDP of the world between

two and three percent, which is a likely minimum for permitting

equity between the vast differences of income of developed and developing countries, if that were to be adopted, then it is a mathematical and engineering problem which can be solved, what would

be required in the nature of emission reductions.

There is some uncertainty, but we know what the boundaries of

that uncertainty is, and the results are staggering and very rarely

discussed. In fact, what we would have to do is essentially phase

out virtually all carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of this century, and keep them close to constant in the near-term. If, at the

same time, we want to reach those GDP goals, and economic

growth goals, and require that this be done with our energy consumptive society, one can calculate how much energy capacity we

would need that doesn’t put CO2 into the atmosphere. I am emphasizing CO2, although I know there are other greenhouse gases. And

it is truly staggering, it is between 100 and 300 percent of all the

energy that the world uses now would have to come, 50 years from

now, from some energy source X, as yet undetermined, and that is

even with a very large amount of energy efficiency improvements.

I and colleagues have proposed that the focus of the Department

of Energy’s program on technology should be to roughly look at the

three—and this is supply side, I am emphasizing that, but it in no

way denigrates the importance of efficiency—roughly one third of

that might come from carbonaceous coal with CO2 sequestered or

stored, one third from nuclear reactors, albeit understanding all

the problems of nuclear reactors would have to be addressed, in addition to the question of them becoming sustainable energy sources

for the long-term, and one third from renewables.

45

Now, the fact is that the world is building totally wrong infrastructures in all of those three areas: 750 new coal-fired power

plants are being built by the U.S., China, and India that will overwhelm Kyoto emission reductions by a factor of five, if those reductions even take place. For the first time, people are contemplating

building nuclear reactors in this country, the first time in 30 years,

and the ones that are proposed are once-through nuclear reactors

using the U–235 isotope.

We need to be having serious discussions about the uranium fuel

cycle, because as in the case of the coal plants, once you build these

plants, you are sinking the investment for 50 to 75 years. We are,

in fact, right now building the energy infrastructure of the second

half of the 21st century, certainly the first half, and it is really

going by without a whimper, because we are living in these two

parallel worlds, the world of potentially what should we do about

climate change and energy security, and the real world of what we

are doing.

As regards renewables, we are also building the wrong infrastructure. If we want renewable energy, I think the greatest potential, aside from buildings which, as associated with efficiency, is

from solar and wind, which are intermittent, dispersed, and low

power density sources. We don’t have the right kind of electric utility grids to accommodate those energy sources, and when we are

talking about rebuilding the national grids to, for example, avoid

blackouts, we are not talking about what kind of grids would provide the transmission and the storage capability to allow renewable

energy to provide roughly 30 percent.

The problem is also complicated by the fact that we are having

this discussion in terms of our own national priorities, when this

is actually an international program. And this is the reason why

I and several of my colleagues have proposed what some are calling

an Apollo program or a Manhattan Project in alternate energy. In

fact, we first proposed this program in 1998 in a paper that was

published in Nature. I was first author with many colleagues, and

the week after the paper came out, the Nature editorial writer said

that well, this was—this isn’t such a very good idea, because

Jimmy Carter had a program in the 1970s, an energy program, and

after all, a lot of money was invested in that, and it didn’t bear

fruit. I would like to explore that. Time doesn’t permit me to, but

I absolutely don’t believe that. I think that that 30 years ago program, which I am actually old enough to have worked in, had we

continued to develop those alternative projects, alternative ways of

both producing and conserving and utilizing energy more efficiently, we might actually have something on the shelf right now.

My own view is that the emperor has no clothes, that we really

do not have a technologically adequate set of primary power generation to effectively address the CO2 problem, and things will almost certainly get worse before they get better. But I am a technology optimist, and I would like them to get better, so I would say

the absolutely first priority is to clearly define what the energy implications are for stabilizing climate at some level that we would

consider acceptable.

The stakes are very high. What is involved is the survival of our

high technology society. There is no guarantee that just because

46

things are going along so well that they will continue to do so, and

climate change is basically the canary in the mineshaft. It is the

first of many problems we are going to have to address. I don’t

know how much time I have left. I should probably be winding

down.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. I think you can wrap up.

Dr. HOFFERT. Yeah. Yeah. So—well, maybe fortunately for you,

but unfortunately for me, I didn’t really have the time to continue

this exposition, which would very likely offend a number of people,

but that is what would make it interesting.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hoffert follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARTIN I. HOFFERT

An Energy Revolution for

the Greenhouse Century

When there is no vision, the people perish.

—Proverbs 29:18

You see things: and you say, ‘‘Why?’’

But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘‘Why not?’’

—George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921)

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because

they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because the challenge is

one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one

we intend to win.. . .

—John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 1962

The reality of global warming from the buildup of fossil fuel carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere is no longer in doubt. Arctic sea ice, tundra, and alpine glaciers are

melting, tropical diseases like West Nile virus and malaria are penetrating higher

latitudes, and sea surface temperatures have risen to the point where Katrina-like

hurricanes are not only more probable, but actually occur. Also taking place are the

extinction of plants and animals adapted to cooler regimes but unable to migrate

poleward fast enough to keep pace with a warming climate. Polar bears, already far

north, may have nowhere to go. Ominously, the melting of Greenland and Antarctic

icecaps is accelerating, threatening worldwide major sea level rise and coastal inundation (Hansen, 2006; Gore, 2006; Kolbert, 2006; Flannery, 2006).

These are well-documented facts, not alarmist predictions by desperate environmentalists in search of funding (Crichton, 2003) or some colossal hoax on the American people (Inhofe, 2003). Atmospheric warming from water vapor, CO2, and other

greenhouse gases is a basic principle of atmospheric science. It is responsible for

maintaining Earth as a habitable zone for life, and for making Venus, with its pure

CO2 atmosphere 100 times thicker than Earth’s, hot as metaphorical Hell. Cooling

can result from suspended aerosol particles also produced by burning fossil fuels,

but aerosols remain in the atmosphere a much shorter time than CO2 and their

cooling effect, so far, has mainly served to mask the full impact of warming from

CO2 emissions. (Some propose ‘‘geoengineering’’ climate by intentionally injecting

aerosols to cool regions most threatened by global warming, such as the Arctic; see

for example Teller, Wood, and Hyde, 2002.) Heat temporarily stored in oceans can

also delay or mask committed greenhouse warming, as can variations in the output

of the sun and volcanic eruptions. But volcanoes, the sun, and the oceans cause surface temperature to rise and fall in a narrow range. In retrospect, it was inevitable

that the explosive growth (on a geological time scale) of human CO2 emissions, driven by population growth, industrialization and, most of all, by fossil fuel energy use,

made it inevitable that human-induced warming would overwhelm climate change

from all the other factors at some point. And we are at that point.

That fossil fuel atmospheric carbon dioxide would warm the planet was predicted

over a century ago (Arrhenius, 1896). Roughly half the CO2 input by humans remains in the atmosphere. The rest mostly dissolves in the ocean, creating excess

47

acidity that marine organisms may not be able to tolerate, which is another problem. By the third quarter of the twentieth century, CO2 buildup in the atmosphere

was evident, although greenhouse warming did not emerge from background ‘‘noise’’

until the late 1980s. Hans Suess and Roger Revelle recognized early on that transferring hundreds of billions of tons of carbon in fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural

gas) formed over hundreds of millions of years and locked up in Earth’s crust to the

atmosphere as CO2 in a few hundred years was ‘‘grand Fig. 1 geophysical experiment’’ on a scale unseen in human history (Revelle and Suess, 1957). Revelle was

to be an influential professor of Al Gore’s at Harvard, with ramifications reverberating today (Gore, 2006). By the late 1960s, Syukuro (Suki) Manabe, to my mind,

an ‘‘Einstein’’ of atmospheric science, had worked out the detailed physics of how

greenhouse gases affect atmospheric temperature from the surface to the stratosphere, including the water vapor feedback that roughly doubles warming from CO2

alone (Manabe and Weatherald, 1967).

The discovery of global warming is a fascinating chapter in the history of science

(Weart, 2003). Many phenomena that we are now seeing—heat going into the

oceans, greater warming at the Arctic, volcanic and aerosol effects—were predicted

decades ago. One group, including Steve Schneider, Richard Sommerville, Jim Hansen and this author, worked on this problem in the 1970s, primarily as an intellectual challenge in theoretical climate modeling and computer science at the Goddard

Institute of Space Studies (GISS), a NASA-funded research institute near Columbia

University started by Robert Jastrow while he was still in his twenties.

Back then, global warming was not yet politicized as it is now (Figure 1). A ‘‘back

of the envelope’’ calculation I did at GISS in the ’70s suggested fossil fuel greenhouse warming would emerge from background temperature variations by the late

’80s. So I thought it might be a good idea to publish some papers predicting this,

which I did, as did colleagues at GISS and elsewhere. That limiting CO2 emissions

to avoid adverse global warming might disrupt consumerist civilization and multinational energy companies while putting a damper on industrialization of China and

India was implicit, but academic.

Ironically, in light of the conclusive support for it developed at the research institute he founded (Hansen et al., 2005), Jastrow was highly critical of the global

warming hypothesis. He never published peer-reviewed climate research, in stunning contrast to the present GISS director, Jim Hansen; but, on taking early retirement from NASA, Jastrow and Fred Seitz of Rockefeller University founded the

Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C., a bastion of climate change deniers allied

with the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and other conservative

48

think tanks in opposition to U.S. participation in the CO2-emissions-limiting Kyoto

Protocol—the first implementation of the UN Framework Climate Change Convention (FCCC).

The United States, China, and India have not ratified Kyoto. Indeed, 850 new

coal-fired power plants to be built in these countries by 2012 will overwhelm Kyoto

emission reductions by a factor of five (Clayton, 2004). Avoiding ‘‘dangerous human

interference with the climate system,’’ the goal of the UN FCCC, is a daunting technological challenge because 85 percent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuel;

and stabilizing global temperature at acceptable levels will require a revolutionary

change in the world’s energy systems (Hoffert et al., 1998; 2002; ‘‘Energy’s Future,’’

2006). Although global warming is settled science, a public relations battle continues

to rage.

Problems exist on both sides of the red-blue divide. In a searing critique of environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the National Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, Shellenberger and Nordhaus (2005)

argue that, despite major campaigns, environmental lobbies have had little success

on the global warming front. The authors discount efforts by states in the United

States to create renewable energy portfolios with ambitious targets for alternate energy as so much public relations. They claim, with some justification, that ‘‘not one

of America’s environmental leaders is articulating a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis.’’

Why? Global warming is not only different in scale from prior environmental challenges (acid rain, heavy metal contamination, DDT, etc.)—its long-term planetchanging nature requires forethought and imagination to a much greater degree

than the threats to which Homo sapiens has evolved adrenaline-pumping instinctive

responses. The growth of human population, CO2 emissions, and global warming in

the past millennium are very recent from a human evolutionary perspective. For the

first time in its history, Homo sapiens has begun to interact more or less as a unit

with the global environmental system (Eldridge, 1996). Because modern technology

developed after we evolved biologically, we lack appropriate instincts to deal with

it—these having been unlikely to confer survivability in our evolutionary past. By

default, we have to deal with the climate/energy problem cognitively. So far, we are

not doing too well. As Carl Sagan observed, our reptilian brains motivate aggressive

and tribal, as opposed to thoughtful, responses in ways we barely perceive and

across many spheres of human behavior.

In the climate wars, deniers often get more vociferous as the evidence against

their views gets stronger (Hoffert, 2003). The so-called hockey stick curve (developed

by paleoclimatologist Mike Mann and colleagues) was recently attacked from the

49

floor on Congress by Representative Joe Barton (R–Texas), based on cherry-picked

information suggesting their statistics were flawed reported in the Wall Street Journal. Would that Rep. Barton, and legislators in general were better educated in statistical and scientific issues. But my experience briefing legislators and aides is that

scientific illiteracy and intellectual laziness are rampant. Educated mainly as lawyers, many do not get it that nature does not care about human politics. (Unfortunately, some academics that should know better likewise argue that science is more

a ‘‘consensual reality’’ than an objective description of nature deduced by the scientific method.) Too few bright and imaginative students pursue careers in science

and engineering today. We need such students badly.

The hockey stick curve that shows a dramatic recent uptick in global temperature

with much more to come is easily perceived as a threat not only to Big Oil and Big

Coal, but also to election campaign funds. Easier to blame the messenger than think

critically about this. The general trend of the Mann et al. (2003) hockey stick was

independently verified by other researchers in a recent report by the National Research Council (NRC, 2006). Overwhelmingly, research-active climate scientists

know we are entering climatic territory unseen in human history (Hansen, 2006).

Our rapidly melting planet is so dominated by humankind’s emissions that the

present climatic era is being called the anthropocene (Crutzen and Ramanathan,

2003).

Most knowledgeable researchers are very concerned about global warming. Some,

including this author, argue for research and development programs on an Apollo

space program—like scale to create low-carbon alternate energy supply and demand—reducing technologies in time to make a difference (Hoffert et al., 1998,

2002; Rees, 2006). This effort should include prompt implementation of energy conservation, efficiency, and existing alternate energy sources (Lovins, 1989; Metz et

al., 2001; Pacala and Socolow, 2004; Socolow, 2006).

Whatever the deep evolutionary reasons, the climate/energy issue competes for attention with other problems in the mind of the average citizen. A frequently asked

question is: ‘‘Why even care about global warming and climate change?’’ The worst

effects occur decades to centuries from now. In cost-benefit accounting, many economists strongly discount the present value of adverse future impacts and ‘‘externalize’’ (that is, neglect) the cost of environmentally degrading the global commons

(Daly and Townsend, 1994). Economics is, of course, a legitimate branch of behavioral biology dealing with the allocation of scarce resources by Homo sapiens, one

of millions of biological species inhabiting this planet. But, so far, in its predictive

mode, it resembles astrology more than a hard science. Economist John Kenneth

Galbraith went so far as to say, ‘‘The only reason for economists to produce forecasts

is to make astrology look respectable’’ (Jaccard, 2005). Undaunted, Bjorn Lomborg,

the ‘‘skeptical environmentalist’’ (Lomborg, 2001), convened a group of economists

to prioritize investments in various challenges facing humankind. The group concluded in its ‘‘Copenhagen Consensus’’ that climate change, even if real, is near the

bottom (Bohannan, 2004). Reading the group’s findings, one is struck by how

evolutionarily blind our species can be to existential threats. Among the problems

with this indifference—noted by Harvard energy policy analyst John Holdren, and

in his film and book, An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore—is that climate change is

more an ethical than an economics problem.

An even more basic flaw to this physical scientist is that the environmental constraint of global warming on energy was entirely missed by the Copenhagen group.

The late Nobel laureate Rick Smalley astutely observed that, although civilization

has many problems, energy is key to them all. Smalley’s list of problems encompasses energy, water, food, environment (including global warming), poverty, terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy, and population (Smalley, 2005). Energy is key because solving all these problems requires sustainable power on a global scale. Without it civilization collapses. Concentrated fossil fuels are a one-shot

boon of nature. Coal being still relatively abundant, humankind might have deferred

an energy revolution to another primary power source to the twenty-second century,

or even later, were it not for global warming. Coal burned for electricity and even

shortages caused by peak oil can be handled at higher cost by making synthetic

fuels from coal. But potentially catastrophic global warming is the ‘‘canary in the

mine.’’ It trumps everything else; moving the climate/energy issue to the front of the

list.

To generalize the Shellenberger-Nordhaus thesis, there is little evidence that politicians of any persuasion appreciate the magnitude of the problem, or can articulate

a vision to address it. The most relevant questions are being asked by energy scientists and engineers: Are there technologies likely to lead to a low-carbon world

in time and still allow global GDP to continue growing two to three percent per year

(‘‘Energy’s Future,’’ 2006)? What global energy systems should we be aiming at? Can

50

we get there in time? One leading economist put it this way: ‘‘The trouble with the

global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it’s really an

engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don’t solve the engineering problem, we’re helpless’’ (Samuelson, 2006).

The issue of ‘‘energy security’’ makes the need for an energy technology revolution

a viable policy option even for ‘‘red’’ states and others indisposed see global warming

for the threat it is. Two hundred years of innovation—the famous ‘‘Yankee ingenuity’’—are behind America’s ascent to world power (Evans, 2004). Applied science

and entrepreneurship enabled by government research and development since

World War II (Bush, 1945) are a historically appropriate response for the United

States.

The need is clear. Figure 2, from Smil (1999), shows oil reserves around the

world, with the lion’s share in the Persian Gulf. But Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq

are powderkegs of post-9/11 Islamic fundamentalism. Some Al Qaeda ideologues

have drawn up a plan aimed at establishing an Islamic caliphate throughout the

Middle East, in which attacks against the petroleum industry are critical to the deterioration of American power through constant expansion of the circle of confrontation (Wright, 2006). And because oil is internationally traded, it is irrelevant whether oil imports by the United States originate under a particular Middle Eastern

desert. The more oil money that flows to Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc., the more money

that flows to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups that we are ostensibly

at war with. As Tom Friedman of the New York Times has repeatedly emphasized,

our addiction to oil combined with lack of any serious policy to develop alternatives

is why the United States is funding both sides of the ‘‘War on Terror.’’

We know that world hydrocarbon resources are limited. Virtually all major crude

oil and natural gas reservoirs have been mapped by seismic probes. Every day, the

world consumes about 80 million barrels of oil, a rate that has been increasing with

economic growth but is ultimately constrained by geological abundance to peak in

coming decades (Deffeyes, 2001). From a global warming perspective, the coming oil

peak, accelerated by China and India with booming GDPs, is problematic because

it is forcing a transition back to coal for primary energy and thus ‘‘recarbonizing’’

the energy supply since coal emits more CO2 per unit of energy than oil or natural

gas. And, of course, oil prices are rapidly rising, headed for $100 per barrel or more.

Figure 3 shows the current range of oil production rate projections. As with the climate change deniers, some ‘‘cornucopian’’ economists say the oil peak is overblown.

But consider that oil companies are motivated to inflate, not deflate, their reserve

estimates to raise their corporate valuations on Wall Street. Royal Dutch Shell, for

example, was recently compelled by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission to

revise its reserve estimate downward 20 percent, suggesting an oil peak sooner

rather than later. In any case, most petroleum geologists agree the world will be

‘‘out of gas’’ by the end of the century.

51

I want to be clear that I am a technological optimist. I believe we can solve the

climate/energy problem. But there is no silver bullet and it will not be easy. It will

take the greatest engineering effort in history; bigger than the Manhattan project

to build the bomb, bigger than the Apollo program to land a man on the Moon, bigger than the mobilization to fight World War II. Moreover, the effort has to be international in scope with sufficient inducements for developing giants China and India

to sign on. This problem will not solve itself through the invisible hand of the market. Relevant costs and values are not being captured. We are moving rapidly in

the wrong direction. Particularly serious is that we are investing in the wrong infrastructures for a sustainable energy world. Vision and imagination are critical. Sooner or later the world will realize this. The longer we wait, the harder the job will

be.

Exponential growth cannot be sustained indefinitely on a finite planet. We could,

and I believe should, try to maintain two to three percent per year world GDP

growth to the end of the century (a likely minimum for developing nations to attain

income equity) as CO2 emissions are held constant, decreased, and eventually

phased out by mid-century. This would—based on our best current models—keep

the atmospheric CO2 concentration below 500 parts per million (ppm) and global

warming below two degrees Celsius. Higher than two degrees could trigger dangerous human interference with the climate system, according to criteria recently

adopted by the European Union (Edmonds and Smith, 2006). Two degrees may not

sound like much, but more could put us on a planet-changing trajectory with irreversible melting of the Greenland and Antarctic icecaps, which would inundate the

world’s coastal zones (Hansen, 2006; Gore, 2006). A big job, given that atmospheric

CO2 has already risen to 380 ppm—100 ppm above the preindustrial level from fossil fuel burning and deforestation so far. To do it, some combination of emissionfree primary power sources and primary power demand-reduction equivalent to generating 100 to 300 percent of present power from some as yet unidentified set of

power systems will be needed by mid-century (Figure 4, based of Hoffert et al., 1998;

2002).

52

How hard is that? Consider that 2050 is nearer in the future than when Fermi’s

first nuclear reactor (then called an ‘‘atomic pile’’) went critical in December 1942

at the University of Chicago is in the past. We now produce about five percent of

primary energy worldwide from nuclear power (this is virtually all for electricity;

roughly 18 percent of electricity generation is nuclear; the rest is from fossil fuels,

mostly coal and hydroelectricity). If we need some new carbon-emission free ‘‘energy

source X’’ 50 years hence, the implied growth of these new power sources is 20 to

60 times faster than nuclear power, the last revolutionary power source deployed

on a large scale. Not impossible, but we do have to concentrate. Below are some

ideas that could work if we get serious.

53

For starters, we could dramatically accelerate what some engineers believe is the

most ready for prime time major emission-free energy source: coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Figure 5 depicts coal gasification plants making electricity and hydrogen with the CO2 pumped to reservoirs underground, the rationale

being that we have large coal resources that can play a role in a transition to a

sustainable energy system if we can get the energy out while putting CO2 (and

other pollutants) away in reservoirs underground. One problem is that coal with

CCS deployment is unlikely before pilot plants demonstrate that the combined technology works. Individual components like coal gasification, combined cycle power

plants, and even CO2 sequestration have been shown, but the technology is too costly without a carbon tax or ‘‘cap and trade’’ emissions policy in place. The United

States, China, and India have not agreed on emission limits, and these are precisely

the countries with massive coal resources where planned buildup of conventional

coal electric power stations is most intense. The lower right panel of Figure 5 shows

how conventional coal plants in the works will overwhelm proposed CCS plants. A

Department of Energy-funded CCS pilot plant called ‘‘FutureGen’’ was cited by this

administration at climate negotiations in Montreal as the U.S. premier effort, in

partnership with the coal industry, to combat global warming (Revkin, 2005). But

this plant is unlikely before 2012 and its location is still unannounced. Experts believe it may be more expensive to retrofit conventional coal plans with CCS than

build gasification plants with CCS from scratch. Suppose global warming got bad—

really bad. Will conventional coal plants be abandoned, as the $6 billion Shoreham

nuclear plant was after Three Mile Island (TMI) and Chernobyl? Once they are generating electricity from cheap coal, with capital costs ‘‘sunk’’ for 50 to 75 years, it

might be so expensive to shut down and build new ones that rate payers would balk

even to slow a global warming juggernaut. This is not a good scenario.

54

Another class of low-carbon primary power now being reconsidered after a disastrous start is ‘‘green’’ nukes (Figure 6). No one has started building a new nuclear

reactor in the United States for the past 30 years, though some are planned. Classic

problems of nuclear power are operational safety, waste disposal, and weapons proliferation. However, for global warming mitigation, the major constraint may be that

planned reactors are ‘‘once through’’ and use the supply-limited uranium 235 (U–

235) isotope, which makes up less than one percent of natural uranium. The energy

content of U–235 in identified deposits is less than natural gas. We would run out

of fuel in 30 years employing such reactors at rates sufficient to supply present primary power demand. As with coal, we do not have the luxury of investing in the

wrong nuclear power infrastructure. Longer-term, we will need to breed U–238 (99

percent of natural uranium) into plutonium or more abundant thorium to U–233,

a fuel I favor for several technical reasons. Why not start now? Infrastructure and

weapons proliferations issues need to be faced now if we are serious about green

nukes as alternative energy.

55

The third class of primary power, my own preference, is renewable energy, currently less than one percent of primary power (Figure 7). Space limitations prevent

an adequate discussion, but I and colleagues at the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, and elsewhere believe solar and wind

power can be scaled up, with a proper infrastructure of transmission and storage,

to provide 30 percent or more of primary emission-free power by mid-century (Pew

Center, 2004). President Jimmy Carter, a strong advocate of renewables, created the

Solar Energy Research Institute, the precursor of NREL. And Jerry Brown, dubbed

California’s ‘‘governor moonbeam’’ by critics, in the 1970s initiated tax and other incentives leading to the now cost-effective Altamont wind farms. It is hard to overestimate the damage done by Ronald Reagan who, on becoming president, symbolically ripped the solar panels Carter had put on the roof of the White House, likewise

dismantling most of Carter’s energy research and development initiative. We have

not recovered. Carter’s Administration a quarter century ago was the last time the

U.S. had a pro-active alternate energy policy. Unfortunately, the institutional memory of this has dimmed. Whatever the problems of Carter plan, and there were

some, the United States, and because of our leadership, the world, was headed toward a sustainable energy future. Not now.

What colleagues and I propose as a goal is that by mid-century, renewables

should supply roughly a third of the world’s power; clean, safe and sustainable

nukes another third; and coal gasification with CCS the final third. The total would

amount to 100 to 300 percent of present energy demand. There are major roles for

business and talented entrepreneurs, but I do not see how we get there without the

stimulus of massive Apollo-like government-funded research and development, perhaps starting with ARPA–E (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy; after

DARDA, the Defense Research Projects Agency, which gave us, among other things,

the Internet) proposed by the National Academy of Science (Committee on Science,

2005).

At the same time, we need to implement everything we have in our alternate energy arsenal immediately. I do this myself as best I can. I drive a hybrid and get

my home’s electricity from green power, mainly wind power purchased by my utility

from upstate New York (Hoffert, 2004). At this point, I pay a premium for this

‘‘privilege.’’ I do not claim any special virtue as an early adopter. I do think both

ethics and ‘‘cool’’ technology can be early drivers of alternate energy. At least until

it become cost-effective to the average person, perhaps stimulated by carbon and gas

taxes and/or cap-and-trade schemes. We need work on a broad spectrum of possible

solutions; picking technology winners is notoriously uncertain, even by experts

(Clarke, 1982).

56

This is not the forum to elaborate on the most innovative high-tech ideas that

could allow us to live sustainably on the planet. Interested readers should consult

Hoffert et al. (2002) and the special issue of Scientific American on ‘‘Energy’s Future

Beyond Carbon’’ (2006). Climate and sustainable energy is a political as well a

science and engineering problem. With the memory of Rick Smalley’s brilliant exposition in mind (he gave a most engaging and accessible public lecture at an Aspen

Global Change Institute conference that I co-organized a few years ago), I hold that

energy and global warming, not terrorism and mind-numbing dogma, are the appropriate organizing principles for this century. There is no guarantee high-tech civilization will survive into an ever richer future. But I find no solace in joining with

the peak oilers to hunker down to a long slow decline with a return to agrarian (and

eventually hunter-gatherer?) lifestyles as energy runs down and sea levels rise

(Urstadt, 2006). Likewise, keep me away from Ted Kaczynski, the ‘‘Unabomber,’’

who would destroy even a solar-powered high-tech world (Kaczynski, 2002).

I am optimistic enough about technology to believe policies based on science and

engineering can solve the climate/energy problem; that with enough effort, thoughtful energy policies, instead of the usual pork packaged for public relations, can become part of political party platforms by the next U.S. presidential election. The

stakes are high. We owe to ourselves and generations to come to fight for our remarkable technological civilization, with all its imperfections, built on the shoulders

of earlier generations. It will be hard. We will need every ounce of creative imagination. If we do make it through the twenty-first century without imploding, perhaps

someday we might even find a way to cope with those problems our pre-technology

evolutionary history has left us quite unprepared for.

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58

Supplementary Remarks by M. Hoffert on the Original CCTP Plan

This CCTP R&D Plan would be strengthened and would be a far more effective

policy tool if the problem to be solved were defined by the quantity and timing of

CO2 emission-free-power and/or efficiency improvements needed to stabilize climate

at various levels of atmospheric CO2, or of global warming, as the global economy

grows at projected rates of two to three percent per year.

The future path is unknowable but emission-free primary power levels needed to

attain the WRE stabilization scenarios levels for economic growth and fossil energy

assumptions of the IPCC IS92a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario.

Primary and emission-free power growth in the previous century is also shown.

[Note the emission-free-power growth rate discontinuity in the vicinity of ‘‘now,’’ and

the subsequently large growth in emission-free energy supply just needed for BAU—

with progressively larger ramp-ups for various stabilization levels.] This is the real

problem. The Manhattan Project didn’t aim to explore nuclear weapons in general;

it’s goal was building a Bomb before the end of WWII. The Apollo Program didn’t

aim at exploring manned space flight in general; it’s goal was putting a (US) man

on the Moon by the end the ’60s. So too does the CCTP program need a more concrete goal; specifically, I’m arguing, some combination of terawatts from supply and

negaterawatts’’ from demand sufficient to stabilize global warming at tolerable levels. One doesn’t have to advocate what level at this point. That should be publicly

debated, perhaps in Congress. In any case this administration has clearly stated its

opposition to specific targets. Avoiding ‘‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with

the climate system,’’ the stated UN FCCC goal, was undefined in that document—

though melting Arctic sea ice and tundra and increasing hurricane intensity make

it more timely than ever to do so. Tony Blair at the recent Exeter conference in the

UK set an upper limit of two degrees Celsius global warming. This might be cited

as an example of thinking by a close U.S. ally.

Such a goal implies terawatts of emission-free power in the coming decades (and/

or negaterwatts from efficiency improvements)—as is well documented in peer-reviewed literature. Not to be overly alarmist, but if current GDP growth rates continues, the latter half of the 21st century is a climatic disaster waiting to happen.

To address this realistically, a conceptual framework similar to that described above

needs to be up front of this Strategic R&D Plan; however challenging the goal may

be and however much it requires international cooperation. Otherwise what we have

is a shopping list, well-motivated and interesting perhaps, but uncoupled from the

actual problem.

59

BIOGRAPHY FOR MARTIN I. HOFFERT

Martin I. Hoffert is Professor Emeritus of Physics and former Chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University. His academic background includes

a B.S. (1960) in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann

Arbor; M.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1967) from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now

the Polytechnic Institute of New York) in Astronautics; and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, M.A.L.S. (1969) from the New School for Social Research where he did

graduate work in sociology and economics. He has been on the research staff of the

Curtiss-Wright Corporation, General Applied Science Laboratories, Advanced Technology Laboratories, Riverside Research Institute and National Academy of Sciences

Senior Resident Research Associate at the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Prof. Hoffert has published broadly in fluid mechanics, plasma physics, atmospheric science, oceanography, planetary atmospheres, environmental science, solar

and winds energy conversion and space solar power. His work in geophysics aimed

at development of theoretical models of atmospheres and oceans to address environmental issues, including the ocean/climate model first employed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess global warming from different

scenarios of fossil fuel use. His early model of the evolving CO2 greenhouse in Mars’

atmosphere is also of interest today—providing both an explanation of Mars’ riverbed-like channels formed in the distant past and a motivation for terraforming its

atmosphere for human habitability in the future. His research in alternate energy

conversion includes wind tunnel and full-scale experiments on innovative wind turbines, photovoltaic generation of hydrogen and wireless power transmission (WPT)

applied to solar power satellites. His present efforts focus on energy technologies

that could stabilize climate change from the fossil fuel greenhouse—including (but

not limited to) space solar power. He is a Member of the American Geophysical

Union (AGU), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was

elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He is presently a consultant to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and

Versatility Software, Inc.

DISCUSSION

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Doctor, and we

really do appreciate you coming on such short notice, and really do

appreciate your testimony. I think that it really adds something to

the discussion, and I would say from a policy, sitting as a policymaker, that it is very important, and I know that we have been

working on so much of the alternative fuels, and what I believe is

that we have got to do it now, and we have always proceeded along

this path since the ’70s really, when we had a gas crisis, and all

the things that went on, to say we are going to have to solve this

problem. We are going to have to reduce our reliance on foreign oil

and fossil fuels, and then, the prices would go down, and then people would forget about it, and I think that is why we are now in

the situation that we are in right now, because we haven’t had the

development of those long-term goals, or even the short-term goals

that we need to have. And if we don’t do it now, you know, we are

going to lose the momentum again, and not do that.

In fact—and that really leads me to my question, and I will now

recognize myself for five minutes, and we will have questions, then

answers, and then, I will alternate.

Mr. Eule, and I would ask you about establishing, you know, a

greenhouse gas concentration goal. Don’t you have to set the goal

before we set up the R&D priorities, and if not, why not?

Mr. EULE. I think there has been some confusion about what the

plan is intended to be. The plan is not intended, was never intended to be a mitigation plan. It is a plan to help us coordinate

and develop technology so that we can develop mitigation options

that are cost-effective. I mean, that is the purpose of the plan.

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Now, your question goes to the issue of setting targets. We don’t

set a target in the plan, but we do take a look at alternate futures.

In chapter 3 of the report, we have very detailed scenario analyses.

These were done by the folks at Pacific Northwest National Lab,

and over at the University of Maryland, and what we essentially

did was take a look at different technology futures and assess what

type of technologies would be needed, when they would be needed,

and how they would have to be deployed in—to achieve certain

mitigation levels.

So, the plan does include some scenario analysis, and it does take

a look at the timing and the pace and the extent to which these

technologies would have to be ready. And I think everybody—do

the Members have the plan? I would just point to——

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Sequestered until 2:00, so——

Mr. EULE. Right.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. But we have, you know, addressed the

draft plan, the——

Mr. EULE. Right, I think on page 208 and 210, we lay out some

goals that we have set for cumulative GHG emissions mitigation

under four different constraints, and for the four goals that we

have set in reducing emissions in energy end-use, energy supply,

carbon capture and sequestration, and non-CO2 gases, and on 210,

we give you an idea of the timing that these advanced technologies

would have to be ready to enter the marketplace.

And one thing I want to point out, and this—under the table on

page 210, if you look at the four goals we have in reducing emissions from energy, and end-use in infrastructure, on the very high

constraint case, we will just use that as an example, technologies

ready in the 2010 to 2020 timeframe, those would be largely energy

efficiency technologies, the next one in the—would be goal four, reducing emission of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, those technologies

would be ready about 2020 to 2030, and following that, emissions

from energy supply, and then carbon capture and sequestration.

So, there is a continuum of technologies that would be available

to address these different constraints, and for the four specific

goals, so while we haven’t settled that, I think we have done a lot

of analytical work that would allow us to plan for the future, which

is what the strategic plan is all about.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. It is a lot information, certainly, and a lot

of different, you know, research and development plans, and that

is—we can take this, but my problem is that there doesn’t seem to

be any connection between the scenario analysis, and then, the actual technology priorities described in the following chapters after

that, and I know that we had sent a letter, and I know that you

were not, you know, in charge at the time. This was in December,

and we had problems with the draft, in that—and I think it—our

concerns were that it—there was no clear set of criteria for the

technology selection and prioritization, and no timelines for completing individual programs or projects, and no metrics for evaluating the progress, and no sense of how the budget priorities across

agencies would be developed.

And I guess, you know, we as policy people have to take this, and

you know, make decisions on how to move forward, but we have

got research that was done 10 years ago, we don’t know how that

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research is progressing, and how that fits into a plan, and how the

new research will then come alone. Have we—you know, have the

last 10 years, will they—how will they fit together in how we can

progress?

Mr. EULE. Excellent question. I think you are getting to the issue

of how we set priorities in the plan, and first of all, I want to say

that this is the first plan of its kind in the world. No other country

has a similar plan. I have traveled to many countries, and I have

briefed them on what we are doing in CCTP. The impression I get

is—and when I ask my interlocutors, they really don’t have a firm

handle on what they are doing in the climate change arena, how

much they are spending, and they don’t really have an overall

strategy.

So, I think this document is visionary in that sense, and—but

getting into—getting to your question, we have a number of vehicles for setting priorities. One, we do portfolio assessments. We

have an interagency working group, six of them, one for each of the

strategic goals in the plan. Three of them are led by the Department of Energy in energy use, energy supply, and in basic research. EPA leads our other greenhouse gas taskforce. NASA does

measuring and monitoring, and USDA and DOE jointly lead the

one on carbon sequestration. So, we have experts in the agencies

who get together in the same room and talk about these things,

which has never happened before. So, that is one way.

We also sponsor outside expert reviews. Last year, we sponsored

six workshops, again, revolving around each of the strategic goals,

and that was very useful in identifying gaps and opportunities in

the portfolio. I mentioned the scenario analysis, which is very important, and of course, we take these—take what we have learned

from all these activities, and we present it to the management

structure that the President has set up. And I am—as a Director

of CCTP, I am one of the principals that participates in what we

call the Blue Box meetings. These are deputy-level interagency

meetings, and so, we present the results of our analyses to them.

So, we work through both—at the agency level, and at the interagency level, through management structures, so through those vehicles, we intend to have a big impact on the way the budgets are

formed.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Well, my time has expired, so I will

after—come back and ask the other witnesses to respond, to comment on this issue. So, hold that thought, and I will now turn to

my colleague, Mr. Honda from California.

Mr. HONDA. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I would like to offer

my five minutes to Dr. Hoffert. He ended his comments by saying

that he was looking forward to—hoping that we won’t be offended,

but probably would be, to continue your testimony, and utilize my

five minutes to continue your talk, since I am very interested, and

I won’t take being offended personally to you, so I would like to invite you to——

Dr. HOFFERT. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

The part that I was about—would have gotten to, sort of, in this

kind of freewheeling exposition, really has to do with innovation.

I think innovation is critical. For two hundred years, what has distinguished the United States, what made the 20th century the

62

American century, is the fact that we are a nation of technological

innovators, and we have basically led the world.

And as I said before, that I am a technology optimist. Now, not

everyone is, and the times that we are living in are really different

than the times that I grew up in in the ’50s and the ’60s, when

there was a general feeling at the end of World War II that the

scientists who built the atomic bomb, and the scientists that happened to be German, who built the intermediate range ballistic

missile, which could eventually take us to the Moon—and von

Braun’s Saturn V did take us to the Moon eventually—could do

anything, that technology was a positive force, and it was a force

for good, and indeed, technology, on balance, in my view, has been

an enormous force for good. There are two billion people who are

alive today because of the Green Revolution, because we manufacture fertilizers with energy that wouldn’t be here, and that could

lead to other discussions about whether the planet is overpopulated.

But there is a fundamental issue of whether one believes in the

enlightenment in science and in technology, and the ability to move

forward with vision, and to maintain this wonderful, in my opinion,

civilization, technological civilization that we created. Now, that

leads to a longer-term point of view than is associated with the

terms of Congressmen, for example, or other legislatures, or even

Presidents. And yet, when it exists in a society, you can do amazing things.

I want to get back to the innovation part, though. Innovation is

when somebody asks a question that nobody has asked before, and

the answer winds up being able to change the world, and there is

a practical problem with the way government bureaucratic agencies

like the Department of Energy are structured.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Some of my best friends work for

these agencies, and I have friends even who are lawyers and economists, and all of those things. But I am coming at this from the

perspective of someone who believes that there needs to be fostering of innovation, in the way, for example, there is in the parallel universe of the Defense Department. I did defense research.

I worked on the ballistic missile system. I did a lot of bad things

when I was young, and I did that kind of R&D, and I admit it, and

it was very interesting, technically fascinating, as fascinating as I

think working on the Bomb was to the scientists who were working

in that era.

But the culture is totally different than the culture at the Department of Energy, or even NASA, to some extent, because many

of these projects are away from the scrutiny of the public eye. I

mean, one thing I learned, for example, is that the black space program is bigger than the white space program. By black, I mean,

you know, the nonpublic one, and every once in a while, something

emerges from that military R&D that does transform the world.

Since World War II, if you look at the technologies that have

really driven economic growth, and I would include gas turbines,

commercial jet aircraft, large scale integrated circuits, computer

microchips, satellites, satellite telecommunications, and the Internet, which Wall Street is always taking credit for, was actually

supported for twenty years by ARPA, now called DARPA, and then

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another ten years by the National Science Foundation. And so,

these are actually technologies that were sponsored by government

research.

There is a perception that government should not be sponsoring

technology, and it—I believe it is very hypocritical. This very committee, as you may know, at one time was called the House Committee on Science and Technology. The technology part is gone, as

you may know, for when a certain party took control of Congress,

they decided, for reasons having to do with their beliefs, or their

ideological feelings about the market, that the government

shouldn’t be developing technology.

And now, we are back to the same issue. The question is would

those technologies have come about, and it is a profound question—

without government R&D—or would we be living in a totally different world? And when people talk about the market, I would

have to say this: it would be financially irresponsible for a large

company to support the kind of research that we need to do to deal

with the climate change problem, because it is not going to pay off

in the three to five year timeframe.

This is a problem that is often called the Valley of Death by researchers. Research that has a timeframe that is intermediate to

the really short timeframe that you can get support from industry,

and the longer things, timeframes like fusion, where it is so far in

the distant future that it doesn’t have policy implications that people may fear, in terms of their political persuasion.

We need to be doing a lot more in the Valley of Death, and we

also need to be working innovatively and fostering it. There are

many areas—now, I am not up here, actually, to be honest——

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Actually, Dr. Hoffert, Mr. Honda’s time

has expired, so——

Dr. HOFFERT. Oh, I am terribly sorry, but thank you so much,

sir, for giving me this opportunity to make those points.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. I feel like you are preaching to the choir

up here, because I think this is the one committee that gets it, and

we have been trying to spread this to our colleagues, so we appreciated it.

Ms. Woolsey from California——

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Chairwoman BIGGERT.—recognized for five minutes.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Woman. I, for one, have been preaching an Apollosized energy program forever. Actually, I was part of the telecommunications industry when the space program was all put together, and that was the beginning of affordable parts and pieces

and integrated circuits, and it was all federal funding that got us

to the Moon.

I think our energy Apollo program probably is going to be many,

many, many, many, many of these books, these reports and plans

and strategic planning and all that, but in the end, it will result

in the industry that this United States should be part of, which is

the climate change technology industry. I mean, we are giving it

away to foreign countries. We are letting them do it using our technologies. I mean, how dumb are we?

So, let us not talk about this. Let us talk about—I mean, let us

do something about it. I mean, we have got to talk about it, but

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let us do something about it. So, what I would like to know from

you folks is what do we, as Members of Congress, need to do to

push this forward? We can read this strategic plan. We can talk—

read the Pew recommendations. We can agree with Dr. Hoffert and

Mr. Mottershead. Did I say that right? Yes. But what—agreeing

isn’t good enough, because we actually should be making action.

So, tell me, sort of this—I love your tie, by the way. It is a statement.

Dr. HOFFERT. Some of you guys would love it.

Ms. WOOLSEY. It is a statement. What are the two things each

one of you, the two things that we should be doing right now?

Dr. HOFFERT. Well, I have been saying—let me say one very specific practical thing——

Ms. WOOLSEY. And you have got to go fast, because we don’t

have——

Dr. HOFFERT.—which wouldn’t cost a lot of money, is to support

our proposed Exploratory Research and Development program, in

other words, to provide funding for an effort that might exist within DOE, or it might be funded by DOE without outside administrators. A proposal has been written on that, and we have submitted

it, and it has never been funded, and it its very cheap. Eventually,

it will cost more, and I think that Congress should act positively

on that.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Mottershead.

Mr. MOTTERSHEAD. Two things. Resonates on your point. I think

you should focus on building businesses, not for building technology. And that building businesses requires a whole suite of different policy instruments in order to ensure that those businesses

are thriving and growing. And it is no different than conventional

business development, economic development, whereas climate is

seen to be something different from that. And I think that there

is a lot of experience about how you nurture and grow economic development through business development.

And my second request is none of this will happen unless you

price carbon, so you need to price carbon.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. Ms. Greenwald.

Ms. GREENWALD. I echo what Mr. Mottershead said. What you

really need to do is you need to unleash the power of the private

sector to address this problem. I agree with Dr. Hoffert that the

federal role is absolutely critical, but it is in the private sector that

you are going to get tremendous innovation. What the private sector is going to invest, if they have a price on carbon, if they have

a carbon constraint, if we have a national, mandatory policy, and

an international policy that is consistent with what works here,

and will also work globally, that is how you are going to unleash

the power of the private sector to innovate, to respond, and you will

get all kinds of inventions that the government won’t think of. It

is the learning by doing that the private sector can do that the government can’t, but we really need to solve this problem.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. Mr. Eule.

Mr. EULE. I am going to be a little bit parochial here, and urge

that Congress fund the budget that we proposed for the Climate

Change Technology Program. I will say last year, we didn’t receive

any funding, and we think that was—we don’t think there was any

65

prejudice in that. We think it was oversight. It was the way our

budget was arranged, but we missed the money, quite frankly, and

I think that one of the reasons the report was delayed is we didn’t

have the funding that we thought we would have to get the document out the door, but we have asked for $1 million for this fiscal

year, and we would certainly appreciate the Members’ support in

seeing that that gets funded.

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, Mr. Eule, with that $1 million, what would we

have besides a report, or $1 billion, or how many——

Mr. EULE. Well——

Ms. WOOLSEY.—million, it is not——

Mr. EULE. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money——

Ms. WOOLSEY. No.

Mr. EULE.—but it is a lot of money to us. I think we will get implementation of the report. That is—we have a series of next steps

that are listed in Chapter 9, and one thing we would like to do is

get busy on implementing on those. I think there are a number of

analytical tasks that we would like to undertake, for example, limits analysis.

You know, Dr. Hoffert talked about the potential of some of these

technologies, but there could be limits. I mean, when you think

about—well, there has been discussion recently about the limits of

ethanol production, you know, where it bumps up against food production. So, what we would like to do is take a look at not only

ethanol, but other technologies to see what type of limits are out

there. That would be an excellent planning tool. That is something

that we have in mind for next fiscal year.

We would like to beef up our scenario analyses, which I think are

very important for policymakers, and of course, portfolio reviews

are sort of the bread and butter of what we do, and help us

prioritize the R&D portfolio.

So, I think those three things are, would be at the top of my list

for next year.

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you all very, very much.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. Thank you. I am—I would recognize the—

Mr. Rohrabacher is—I have not recognized him yet, but just recognize that he is here, and has joined our committee, and would ask

unanimous consent that he be—join our committee. He is a part of

the Science Committee, but not on this subcommittee, and with

that, I would call on Mr. Green from Texas. Recognized for five

minutes.

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank also the ranking member, and I am tempted very much to give Mr. Hoffert another five minutes, but I think I can fight the temptation.

The report addresses a number of things, and perhaps this is

contained therein. How do we deal with Mr. Hoffert’s notion that

we need a global program to address the CO2 problem? How do we

inculcate the rest of the world into this grand scheme? Yes, sir.

Mr. EULE. The Administration has actually done quite a bit of

outreach with our partners overseas. Just let me give you a few examples. Earlier, I believe it was in July 2001, we launched the

Generation IV International Forum, which has ten countries that

are partners, plus EURATOM, and they are looking at six advanced Generation IV design for nuclear power plants.

66

In 2003, we launched the Carbon Sequestration Leadership

Forum. It has, I believe, over 20 members at this point, and it is

looking at technologies, primarily geological sequestration. We all

recognize that, for the foreseeable future, fossil fuels are going to

be one of the most available sources of energy. The question is

what do you do with the emissions that you get when you use

them. So, we have engaged internationally with the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum on technologies that could solve

that.

The International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy is another U.S. initiative. It has 17 members, and it is working on fuel

cell, distribution, and production technologies to make the hydrogen economy a reality. And I want to point out here, too, that in

these international initiatives, we have developed countries, we

have developing countries, we have countries that are parties to

the Kyoto Protocol, and countries that are—so it is a big mix, but

each of them, each country brings to the table some technology capability, and we think that these are great collaborative efforts

that we can leverage our own resources, and so our budgets go further.

And I would mention Methane to Markets as another partnership that we have, that is led by the Environmental Protection

Agency, and it is focusing on using methane from landfills, oil and

gas systems, agriculture, and coal mines, and using that as a clean

fuel. Methane emissions are 20 times—over 20 times more potent

than carbon dioxide, so these are great short-term opportunities to

have an impact.

So, I would just offer those as some examples of how we are engaging internationally on the technology front.

Mr. GREEN. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. GREENWALD. I think the most important thing that we can

do as a country is to engage with other countries in designing an

international regime for dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.

We are a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The

Kyoto Protocol may not have been the right agreement for the

United States, but we have to figure out what the right agreement

is. We have to participate actively in developing an international

response to this issue that develops a market for greenhouse gas

emissions that our companies can participate in, that develops

markets for technologies that we can develop and that we can implement. We need a global response to this problem, and as an important player, a critical player in this globally, we have a tremendous responsibility and opportunity to help design how the world

is going to respond to this over the long-term.

Mr. GREEN. You mentioned Kyoto. Before you go on, are we still

encouraging others to become a part of Kyoto?

Ms. GREENWALD. It depends who the we is.

Mr. GREEN. The United States.

Ms. GREENWALD. The Europeans are moving ahead, and the

United States has decided not to participate. I think it is probably

moot at this point for our country, because it starts in about a year

or two, so I think it would be very difficult for us to sign onto the

Kyoto Protocol and participate at this moment, but there are lots

of discussions going on about what happens beyond Kyoto? How do

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you develop a regime that can work for us, that can work for developing countries, to sort of involve all the major emitters in the

world in dealing with this problem, because it is global. We have

to have a national policy that works for us, and we have to work

toward an international program that works for us and for the rest

of the world.

Mr. GREEN. Was that decision that Kyoto doesn’t work for us

more scientific than political?

Ms. GREENWALD. I think it was more political than scientific.

Mr. GREEN. Did you have an additional comment, sir?

Mr. MOTTERSHEAD. I think that business competes, and this is

an issue of international competitiveness, and while cooperation

has its place, you can see that they—in the development of solar

photovoltaics, there actually—that international competition has

caused the technology to develop more quickly than probably if we

just had an international cooperation.

So, the Japanese, building an internal industry by creating a

market inside Japan clearly led and continue to lead the industry.

Then Germany, clearly starting to build, followed by Spain, and

now, California following. And those industries are getting built on

the back of markets that were created by policy. At the moment,

actually, the most, probably the most favorable place to come if you

want to develop a wind business is into the U.S., and that is very

good and supportive. As will next generation biofuels. But the Germans are clearly developing a view about biodiesel, because of the

importance of diesel in their infrastructure.

Then you come to carbon capture and storage, and it seems too,

well, as everybody was interested in cooperation on research, and

we took that, and said well, actually, we are more interested in

building hydrogen power stations. So, we have committed to building between 10 and 15 hydrogen power stations in the next 10

years. Each one of those, therefore—an example of one is in Carson

City in California—is a $1 billion investment, will generate 500

megawatts of power, will be operational in 2011, and that is what

is required. If you want to actually build a business, you have to

build customers who want to buy the product. Businesses will respond. But we have—that is an investment of something like $8

billion over the next decade. I mean, you know, once you get into

that, then that is the degree of competition that will pull——

Mr. GREEN. Before my time expires, I have a question for you,

one additional question. Give a practical example, if you would,

please, of pricing carbon, a practical example of how we can price

it?

Mr. MOTTERSHEAD. In Europe, the European Emission Trading

Scheme provides a cap on all large emitters, both in the utility sector and in industry, which creates a price on carbon that has fluctuated over the last two years between 15 to 30 a ton of carbon

dioxide, and that clearly changes businesses’ attitude to their own

emissions, and to their future investments.

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. EULE. I just want to follow up with the—you asked about the

Kyoto Protocol earlier. One of the concerns about the Kyoto Protocol from the U.S. perspective was that it did not include participation from developing countries in any obligations, and I think

68

one of the things we have to consider as we think about policy over

the long-term is that developing countries for the most part haven’t

shown any interest in committing to reducing greenhouse emissions. They are much more interested in providing power to their

citizens and economic development.

The International Energy Agency estimates that there are about

two billion people worldwide that do not have access to modern energy services, and governments across the globe are working furiously to provide that energy to their citizens, which propels economic growth. So, the question is, if carbon can’t be the driver,

then what is? And what we have done through the Asia Pacific

Partnership, which includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, South

Korea, China and India, we have placed climate change within a

much broader context, the context that will include energy security,

reducing air pollution, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. So

it is not focused exclusively on climate change, and we think that—

well, the partnership with those six countries accounts for about

half the greenhouse gas emissions of the world, half the population,

half the economic activity of the globe, so it is a small group, but

it is a very big group in those terms.

And so, through the partnership, we are looking at ways to deploy cleaner technologies in those countries, and we think that will

have a big impact.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Rohrabacher, you are recognized for five minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I have looked at this

issue, and I can—you know, with a lot of skepticism in the past,

and I do today. I mean, having noted the countless, perhaps a

dozen times that there has been global cooling and global warming

over the long history of this planet. I mean, we have had ice ages

come and go before human beings ever were on this planet. I have

to assume they weren’t caused by manmade greenhouse gases as

the glaciers went back and forth before mankind even emerged.

So, pardon my skepticism. Also, being a surfer, I go out on the

ocean, and I know the number one rule is you don’t fight Mother

Nature, you know. Surfers don’t fight the waves, they understand

how the waves go, and you work with the waves. And so, it is frustrating to hear about, you know, people assigning, for example, political motives to—saying is this science or this politics? Well, how

about economics? You know, maybe economics is the decision-making factor. That the—because you can prove anything with science

eventually, if you are willing to spend all the money that is necessary for health care, education, and everything else in our country and the world. You dilute the Third World of all their resources, in order to prevent certain greenhouse gases from emerging in their electric plant.

But the question I have for you, and this is a question, well, first,

one other observation, I had a British Member of Parliament out

with me in California last weekend, and he told me about how in

Roman times, they have uncovered the fact that England was covered with vineyards, where they grew wine grapes, and by the year

1000, the Vikings were colonizing Greenland and Iceland, but by

the year 1400, it was so cold that the colonies in Iceland and

Greenland were actually almost starved to death, because they

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couldn’t—no longer depend on agriculture, and the Thames River

was freezing over. I don’t think that was caused by any manmade

greenhouse gases, because I think that they didn’t have a lot of industry at that time.

With that said, let me say I have three babies at home, and I

want them to breathe clean air, and while I am not sympathetic

at all with this—which I consider to be total baloney of that manmade climate change, you know, you are going through this cycle

because of what man has done, especially considering that all the

other cycles man wasn’t present, but I do want my babies to

breathe clean air. I do want them to live in an environment where

what is being—producing our energy does not hurt their health.

Is there—is this a consistent—this is a question for the panel—

if I have a target of global pollution, trying to stop global pollution,

and trying to help and clean the air that way, is this in some way

contradictory, in terms of what I would do, then what you are proposing that we do to prevent global warming, which of course, I reject? So, are we at odds, or is it reality that if we really believe in

it, we want to try to do everything we can to check pollution for

health reasons, that we are actually on the same track?

Dr. HOFFERT. Who are you asking?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The whole panel, just give a thumbs up,

thumbs down, you’re crazy, go back to California, go surfing. Whatever you want to do.

Ms. GREENWALD. I will start. If I have to say just one thing

about the science, that the National Academy of Sciences, which is

not a, sort of, one wing or the other, has made it very clear——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah. And——

Ms. GREENWALD.—that this is a very serious problem, and we

have to take——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And you noted that they—that the guy who

was in charge of the report, that they—has now indicated that that

was not his conclusion, and that his name was basically forced on

that report?

Ms. GREENWALD. No.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well, you should note that.

Ms. GREENWALD. It is—well, our understanding is that that is

not correct, but our view is——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We have heard about it.

Ms. GREENWALD.—and I think that is really important to keep

in mind that just over the past few years, the science has gotten

much, much stronger, and we have been closely tracking the peer

reviewed literature, and there is sort of two sets of studies that

have been coming out that are very important.

One is very careful assessments that indicate we are actually already seeing impacts of climate change, and also, a number of very

careful assessments of pattern analysis, taking on the specific question about is this natural variability, or is this something new? And

in all of the impact categories, we are seeing very clear evidence

that what is happening now is unprecedented.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How is it different from the other warmings

and coolings, then? Do we have—I mean, why is that we have had

all of these different ice ages and warming ages? How is this one

different from that?

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Ms. GREENWALD. Well, this one is caused by greenhouse gases in

the atmosphere, and if you look at sort of a 400,000 year temperature chart, we are going into temperature zones that we have never

been before.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And were there greenhouse gases in all the

other ones as well?

Ms. GREENWALD. In part of the—we do have some natural CO2,

but the—what is taking us——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Some.

Ms. GREENWALD.—into new—a new zones, is——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yeah, 95 percent of all greenhouse gases, and

we have been through these hearings before, come from natural

sources. But was it greenhouse gases in the past that came from

natural sources that caused the global cooling and warming, or was

it sunspots, which some other scientists tell me that it was caused

from?

Ms. GREENWALD. Okay. Well, we will defer this for another time,

but let me just answer your other question, which is on——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Ms. GREENWALD.—on the overlap between what you do about

conventional air pollution and climate change.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Ms. GREENWALD. There actually is substantial overlap. Many of

the technological solutions that are good on climate change are also

good on air pollution. For example, renewables, very limited air

pollution. Nuclear power, which has——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Ms. GREENWALD.—no greenhouse gas emissions, or very small on

a lifecycle basis, is also low on air emissions, sort of NOx, SOx, the

more traditional air pollution. Biofuels also has—there is a little bit

of a mixed bag, but there are—there is some evidence that we can

have good performance, better performance on air pollution from

biofuels as well, and I think hydrogen also has some great characteristics, in terms of air pollution.

So, there are, if you are looking at it sort of from the overlap

between——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.

Ms. GREENWALD.—someone who cares about air pollution and climate change, I think there is significant overlap.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So, there is ways we can work together even

if we disagree with the analysis.

Ms. GREENWALD. I think so.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Dr. HOFFERT. I have a comment. First, I want to say how delighted I am to have the opportunity to meet you, Congressman

Rohrabacher, as there is one area in which we may very well find

an area of agreement.

The global—the need for a global scale source of base-load electricity is very acute. Right now, as you know, the world is spending

$12 billion for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor experiment, which the U.S. DOE is involved in, in part. There

is another potential source of long-term base-load electricity which

would involve capturing sunlight in orbit, geostationary orbit. That

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program is, at this point, completely unfunded, and the Department of Energy does not have a program in space solar power——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And you know I have been pushing for just

that, you know.

Dr. HOFFERT. Pardon me?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You know, I have been pushing for just that.

Dr. HOFFERT. Well, that is why I would like to——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Exactly.

Dr. HOFFERT.—start with, at least, with something I think that

we might agree upon. People have different views on different matters. I think if we can agree that it would be desirable for a sustainable world to have a source of renewable energy that is very

long-lasting, I think one could make technical arguments, and I

know that you are aware of them, because you have written about

it yourself.

Where space solar power could become competitive, depending on

breakthroughs in technology having to do with launch vehicles,

thin film photovoltaic cells, and all the rest, and I have heard

many of your talks about this.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you.

Dr. HOFFERT. Having said that——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Uh-oh.

Dr. HOFFERT.—and I am a fan of yours on that topic. Having

said that, sir, one of the major reasons for developing that technology in this century, rather than the Twenty Second Century, is

climate change. If not for climate change, there is plenty of coal,

and everyone knows that we could basically make synthetic fuels

at a higher price, but we could make synthetic fuels with coal, and

we could run our electric power plants, and if it weren’t for the fact

that coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy, and the fact that

virtually all of us who have done relevant, climate-relevant research, believe that that is going to cause global warming, we

wouldn’t really have to worry about this problem of a global scale

energy source.

I think it is very paradoxical that the very technology that you

yourself would endorse is probably best motivated by this problem

facing us. Now, none of this has to do with whether nature is actually causing global warming, which are remarks that you have

made, and others have made from—at various times. Various people with expertise ranging from Michael Crichton to Congressman

Barton to Senator Inhofe, I must tell you that it isn’t just a matter

of consensus of research active scientists. Scientists are not supposed to believe arguments from authority. You really have to take

the long march through the data. Every one of your objections are

things that we ourselves thought about. I have been working on

this for 30 years, this problem. And you basically need to protect

yourself from fooling yourself, if you are a scientist, because you

get attached to your own theories, you start to love them, and there

is nothing more disappointing than having a beautiful theory destroyed by an ugly fact, and we have to deal with that all the time,

and some of our colleagues in the social sciences don’t deal with it

as much.

But I think I am coming to the end of my time.

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Chairwoman BIGGERT. I think you are. And we are very happy

that the illustrious Chairman of the Science Committee has joined

us, Mr. Boehlert from New York, and you are recognized.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I don’t want anyone to think this is a point counterpoint, but Dr.

Hoffert, like you, I have great admiration for my colleague, Mr.

Rohrabacher. He is a very valued Member of this committee and

this Congress. Unfortunately, on this issue, he happens to be more

wrong than he is right.

There are a lot of people in this town who think that global climate change is a figment of the imagination of someone like me,

or scientists like you, when in fact, it is a hard, sober reality that

we have to face. And not only is it serious and documented, overwhelming scientific consensus, but man has contributed significantly to global climate change, and we know that, too, and that

is documented.

And incidentally, I would point out that is the current thinking

at the White House. They acknowledge it is for real. They acknowledge that man has contributed to it.

The question is now what do we do about it? Now, times have

changed, and hope springs eternal, and I am very optimistic as we

go forward, because of a lot of things. If you had told me a few

years ago that one of the most respected journalists in America,

Tom Brokaw, would have a highly acclaimed special on television

on the Discovery Channel about this very subject, I would have

said nobody will watch it—people were watching. If you would have

told me a while back that people would be paying money to go to

their local cinema to see a movie like ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth,’’

starring, of all people, Al Gore, I would have said what do you

mean? That is not going to happen. Well, that has happened, and

they have. And I think he has added immensely to the national

dialogue.

We have got to stop thinking the old way, Republicans versus

Democrats, or scientists versus the rest of us. And there are some

people on this Hill, as you know too well, who, instead of trying to

be informed by science, try to intimidate the scientists, and I happen to work in a town where everyone likes to say, particularly in

this institution, they are for science-based decision-making, until

the overwhelming scientific consensus leads to a politically inconvenient conclusion. Then, they want to go to plan B. And I am not

talking about the morning after pill. The fact of the matter is that

this is very serious, and we have got to deal with it in a very serious, non-confrontational, nonpartisan way.

I would ask Mr. Eule, DOE has been doing research on clean energy technologies for decades, a long time, done some good work.

Yet, the CCTP plan is silent on deployment strategies for those

technologies already near or at the end of the R&D pipeline. What

is the Department doing to help deploy technologies that will start

making a difference next year, rather than 15 or 20 years from

now?

In other words, I think what we have before us is a pretty—a reframing of the issue, so that we are all starting from the same

point, but we have got to establish some priorities, and we have got

to have some policy steps that are recommended, and we have got

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to have forward movement. We just can’t stay static, and everybody

bemoan about it. I am tired of picking up magazines like Newsweek, where I see a cover story about the greening of America, people are now very concerned about this issue, and when I channel

surf, as I did one day recently, or a couple months ago, there was

Miles O’Brien on CNN having an outstanding piece on global climate change. Everybody is talking about it. What the American

people want is for somebody to start doing something about it, and

Mr. Eule, the ball is in your court, and I think you have an opportunity.

So, enlighten me, please.

Mr. EULE. Thank you, Chairman Boehlert. You ask an excellent

question. I think the Department—what the Secretary of Energy

likes to say now is the biggest source of energy we have is the energy that we don’t use wisely. So, the Department is making a concerted effort, I think, to get energy efficiency technologies out into

the marketplace.

Let me give you a few examples. Our Industrial Technologies

Program is undergoing two hundred energy assessments at some of

the most energy-intensive facilities in the country. We have the Advanced Energy Initiative, which is looking at putting money into

some specific technologies, that with just a little bit of push, we can

get, make some real gains, and get them out into the marketplace.

And I would also draw your attention to the Energy Policy Act.

I mean, the Administration has been arguing for the need for an

Energy Policy Act for a number of years, and I think we have what

I think are a number of provisions in there that are going to be

very, very useful in getting technologies in the marketplace. In Fiscal Year 2007 alone, there is about $1.6 billion in tax credits and

incentives. And I think some of the other provisions of the bill that

don’t get a lot of coverage, but are vitally important, are going to

have a big impact, Title VI, for example, provides—authorizes, I believe, $1.5 billion in standby support coverage for the next six new

nuclear plants that are built, in case of a regulatory delay. There

are also nuclear tax credits in there, but quite frankly, builders of

nuclear power plants aren’t going to take the risk to take advantage of the tax credit if they can’t get their plants commissioned

and running. So, this provision in Title VI of the bill goes to a specific risk that was really holding back nuclear power plant constructions. I believe this is going to be a huge, huge impetus to

building new nuclear power plants. And of course, if you couple

that with our NP2010 program, which looks at the regulatory system, I mean, I think we have in place a good strategy to deploy

nuclear power in the near-term.

And I also say that the Department is looking at exercising its

authority to issue loan guarantees. We are talking about a figure

of about $2 billion for technologies to—that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions or reduce air pollutants, and the

office is in the process of setting up a program to do that. And I

think that will also have a tremendous impact on getting these

technologies to market.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Pardon me if I may, you know. Those are longer

range. What are we doing, you know, I want to talk months, not

years. What are we doing that offers some promise that at least,

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there is some movement in the direction of deploying technologies

in months rather than years? You know, most people look at Washington, and say, you know, everybody agrees—well, everybody,

even Mr. Rohrabacher, I think, is reluctantly coming around to the

conclusion that global climate change is for real. I wish we could

harness his energy. Maybe we could solve some of the problems.

But they say do something about it in Washington, and Washington is not doing something that is more immediate in nature.

And let me quickly, parenthetically add that I have the greatest

respect for Secretary Bodman. I think he is unquestionably one of

the best Cabinet choices this President has made. I mean, I view

him as first among equals in the Cabinet, but we have some differences. For example, I think our energy policy is flawed. I think

we have ignored CAFE standards and things like that. That offers

some immediate hope, some relief, but what do we—talk about

months, not years.

Mr. EULE. Chairman, I can’t resist putting in a plug that we

have asked Congress for authority to reform the CAFE program.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Well, there is some disagreement, Mr. Eule.

Mr. EULE. Yes, I understand.

Mr. BOEHLERT. There is some disagreement on whether or not

the President has that authority. So, given the authority——

Mr. EULE. Okay.

Mr. BOEHLERT. What good is the authority if you are not willing

to use it?

Mr. EULE. I understand. No, you have asked some very good

questions. As I have said, we are doing these assessments. Our

buildings program, for example, is working with builders today on

the new home designs that are much more energy-efficient than

current homes. They have a longer-term plan, it goes out to 2020,

but they are also doing, working with the builders now, and I believe at last count, there were close to 34,000 homes that were built

through this program in the United States today.

So, I can certainly get you—I am not prepared to get——

Mr. BOEHLERT. Sure, I understand, and it is not——

Mr. EULE.—but I will certainly get something for the record.

[The information follows:]

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Mr. BOEHLERT. All right. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. I—this is the first time I have gaveled

down the Chairman.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Well, I feel very passionately about this subject.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. And you have done it to me, I know.

Mr. BOEHLERT. I think it is kind of obvious that I am interested.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chairwoman BIGGERT. And thank you so much for being here,

and I would like to thank everyone who has participated in this

hearing today, and we really appreciate your input, and your efforts.

And let me express my appreciation to the Department for releasing the revised CCTP strategy plan, but let me also put you on

notice that this issue is not closed. I take oversight responsibilities

seriously, and I would like to see continued progress, and first, we

need to be able to better compare the relative value of R&D investments across the full CCTP portfolio. And I think next, that the

DOE needs to make a—needs a better process for evaluating its

plans and priorities, and I would expect the DOE to solicit input

and advice from the technical community, industry associations,

and environmental groups on the full suite of climate change technology activities.

And finally, I think we need to be better able to assess the relative impact on climate change of the different technologies in the

CCTP portfolio. So, with that, I look forward to learning of the Department’s progress in these areas in the future. I really thank all

of the experts for being here, and your excellent testimony.

If there is no further objection, the record will remain open for

additional statements from the Members, and for answers to any

followup questions the Subcommittee may ask the panelists. Without objection, so ordered.

This hearing is now adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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Appendix 1:

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Stephen Eule, Director of U.S. Climate Change Technology Program,

Department of Energy

Questions submitted by Chairman Judy Biggert

Q1. The technical reviewers, in their May 2006 report, recommended greater emphasis on exploratory research addressing novel concepts to uncover breakthrough

technology, enabling research and development (R&D), and integrative concepts.

How does the revised plan address cross-cutting R&D opportunities that do not

neatly fit into any one of your technology categories? Please provide examples.

A1. The Climate Change Technology Program’s (CCTP) Strategic Plan highlights

the importance of identifying and pursuing cross-cutting R&D opportunities that do

not neatly fit into any one of the applied technology categories in Chapters 4

through 8. Specifically, Chapter 9 states that there is a need ‘‘to augment existing

applied R&D and strategic research programs with exploratory research. Such research would pursue novel, advanced or emergent, enabling and integrative concepts

that do not fit well within the defined parameters of existing programs, and are not

elsewhere covered.’’

Chapter 9 provides some specific examples of novel concepts. We note that many

of these concepts are already being funded within ongoing programs. In fact, in

2002, we posted a Request for Information (RFI) for novel concepts to support our

budget request for a National Climate Change Technology Initiative competitive solicitation program. Less than 10 of the 180 RFI responses were simultaneously assessed as high in technical merit, responsive to the RFI criteria, and unique or

novel, that is, not easily fitting into the scope of any existing R&D funding program,

if broadly considered.

Q2. The President’s budget requests $3 billion in Fiscal Year 2007 for climate

change technology development. What is the annual estimated cost of the activities outlined in your plan?

A2. A breakdown by agency of the annual estimated federal cost of the current CCTP portfolio, about $2.8 billion, may be found in the budget table of Appendix

A. However, this should be interpreted as a partial figure in the overall global effort

to develop new technologies. For example, the federal cost is often augmented in the

applied R&D areas by non-federal partnering and cost-sharing, which can be as

much as, or greater than, the federal share. Further, the U.S.-sponsored activities

may be augmented independently by RDD&D activities in the private sector, and

by State, local, and regional governments. Finally, many of the R&D activities in

the Plan are being pursued, as well, by national governments of other countries,

which is why the Plan emphasizes the importance of U.S.-sponsored initiatives for

international cooperation. The annual global investment is not known, but the figure in this regard is likely to be significantly higher than the annual estimated federal cost.

Q3. The Secretary of Commerce just announced that an advisory committee will be

established to provide advice on the further development of the Climate Change

Science Program. Please describe your process for soliciting input from existing

Department of Energy (DOE) advisory committees. If no such advisory committee structure exists to provide advice on the priorities and direction of the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) R&D portfolio, would CCTP benefit

from a similar committee to provide advice on the priorities within the CCTP

R&D portfolio?

A3. The organizational structure of CCTP is one that relies on the technical competencies of its six Working Groups (WGs)—one for each of six strategic goals. These

WGs are led and populated by senior technical professionals among the agencies,

who direct R&D programs that are advised by external experts. The WGs, additionally, are advised by experts in the DOE national and other federal laboratories and

academia. In this way, CCTP builds on the foundations of the technology programs

and incorporates the input of both ongoing programmatic advisory activities and external inputs. CCTP also sponsors its own independent technical reviews.

Q4. Mr. Mottershead indicated that BP would like to see more thought given to encouraging innovative public-private partnerships. Several other commenters to

the draft plan made the same suggestion. Can you discuss the types of publicprivate partnerships already underway at DOE and how those partnerships and

others will be used to advance CCTP?

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1The baseline used in the 2002 analysis was based on forecasts of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth derived from the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2002 and forecasts of other carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions

derived from Environmental Protection Agency reports.

A4. The Administration believes that private sector participation is critical to accelerating the development and commercialization of new energy and climate technologies. This recognizes not only the private sector’s technical expertise, but also

the fact that commercialization of advanced technologies will be largely a private

sector function. It is only by government and industry working together that we can

advance a new, cleaner energy future. Partnerships are therefore a key aspect of

CCTP’s approach.

Under the provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (Section 3002), significant

cost sharing of all DOE energy-related applied R&D (20 percent minimum) and

demonstration projects (50 percent minimum) is required. This requirement necessitates public-private partnering on virtually all projects in a substantive, financial

way. Since much of CCTP’s R&D portfolio is energy-related, much of its portfolio

is cost-shared. Notable examples include innovative partnering in the carbon sequestration program, in both the area of regional partnerships and demonstration

projects. Public-private partnerships extend beyond cost-sharing; they include sharing a common long-term goals and strategies to achieve them. Some examples include: FutureGen, Methane to Markets, Nuclear Power 201 0, and FreedomCAR.

Questions submitted by Representative Michael M. Honda

Q1. Why has the Administration chosen to use greenhouse gas intensity (a ratio of

emissions to economic output) as a metric for measuring reductions in greenhouse gases and not an absolute reduction in emissions or in atmospheric levels

of greenhouse gases? Please explain how this metric does not effectively mask actual increases in the absolute level of emissions.

A1. The most useful and informative measure for policy management purposes is

relative improvement in greenhouse gas emissions intensity. The intensity measure

appropriately recognizes reductions that are achieved through increased investment

in efficiency, productivity, and economically valuable activities that require less energy or lead to fewer emissions. The intensity measure sharply discounts reductions

produced by economic decline, job loss, or policies that shift greenhouse gas emitting

activity from the U.S. to another country.

For example, an absolute emissions reduction caused by an economic recession

may say more about reduced energy use owing to reduced economic activity and say

less about structural changes in the economy towards more energy efficiency. However, with an intensity metric, any slowdown in economic growth is taken into account in the results so that no credit, from an emissions perspective, is given for

a slowing economy. Actual emissions reduction will occur when the rate of emissions

intensity decline exceeds the rate of economic growth.

Details on total U.S. emissions are provided in annual reports both by the Energy

Information Administration (EIA), which also provides a measure of greenhouse gas

intensity, and by the Environmental Protection Agency. The most recent EIA greenhouse gas inventory report indicates that total U.S. emissions grew just 0.6 percent

in 2005, despite economic growth of 3.2 percent.

Q2. The Energy Information Administration estimates that under a business-asusual scenario the U.S. would achieve a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas

intensity by 2012. The President’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by

18 percent.

• How much would actual emissions grow under business-as-usual?

• How much will the Administration’s current plan, with the 18 percent goal,

affect U.S. emissions by 2012 and beyond?

A2. In 2002, President Bush set an ambitious but achievable national goal to reduce

the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012. At the

time, this goal represented a nearly 30 percent improvement in the expected rate

of improvement in intensity over the period. The Administration estimated that

achieving this commitment would avoid additionally over 100 million metric tons of

carbon-equivalent (MMTCe) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 compared to a

business-as-usual baseline1 and would result in cumulative savings of more than

500 MMTCe in greenhouse gas emissions over the decade. Under the business-asusual scenario used in this 2002 analysis, total emissions were projected to climb

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from 1,917 MMTCe in 2002 to 2,279 MMTCe in 2012. Achieving the President’s goal

was estimated to reduce the 2012 figure to 2,173 MMTCe.

The Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2006 contains a projection suggesting that

total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will climb from 1,885 MMTCe in 2002 to 2,154

MMTCe in 2012. Concerning the EIA AEO2006 intensity baseline of 16.8 percent,

it is important to note that we would expect EIA’s AEO baseline to show improvement over time as policies are implemented in support of the President’s intensity

goal, which was set in 2002. The effect of higher energy prices is clearly evident in

the AEO2006 baseline projection, but it also is influenced by new policies being implemented. For example, the CAFE standards for light trucks finalized in 2003 and

the tax credits, incentives, and standards in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 are incorporated in the AEO2006 baseline.

Data from EIA suggest steady progress. Since 2002, EIA reports annual improvements in greenhouse gas emissions intensity of 1.6 percent in 2003, 1.6 percent in

2004, and 2.5 percent in 2005. Although we are only a few years into the effort, the

Nation appears on track to meet the President’s goal.

The impact of the Administration’s program beyond 2012 will be included as part

of the Climate Action Report, now in preparation, that the U.S. will submit to the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Q3. The Congressional Budget Office just released a report that states that technology development combined with carbon constraints provides the most cost-effective approach to climate change mitigation. The CCTP’s own draft plan only

included technology emissions scenarios with carbon constraints.

• Has the President’s position on climate change uncertainty and carbon constraints policy changed?

• The CCTP lays out technology options, but what are the policy drivers to get

those technologies deployed into the marketplace? If it is not your job to identify and push for these policy drivers, who is charged with that task in the

Administration?

A3. In 2002, President Bush reaffirmed the U.S. Government’s commitment to the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its long-term goal

of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere at a level that avoids

dangerous human interference with the climate system—a level that at present is

unknown. The President set a national goal to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity

of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012. This goal sets America on a path to

slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions and—as the science justifies and the

technology allows—to stop and reverse that growth.

The Administration places great emphasis on the development and commercial

use of advanced technologies, without which it is difficult to see how climate mitigation can be reconciled with other pressing needs, such as economic growth, energy

security, and pollution reduction. Given the nature of the challenge and the many

unknowns, it is appropriate that CCTP adopt a long-term planning context for the

role of technology in addressing climate change. While CCTP does not set policy, it

supports policy development, and by significantly reducing the costs of advanced

technologies, its R&D programs can open up a wider range of politically and economically acceptable options for policy-makers.

Overall climate policy is directed by the Executive Office of the President with

input from federal agencies.

Q4. Critics of the program claim that CCTP is merely a ‘‘repackaging’’ of existing

programs. Five and one-half years after its establishment, CCTP should be in

the position of directing climate technology research throughout the federal agencies involved in the program. Of the R&D programs listed as part of the CCTP,

which initiatives originated in CCTP, or as a direct result of CCTP recommendations to an agency? Please explain in detail the role CCTP staff have

played in developing budgets and priorities for all the programs listed as components of CCTP in the Offices of Fossil Energy, Energy Efficiency, Nuclear Energy

or Science?

A4. CCTP’s Strategic Plan does include current activities. To assess the overall

portfolio and set priorities, a good understanding of current programs relevant to

CCTP’s mission is needed. However, the Plan goes considerably further. It provides

an overarching technology roadmap organized by five CCTP strategic goals over the

short-, mid-, and long-term. In each of the goals chapters there are discussions of

future research directions. The Plan sets out a process and criteria for prioritizing

the federal technology R&D portfolio. These criteria include: (1) maximizing return

on investment; (2) supporting public-private partnerships; (3) focusing on technology

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with large-scale potential; and (4) sequencing R&D investments in a logical order.

CCTP’s analysis and strategy inspires the pursuit of innovative technology concepts

designed, not just to address short-term GHG emissions reductions, but the fundamental transformations required over the long-term to meet the challenge of stabilizing GHG concentrations.

Since its inception in 2002, this multi-agency planning and coordination activity

has encouraged a number of important technology initiatives aimed at reducing

greenhouse gas emissions. There are many rationales besides climate change mitigation—energy security, for example—for many of the major initiatives the Administration has undertaken, such as the Hydrogen Fuel and FreedomCAR Initiatives,

FutureGen, Advanced Energy Initiative, etc. CCTP helped provide long-term programmatic rationale. Moreover, CCTP in the Plan has established 12 priorities that

respond to the President’s National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI).

These NCCTI priorities, which are described in Appendix B of the Plan, represent

R&D and other activities that with a little push could result in significant technological advances to reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gases.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Judith M. Greenwald, Director of Innovative Solutions, Pew Center on

Global Climate Change

Questions submitted by Chairman Judy Biggert

Q1. Your testimony suggests that development of carbon reduction technologies is not

very useful in the absence of mandatory constraints on greenhouse gas emissions. But, doesn’t it make sense to move aggressively on technology development

first and then tackle the regulatory framework? Won’t that sequence allow society to move toward reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the least economically disruptive manner?

A1. Aggressive technology development is critical, but R&D alone will not result in

widespread deployment of low-carbon technologies. Installation of new technologies

comes at a cost, and in the absence of mandatory constraints on emissions, most

emitters have no incentive to take on this cost. Technology development produces

a supply of carbon-reduction technologies without the corresponding demand provided by emissions constraints. In addition, research has shown that carbon reduction can be achieved at a lower cost through a combination of mandatory emissions

constraints and technology R&D than through either approach alone. This conclusion was reached in a 2004 Pew Center report by Larry Goulder, ‘‘Induced technological change and climate policy,’’ and echoed in a September 2006 study by the

Congressional Budget Office, ‘‘Evaluating the Role of Prices and R&D in Reducing

Carbon Dioxide Emissions.’’ The CBO study stated that ‘‘a combination of the two

approaches—pricing emissions in the near-term and funding R&D—would be necessary to reduce carbon emissions at the lowest possible cost.’’

Q2. How much do you feel the Federal Government should reasonably be spending

per year on climate change technology at the Department of Energy and how did

you arrive at that figure?

A2. The Pew Center has not calculated the specific level of funding needed. Most

importantly, it is critical that funding levels be stable enough to ensure that key

programs can plan long-term research. We would point to the testimonies submitted

by Martin Hoffert and Daniel Kammen for specific suggestions in this area.

Questions submitted by Representative Michael M. Honda

Q1. Why has the Administration chosen to use greenhouse gas intensity (a ratio of

emissions to economic output) as the metric for measuring reductions in greenhouse gases, and not an absolute reduction in emissions or in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases?

• Does the use of this metric not mask actual increases in emissions or atmospheric levels of carbon?

• What metrics are used in guiding climate policies elsewhere?

• In general, do the major companies in the Business Environmental Leadership

Council find greenhouse gas intensity to be an acceptable and useful metric?

A1. While we cannot speak for the Administration, President Bush has repeatedly

stated that he believes emissions intensity is the most useful metric to consider. The

Pew Center disagrees, but the metric is much less important to us than the environmental result it achieves. Intensity metrics do not indicate the overall growth or decline of greenhouse gas emissions and an intensity-based target may allow emissions to rise. GHG intensity can decrease while absolute emissions increase, so an

intensity target typically is not as environmentally sound as an absolute cap. That

being said, if a sufficiently strict intensity target is chosen, one could see absolute

GHG reductions. Unfortunately, the Administration’s goal of an 18 percent reduction in GHG intensity is not noticeably different from business as usual, and does

in fact correspond to a continuing increase in GHG emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol uses an absolute GHG metric, as do the northeastern states’

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and California’s new law, AB 32.

In the absence of federal policy, businesses have taken to creating GHG reduction

goals themselves to anticipate policy and get ahead of the curve. Many of these

goals are absolute (DuPont—reduce GHG emissions by 65 percent from 1990 levels

by 2010; Weyerhaeuser—reduce GHG emissions by 40 percent by 2020; Bank of

America—Reduce GHG emissions nine percent by 2009, relative to their 2004 levels;

BP—Reduce GHG emissions by 10 percent from 1990 levels by 2010), but several

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companies use indexed metrics. For example, Baxter International has a GHG target to reduce energy use and associated GHG emissions by 30 percent per unit of

product value from 1996 levels by 2005. Using indexed metrics increases the efficiency of operations without guaranteeing an absolute reduction is made.

Q2. You say in your testimony that the roughly $3 billion the Department claims to

be spending on climate change is not enough.

• What, do you believe, is required to adequately address climate change?

• Are the priorities for the various programs in line with where they should be?

A2. Again, the Pew Center has not calculated the specific level of funding needed.

We would point to the testimonies submitted by Martin Hoffert and Daniel Kammen

for suggestions in this area, as well as on the priorities for funding.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Martin I. Hoffert, Emeritus Professor of Physics, New York University

General Response: It’s important to distinguish between (1) CCTP-type research

on alternate energy technologies that in some sense already ‘‘exist’’ at laboratory

scales, or at industrial scales for certain components, but are too costly to permit

penetration to significant energy market share; and (2) exploratory energy R&D of

the ARPA–E type, exploiting recent scientific discoveries like high temperature

superconductivity, nanotech or bioengineering, or embodying highly innovative systems for tapping energy flows and stores in nature, aimed at radically transforming

the global energy system to permit continued economic growth even as fossil fuel

CO22 emissions are phased out—this being the objective problem to be solved.

Climate and energy are the technology challenges of the century. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the most dangerous mistake one can make when challenged

by an existential threat is ‘‘failure of imagination.’’ Likewise does the climate/energy

issue call for technological imagination, followed by rigorous testing and development to the point of commercial viability. These are unique strengths in which the

U.S. has led the world for 200 years, particularly as stimulated by targeted government-funded initiatives over the past 50 years. The proposed energy R&D should

build on prior successful U.S. efforts to address the technical issues and global scale

of the climate/energy problem (Hoffert, 2006). I will discuss CCTP-type funding in

my response to Representative Biggert, ARPA–E funding in my response to Representative Honda.

Question submitted by Chairman Judy Biggert

Q1. How much do you feel the Federal Government should be reasonably spending

per year on climate change technology at the Department of Energy and how did

you arrive at that figure?

A1. The short answer is that the CCTP program, which at this point essentially repackages government funded energy R&D of about $3 billion/year, needs to grow to

$20–30 billion per year, or more. This level of funding is similar to prior U.S. technology initiatives like FDR’s Manhattan Project of the ’40s, JFK’s Apollo program

of the ’60s, Carter’s Energy program of the ’70s (unfortunately aborted) and Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative of the ’80s, as illustrated in the figure showing

U.S. R&D expenses in 1996 dollars by sector from data in Meeks (2002). The U.S.

Government today spends more than $120 billion (2002 dollars) a year on research

and development (Nemet and Kammen, 2006), of which declining fraction, only a

few percent, is expended on energy, the driver technology of civilization. We’ve been

lulled into passivity by historically cheap fossil fuels. Not for much longer, as hydrocarbon production peaks and global warming become all too evident in coming decades.

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However much some may say the technology already exists to solve the climate/

energy problem many colleagues and I disagree. Such technologies could exist, but

they won’t spring into existence spontaneously, any more than gas turbines, radar,

lasers, commercial aviation, nuclear power, nuclear medicine, satellite telecommunications, computers, and the Internet sprang into existence without billions invested

by Federal R&D since World War Two. World War II, which President Truman in

the wake of Hiroshima and von Braun’s V–2 rockets characterized as a ‘‘battle of

laboratories’’ as much as a battle of armies. Vanever Bush, FDR’s science advisor,

is credited with beginning large-scale public support for R&D. Frankly much of this

was motivated by defense and space during the Cold War. To emphasize this the

Mansfield amendment added ‘‘D’’ for Defense at the beginning of ARPA (Advanced

Research projects agency) to create DARPA.

But the results drove economic growth of the civil economy. Given that we already

spend $120 billion present dollars on government R&D, the question is not whether

there’s enough money. When the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor our nation was

in a deep depression. After a half decade of war the ‘‘greatest generation’’ went from

virtually no air force to building fifty thousand planes a year, aircraft which evolved

technologically from biplanes to jets in an astoundingly short time, it built the atomic bomb, created radar, and accomplished many other technologically Herculean

things, with the result that the U.S. emerged as the leading world power in what

has been called the American Century. We’re richer now than we’ve ever been,

though this will not last if we fail to address the major problem of the present century, the climate/energy challenge. The problem is not lack of money. The problem

is whether we can put in the required level of engineering creativity, effort and skill

to fight a threat that doesn’t involve blowing each other’s brains out.

President Carter tried to make alternate energy a ‘‘moral equivalent of war.’’ At

its peak in the late ’70s, Carter’s R&D program was running at $10 billion a year

and showing real progress. Too bad the institutional memory of Carter’s initiative

has dimmed and been distorted over the years. It was, of course, Carter’s energy

program under which DOE built the coal-to-natural gas demonstration plant that

later became the Dakota Gasification Company. The plant was later sold by DOE,

i.e., ‘‘privatized,’’ at ∼6 cents on the dollar of the of the government’s investment.

Ironically, this plant became a poster child for this administration’s FutureGen coalto-hydrogen plus electricity with carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, as the

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CO2 separated out is piped to (and sold for secondary oil recovery to) Saskatchewan’s Weyburn oilfields. The project is touted—along with Norwegian Statoil’s

North Sea CCS project, also state subsidized, as showing the viability of CCS. But

who in this administration credits Carter with demonstrating technology leading to

FutureGen, or even knows the story? The DOE demo isn’t slated for operation until

2012.

The fact is that the most ready for prime time project to mitigate carbon emissions from coal power plants now being built is too little, too late. By the time

FutureGen is up and running at least 850 conventional coal fired power plants in

the works by non-Kyoto signatories—the U.S., China and India—will overwhelm

Kyoto emission cuts, if they even happen, by a factor of five. The figure (submitted

by Dan Lashof of the NRDC as a critique of CCTP Strategic Plan) shows the cumulative capacity of conventional coal plants in the works now and carbon captures,

a mere blip. Not signing Kyoto is one thing. But offering FutureGen as a significant

U.S. technology initiative to cut carbon emissions (as was done at last winter’s

Kyoto meetings in Montreal by U.S. negotiator Harlan Watson) is simply refusing

to face reality.

As Economist Robert Samuelson put it, ‘‘The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it’s really an engineering problem.’’

Solving an engineering problem requires defining the goal quantitatively, facing the

technical challenges, and creating systems to address these as cost-effectively as

possible. Right now, we have little on the shelf for primary energy but burning coal

for electricity and gasoline from crude oil for cars, both of which emitting CO2 up

the stack and out the tailpipe. Nuclear is roughly five percent and renewables collectively roughly one percent of primary energy (neglecting hydro, which is saturated, and firewood in preindustrial societies).

Getting serious enough about R&D to solve the climate/energy problem to avoid,

for example, more than two degrees Celsius global warming relative to pre-industrial conditions above which polar icecap melting may become irreversible (Hansen,

2006) will cost $20–$30 billion per year, at least. The specific way this funding

would ramp up needs careful consideration. But we have an applicable experience

base from the Manhattan, Apollo, Energy Independence & SDI programs. Also needed is a major science education initiative, as was done in the post-Sputnik era. The

U.S. should take the lead. But we don’t have to go it alone. This is a global problem,

and scientists and engineers worldwide have a tradition of working together on a

common goal like the International Space Station, the International Thermonuclear

Experimental Reactor, high-energy particle accelerators and other projects. ParticuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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larly important is to involve China and India in projects that can implement on the

short-term.

In summary, and without at this point preparing a detailed budget, there is good reason to shoot for $20 to $30 billion a year for an Apollo-type program in alternate

energy. The rapid convergence of urgent energy security issues and growing evidence of global warming may make money the least of our problems. We need real

options to do this job and we don’t have them. Out of the box ideas, like coal gasification demonstration plants in China and India funded by the U.S., might be an

alternative to Kyoto, which the Senate has clearly indicated its indisposition to sign.

These might stem the tide while we work on the fundamental energy system transformation; as might geoengineering experiments to ‘‘save the arctic.’’ Other important issues are incentivizing research by private industry and entrepreneurial

innovators, about which I have more to say below. All this will require an integrated

climate/energy policy, including diplomacy, to implement effectively.

Question submitted by Representative Michael M. Honda

Q1. This committee has considered in various forms legislation regarding the creation of an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, and you have advocated for the creation of a new innovation-focused research organization.

• If Congress were to move forward with a plan to develop ARPA–E, what do

you believe would be the essential elements of such a program?

A1. Recent proposals for an independent exploratory R&D program (Caldeira et al.,

2005) or an ARPA–E (Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 2005)

in alternate energy technology are motivated by the perception that breakthrough

research isn’t being pursued with sufficient urgency, in some cases not at all, by

DOE or elsewhere because it falls outside bureaucratic program funding lines, or

lacks champions. Not surprisingly these proposals have been resisted on grounds

that DOE is already doing what needs doing, for example, in the CCTP and Basic

Energy Science initiatives.

I indicated previously that I strongly support expanding existing DOE R&D programs. That said, existing bureaucratic structures are not, for reasons I won’t expound upon here, the best way to incubate innovative, potentially disruptive technology shifts. Revolutionary technologies have changed the world many times over

in the past century, often as spin-offs of military projects. The course of future technologies is difficult to impossible to predict, particularly by experts. But like biological evolution, technological evolution needs mutations.

I argue that the most robust R&D strategy is to support a broad spectrum of potentially revolutionary technologies that are physically plausible and address objectively real problems. For example, the transmission and storage of intermittent

widely distributed renewable energy (solar and wind) is necessary if renewables are

supply load curves for 20 percent or more electric power generation market share.

Many states have Renewable Energy Portfolios mandating such targets by a set

date. This won’t happen unless grids in the region become ‘‘user friendly’’ to renewables. Existing grids designed for central power generation by fossil fuel or nuclear

plants are totally inadequate, and deregulation of electric utilities has removed financial incentives for anyone to even think about this problem. It’s telling that the

country with the highest penetration of wind generated electricity, Denmark (near

20 percent), has only accomplished his because it is integrated into a Scandinavian

grid with Norway which is 100 percent hydropower. Power emerging from Danish

wind turbines is stored by pumping water to the reservoirs backing up Norwegian

dams, and flows down them to supply electricity as needed. But the U.S. (and most

other nations) lack such a convenient resource, so some technology for storage, perhaps compressed air, or flywheels, or something entirely different, is needed. This

is just one example of needed research that isn’t being done, perhaps because the

question hasn’t been asked.

It must be realized at the outset that many ARPA–E projects will hit an obstacles

bad enough to terminate it. Beware on the other hand of giving up too early. Handson engineers are familiar with Murphy’s Law: ‘‘If something can go wrong, it will.’’

And progress often means a number of cycles of ‘‘build, break, fix, and build again.’’

Notice that I’m emphasizing the nuts and bolts of research, as opposed to forecasting its economics, which I confess to have little faith in. Politicians want a sure

thing. But however much we try, there will be uncertainty and random elements

at play. And still, we must stay the course.

Technology evolution resembles biological evolution in the sense that most

mutations are unfavorable. But without mutations evolution grinds to a halt. It only

takes one transistor to justify all of Bell Labs. Sadly, that private sector temple of

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applied science is a shadow of its former glory. Today, industrial R&D is expected

by large companies and venture capitalists to yield profits on a three-year time

scale, whereas DOE basic energy sciences is often most comfortable with ‘‘blue sky’’

projects 20 or more years from fruition to avoid conflict with industry. The result

is the well-known (by researchers) ‘‘Valley of Death’’ in the three- to 20-year payoff

range for which it may be virtually impossible to get support for a new idea from

either the private or public sector. This is the time frame ARPA–E should be targeting. I bring this up to illustrate that the program manager is crucial. She or he

must be technically astute and possessed of excellent judgment based on experience

(and compensated accordingly).

Can we build these elements into an exploratory energy R&D program? It was

to insure that U.S. stayed on top militarily that ARPA was born (now DARPA) with

a unique program management style aimed at creating new capabilities from

scratch, funding the most able investigators without prejudice wherever they might

be—universities, national labs, industry, entrepreneurs & inventive guys working

out of garage. So too should it be with ARPA–E. In many cases DARPA has created

technologies providing a hitherto undreamt of capability (like the Internet). As

someone who’s done it I can attest that military R&D supports far more imaginary

ideas than civilian. Of course there’s more money (and less oversight) there. The

‘‘black’’ space program is bigger than the ‘‘white’’ (NASA) one. Even with less revolutionary ideas, a performance improvement in some metric of many orders of magnitude improvement often a precondition for DARPA to be interested. The climate/

energy problem is important enough to do likewise.

Do such ideas exist in alternate energy? This September’s Scientific American in

their article ‘‘Plan B for Energy,’’ identifies several that are high risk & high payoff.

In no particular priority they are (Gibbs, 2006): nuclear fusion breeding of fissionable fuel from thorium, a potentially early payoff from a longer-term investment in

pure fusion; high-attitude wind turbines; space-based solar power, a technology in

which I and Representative Rohrabacher (R–CA) of the House Science Committee

share an interest (Rohrabacher and Weldon, 1998); nanotech solar cells; a global

supergrid, originally proposed by Buckminster Fuller; innovative wave and tidal energy; designer microbes, for such applications as enzymes to convert abundant cellulose to sugar, for fermentation to ethanol fuel. At this point R&D in many of these

areas—all of which could contribute in a major way to carbon-free power if successful—are either unsupported by DOE or any U.S. agency, or supported at too low

a level to break out in the next few years as worth pursuing with real money.

Some thoughts on funding levels and whether DOE as now constituted can do it:

A typical DARPA program is $300–$500 thousand in the first year and can go up

substantially as projects progress. Of course, many ideas will be cut early on as they

fail to make their targets and milestones or encounter problems the program manager considers showstoppers. It may be prudent to start with 100 projects at this

level by budgeting $30 to $50 million. It needs further discussion to decide whether

it would be better to continue support as projects grow in scale within ARPA–E, or

whether they should be transferred to DOE under its growing budget, which I hope

would include targeted Apollo-like programs for the most promising systems. One

such system shown in the inset proposed by aerospace researchers in Europe would

collect solar energy in geostationary orbit with solar cells and beam it by laser to

surface photovoltaic modules in north Africa, and thence northward by high voltage

Dc transmission line. The authors find, for plausible assumptions and available

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technology, that the entire electric load curve of Europe could be powered cost-effectively by such a system (Geuder et al., 2004). To some, but not I suspect Congressman Rohrabacher, this vision might seem too ‘‘far out.’’ Space launch costs may

seem presently too high, and so on. But the science is sound, and I, for one, can

only admire that Europeans and Japanese and others dream of a sustainably powered planet while we in the good old USA, the most technologically advanced nation

on Earth, seem intent on marching backward to the Coal Age.

I hope that we as a nation will regain our bearings, as we were on the right track

30 years ago. Just as Carter’s effort was gaining steam, Ronald Reagan became

President. Reagan ripped off the solar panels that Carter had put on the White

House roof while simultaneously dismantling Carter’s energy program based on the

disastrous ideology that the government has no role in technology and that only private sector should create energy technology by the market mechanism. Newt Gingrich and colleagues made a similar move when the GOP took control of Congress

in ’84 when they changed the name of the ‘‘House Committee on Science and Technology’’ to the ‘‘House Committee of Science.’’

What does our government have to do with future technology development? Almost everything. One thing I agree with in the recent Stern report on the economics

of global warming mitigation is that the market is broken. Too many costs and values aren’t being captured and consumers are anything but enlightened about their

energy self-interest. It may be the global warming is too complex for our puny homiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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nid minds. As a technological optimist I believe we can solve the climate/energy

problem in time with the right leadership. But leadership is key. To cite Proverbs

28:18, ‘‘When the vision fails, the people perish.’’

References

Caldeira, K, D. Day, W. Fulkerson, M. Hoffert (2005). ‘‘Climate Change Exploratory

Research (CCTER),’’ Climate Policy Center, Washington, DC; online at http://

www.cpc-inc.org/

Clayton, M. ‘‘New Coal Plants Bury Kyoto.’’ Christian Science Monitor, December

23, 2004.

Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. Rising Above the Gathering

Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.

Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2005: online at: http://

www.nap.edu/openbook/0309100399/html/122.html

Geuder, N., V. Quaschning, P. Viebahn, F. Steinsiek, J. Spies & C. Hendricks

(2004). ‘‘Comparison of Solar Terrestrial and Space Power Generation for Europe,’’ presented at 4th International Conference on Solar Power from Space—

SPS ’04, Granada, Spain, 30 June–2 July 2004.

Gibbs, W. (2006). ‘‘Plan B for Energy,’’ Scientific American, Sept. 2006, pp. 102–114.

Hansen et al. (2006). ‘‘Global Temperature Change,’’ Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences, PNAS published online Sept. 25, 2006 /pnas.0606291103;

pdf online at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/103/39/14288

Hoffert, M. (2006). ‘‘An Energy Revolution for the Greenhouse Century,’’ Social Research, Vol. 73, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 981–1000.

Marsh, B. (2003). ‘‘One Recipe for a (Mostly) Emissions-Free Economy,’’ New York

Times, Nov. 4, 2003.

Meeks, R.L. (2002). ‘‘Federal R&D Funding by Budget Function: Fiscal Years 2001–

03.’’ Special Report. National Science Foundation, Div. of Science Resources Statistics, Arlington, VA 22230. Full text online at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/

stats.htm

Nemet, G.F. & G.M. Kammen (2006). ‘‘U.S. Energy Research and Development: Declining Investment, Increasing Need, and Feasibility of Expansion,’’ Energy Policy (in press).

Rohrabacher, D. & D. Weldon (1998) ‘‘Support Space Solar Power,’’ Ad Astra: The

Magazine of the National Space Society, Jan/Feb 1998, pp. 22–23.

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Appendix 2:

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD

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STATEMENT OF UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION

United Technologies (UTC), based in Hartford, Connecticut, is a diversified company that provides high technology products and services to the aerospace and commercial building industries worldwide. UTC’s products include Otis elevators, escalators and people movers; Carrier heating, air conditioning and refrigeration systems; UTC Fire & Security fire safety and security products and services; UTC

Power fuel cells and on-site combined cooling, heating and power applications; Pratt

& Whitney aircraft engines; Hamilton Sundstrand aerospace systems; and Sikorsky

helicopters.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan (hereinafter, Strategic Plan) proposes a coordinated federal approach to

accelerate the development of advanced technologies in order to reduce greenhouse

gas emissions. To help combat climate change, UTC is working to reduce greenhouse

gases by reducing energy use in its operations and incorporating energy-efficient innovations in its products and services. Since 1992, UTC has set corporate-wide performance goals to reduce its environmental footprint worldwide in its factories, with

its suppliers and throughout its product line. UTC supports a sustained investment

in federal public-private partnerships for research, development, demonstration and

deployment (RDD&D) of greenhouse gas-reduction technologies. UTC agrees with

the DOE that it is essential to make wise RDD&D investments in order to expedite

innovative and cost-effective approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

UTC has a diverse portfolio of advanced technology solutions that enhance the energy efficiency of transportation applications as well as residential, commercial and

industrial buildings. We have chosen to focus this testimony on how we are working

to reduce emissions in the building environment. We look forward to expanding our

partnerships with the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to deploy

these technologies commercially in a timely and efficient manner.

The Building Environment—Opportunities and Needs

According to the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, the building sector is the

single largest consumer of energy in the United States, with residential, commercial

and industrial buildings producing approximately 43 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide

emissions. The generation and transmission of electricity for buildings account for

most of these emissions, but energy consumption by equipment and appliances is

also growing rapidly. In the long-term, buildings will continue to be a significant

contributor to energy demand. Increasing population, economic expansion and urban

development will create corresponding demand for more building appliances and

services. Therefore, it is essential that the DOE commit considerable resources to

fulfill its Strategic Plan Goal #1: to ‘‘reduce emissions from energy end-use and infrastructure,’’ including the buildings sector.

Energy conservation presents the most near-term opportunity to reduce both consumption and emissions and should be a high priority for our nation. Currently

available technologies can save considerable energy use in new buildings in a costeffective manner when evaluated on a life-cycle basis. New technologies are emerging that can lead to further cost-effective savings. The DOE’s current portfolio appropriately targets research on residential and commercial building equipment, including improved efficiency of heating, cooling, ventilating, thermal distribution,

microturbine and heat recovery systems. However, the RDD&D funding for these

existing technologies must be boosted in the near-term to advance more quickly the

transition to buildings that are net-zero greenhouse gas emitters and net-zero energy users.

The DOE’s portfolio also includes a strategy for advanced research on distributed

energy systems, including highly efficient combined cooling, heating and power systems that use waste heat from small-scale, on-site electricity generation to provide

heating and cooling for the buildings and export excess electricity to the grid. Stationary fuel cells for assured power also represent a significant opportunity for nearterm commercialization. Funding for these programs should be increased to accelerate the transition to a hydrogen economy. For example, implementation of the

2005 Energy Policy Act’s (EPAct) market transition provisions that authorize the

purchase of fuel cells for use in government buildings and fleets will help build volume and public awareness and signal the government’s endorsement of the technology. Similarly, extension of the existing two-year fuel cell investment tax credit

will provide greater certainty and market acceptance.

UTC agrees with the DOE that significant research opportunities exist in new

building design, retrofitting of existing buildings and integration of whole building

systems. We’d like to discuss three areas we believe to be worthy of a continued and

expanded RDD&D focus, given their applications to new and existing buildings and

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their potential for delivering cost-effective greenhouse gas emission reductions and

increased energy efficiency: integrated heating, ventilation and air conditioning; advanced combined heat and power systems, and; stationary fuel cells.

Integrated Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

The DOE has significant opportunities to expand work with industrial partners

to reduce energy consumption in commercial and residential buildings. The Energy

Information Administration (EIA) has attributed 33 percent of the primary energy

consumption in the United States to building space heating and cooling. There are

opportunities to reduce the energy consumed by buildings by increasing equipment

efficiency, exploiting integrated system designs, improving installation quality and

ensuring efficient operation throughout the product life cycle. A modest aggregate

increase in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) efficiency of only one

percent would provide direct economic benefits to taxpayers, enable reduction and

better management of electric utility grid demand and reduce dependence on fossil

fuels.

To realize these benefits, many new technology options must be evaluated to ensure their affordability and to demonstrate reliability. The speed of technology development and market insertion in HVAC is limited by the size of the investment.

At current funding levels and without increased funds to enable industrial partnerships, the DOE will miss significant opportunities to accelerate the impact of HVAC

technologies on energy consumption. The federal investment in HVAC RDD&D

should be increased in the near-term.

The DOE has established aggressive peak power and energy savings goals for

buildings, and the DOE’s Office of Building Technologies has defined roadmaps and

strategic plans for zero-energy buildings that produce as much energy as they consume. Consistent with those roadmaps, the HVAC industry, their suppliers, and the

DOE’s Buildings Technologies Program officers have engaged in cooperative discussions to implement a multi-year program plan that has already improved HVAC

equipment seasonal energy efficiency ratings (SEER) by 30% in January 2006. Additional annual investments in HVAC research could produce a return on investment

(energy saved per R&D dollar invested) on a par with, or in excess of, that of other

ongoing government-supported energy savings programs by 2020.

UTC is committed to overcoming technology and market barriers to enable reduced energy consumption. The net energy consumption of homes, offices, restaurants and retail stores can be reduced through a combination of technologies to

reach a 50 percent gain in air conditioning efficiency relative to the required 2006

standard. Additional work is needed to develop and demonstrate affordable high efficiency HVAC systems that are more than twice as efficient as the systems most

prevalent in the marketplace today. Some of the high-risk enabling technologies we

think will have high impact are:

• system control technologies that recognize user demand, comfort and habit

profiles along with the current ‘‘health/capability’’ of the HVAC equipment

while continuously optimizing system energy performance;

• wireless technologies to accelerate the market penetration of the needed controls and diagnostics technologies and wireless sensor technologies to simply

and more cheaply detect leaks;

• variable speed systems with intelligent controls to operate at peak efficiency

independent of load and ambient conditions;

• fault detection and diagnostics technologies to reduce or eliminate the loss of

system efficiency due to improper installation, poor maintenance and faulty

operation;

• high efficiency heat exchangers to improve HVAC efficiencies by reducing

losses in evaporators and condensers;

• technologies to advance air purification devices required for indoor air quality

control;

• integrated building system components to take advantage of otherwise wasted

resources and increase net building efficiency;

• heat pumps using carbon dioxide in residential systems that can be used for

hot-water on-demand and integrated to take advantage of waste heat from

HVAC;

• thermoelectric devices that use electrical energy to create thermal gradients

and/or electricity from waste heat;

• enhanced energy recovery ventilation technologies which allow increased natural ventilation rates at reduced energy consumption; and

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• increased use of geothermal for heating and cooling systems.

Advances in HVAC materials and device technology research will be needed if

these products are to be affordable and gain market acceptance. New HVAC devices

should be designed and deployed through an integrated building system to maximize returns.

Advanced CHP Systems

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 recognized distributed energy (DE) as an important

contributor to the enhancement of grid reliability and disaster recovery. Combined

heat and power (CHP) DE systems are the means to also obtain high efficiency. Increased investment is necessary to ensure that the DOE supports continuation of

vital RDD&D efforts to achieve CHP reliability, security and efficiency benefits.

CHP systems combine engines that generate electricity with thermal devices that

capture wasted engine heat (e.g., hot exhaust) and recycle it into an energy stream

useful to the owner. Engine choices include microturbines, small gas turbines and

reciprocating engines, while thermal components include heat exchangers to produce

hot air or water and absorption chillers to produce air conditioning. The desired

CHP is fully integrated to include these major components and the controls to ensure that the system operates predictably, reliably and safely.

Among the benefits of CHP systems are:

• CHP systems can operate in parallel with the grid to provide enhanced power

reliability and quality without new transmission or distribution infrastructure.

• CHP systems can operate independently of the grid to sustain critical services

(e.g., health care, communications, shelter, public safety) after natural or

man-made disasters.

• CHP systems recycle waste energy and put it to productive use for heating

and cooling, doubling fuel utilization efficiency as compared to central power

and increasing customer benefit from each cubic foot of natural gas consumed.

CHP systems can also use renewable fuel.

• Efficient CHP technologies decrease emission of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases.

• CHP relieves grid congestion directly and provides power not only to remote

sites, but also to any constrained area, avoiding investment for new grid

wires in cities and beyond the ‘‘end of the line.’’

• A public-private partnership has successfully developed technology for a firstgeneration packaged system from which trial grocery, hotel and educational

sites are benefiting. Additional RDD&D is required for advanced technology

CHP systems and their enabling technologies to achieve greater system efficiency and reliability, multiple and simultaneous thermal streams and robust

operation for isolated communities and disaster relief.

Stationary Fuel Cells

In 2003, President Bush expanded federally supported fuel cell technology development to help meet our growing demand for energy. The Energy Policy Act of 2005

expanded fuel cells’ potential to address energy dependence, improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. UTC Power, a UTC company, is the

only company in the world that develops and produces fuel cells for applications in

each major market: on-site power, transportation and space flight applications. UTC

Power is also the world leader in the development of innovative combined cooling,

heating and power applications in the distributed energy market. We believe the

need for a continued role by the Federal Government in the commercialization of

fuel cell technology is vital and cannot be overstated.

Fuel cells provide an opportunity to address a variety of U.S. energy needs including reducing dependence on foreign oil; delivering assured, high quality reliable

power; decreasing toxic air and greenhouse gas emissions; and improving energy efficiency. We do not see any ‘‘show stopper’’ technical barriers to the advancement

of fuel cells, but continued U.S. commitment to research, development, demonstration and market transition initiatives are essential to reduce cost, improve durability and enhance performance. Hydrogen storage and infrastructure requirements

represent challenging obstacles for transportation applications, but near-term opportunities exist with stationary fuel cells for assured power and fleet vehicles such as

transit buses.

We believe government plays an absolutely central role in establishing the rules,

creating the incentives and adopting the requirements necessary to build a new

market that encourages customers and electric distribution companies to invest in

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efficient, clean energy options that will increase our nation’s energy independence

and security through environmentally-benign means. Government is also an important customer because its vast purchasing power can help increase volume and reduce costs to levels more competitive with traditional energy sources.

Fuel cells are available today for the stationary and fleet markets. Near-term successes are required to create public awareness and acceptance, establish a viable

supplier base and stimulate continued investment. The EPAct provides the basic

framework for a comprehensive strategic focus, but a sustained national commitment to robust funding will be critical to our success. Hurricane Katrina reconstruction efforts represent an opportunity to deploy fuel cells in schools to serve as emergency shelters, hospitals and other critical infrastructure facilities to demonstrate

their ability to provide sustainable energy for assured power requirements.

Our dependence on imported oil is well-documented and personal automobiles consume the lion’s share of it. Deployment of fuel cell vehicles powered by renewable

sources of hydrogen can break our dependence on imported oil and, at the same

time, take transportation out of the environmental debate. The auto market also

represents the highest-volume market, which is another reason this sector has received so much attention. But fuel cell vehicles for private use in meaningful quantities are a decade away since they represent the most demanding application in

terms of cost, packaging and infrastructure. Existing electrical infrastructure and

state and federal regulations create hurdles for any form of base load distributed

generation to overcome.

Stationary fuel cells have less demanding requirements and can compete at costs

higher than those required by autos. Concentrating on these applications would enhance our ability to establish a profitable industry today and create stepping stones

to the most demanding longer-term auto application. Few companies can survive the

next ten years waiting for the high volumes offered by the car market. Instead, they

must find applications where profits can be realized today that will support the development of a strong industrial base in preparation for the future auto market.

Success in these early applications can build the necessary public awareness and

public confidence.

Since fuel cells can be deployed at the point of use and are not reliant on the vulnerable transmission and distribution assets of the grid, customers can benefit from

the ability to capture waste heat and put it to constructive use for space heating,

domestic hot water heating and industrial processes. Our units operating in the

combined heat and power mode can operate at 85–90 percent efficiency, generating

energy savings that can reduce the cost of electricity by four to five cents per kilowatt hour. The cost of UTC Power’s fuel cell power plants is currently around

$4,500 per kilowatt, but at volumes of 500 units per year and with the aggressive

cost reduction efforts we have underway, we expect our next generation technology

to be competitive at less than $2,000 per kW.

In short, technology development barriers for technology fuel cells are being addressed at a rapid pace. On a small scale, we can meet the identified requirements

and we don’t envision any formidable show stoppers. This doesn’t mean, however,

that we don’t need to continue our public-private partnership research, development

or demonstration efforts. We strongly endorse the continuation of these activities

and increased financial commitment to accelerate the progress we have made in the

last few years.

The basic concepts of fuel cell technology have been proven. Our task now is to

enhance key performance characteristics (such as durability); reduce costs; validate

the technology in real world operating conditions; identify hidden failure modes

through extended operation; and then identify and incorporate cost-effective solutions.

Three strategies are necessary for cost reduction:

• Internal programs to reduce cost through material substitution, longer life

parts, and fewer parts. Examples include less expensive membranes, better

seals, reduced use of platinum, enhanced performance materials for bipolar

plates and reduced system complexity.

• Improved manufacturing processes to eliminate labor-intensive processes and

identify high-volume manufacturing solutions; and

• Incentives to help increase volume, and thereby spread costs over a larger

product base.

A comprehensive national strategy is needed to achieve fuel cell commercialization. Last year’s enactment of the EPAct establishes such a framework, but more

work needs to be done. Budget requests and appropriation figures for this year fall

far short of levels authorized by Congress. We recognize there are tight budget conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 21:04 Jan 02, 2007 Jkt 029851 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\ENER06\092006\29851 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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straints, but given the benefits of fuel cell technology and the price we pay today

for imported oil, health costs associated with poor air quality and lost productivity

due to lack of reliable power, substantial increases in fuel cell technology investment represent a fiscally sound strategy.

Energy Efficiency Buildings Project

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has formed the Energy

Efficient Buildings project, an alliance of leading global companies to determine how

buildings can be designed and constructed so they are energy- and carbon-neutral

and can be built and operated at fair market values. The industry effort is led by

UTC, one of the world’s largest suppliers of capital goods including elevators, cooling/heating and on-site power systems to the commercial building industry, and

Lafarge Group, the world leader in building materials including cement, concrete,

aggregates, gypsum and roofing.

The effort to transform the way buildings are conceived, constructed, operated and

dismantled has ambitious targets: by 2050 new buildings will consume zero net energy from external power supplies and produce zero net carbon dioxide emissions

while being economically viable to construct and operate. Constructing buildings

that use no net energy from power grids will require a combination of on-site power

generation and ultra-efficient building materials and equipment.

To spur industry-wide investment in climate change technologies, governments

must commit to a sustained, robust investment in public-private partnerships for

RDD&D, financial incentives and market transition initiatives. Some of these technologies are already under development by UTC, including collaborative information

tools that facilitate energy-efficient and economically viable buildings; technologies

that increase heating/cooling system performance and efficiency; information infrastructures that better manage fire and security systems; elevator-regenerable power

drives; and advanced, clean energy technologies for on-site power co-generation.

With stronger federal support for such RDD&D activities, the technologies needed

for a self-sufficient, energy-efficient building are right around the corner.

Conclusion

Shareholder value comes in part from research and development. UTC spends approximately $2.9 billion annually, 90 percent of that in the United States, to develop

tomorrow’s technologies. Each UTC business makes certain that their products and

services are the most innovative and technologically advanced in the world. The

United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) is an incubator for UTC products, researching energy and environmental innovations to assist UTC in developing, and

then building, new products for the next generation. Whether it’s conducting research on hydrogen production and storage technologies, inventing ways to heat and

cool more efficiently or improving jet engine design and efficiency, UTRC provides

valuable technical experience to further UTC’s pursuit of better environmental quality in its products. Genuine corporate responsibility requires that we make environmental considerations priorities in new product development and investment decisions. By creating products that use less energy and help lower greenhouse gases

that contribute to climate change, we can differentiate our products in an increasingly environmentally conscious global marketplace.

We are pleased to see that the DOE Strategic Plan seeks to expand partnerships

with the business community in research and development planning, program execution and technology demonstrations, leading to more efficient and timely commercial deployment of greenhouse gas-reducing and energy-efficient technologies. UTC

regularly forms partnerships with the Federal Government to encourage greenhouse

gas emission reductions and meet energy efficiency goals. As an EPA Climate Leaders partner, UTC pledged to reduce its global greenhouse gas emissions by 16 percent per dollar of revenue from 2001 to 2007. As an EPA Energy Star member, we

are helping Americans save energy and avoid greenhouse gas emissions by providing energy-efficient products in residential and commercial settings. UTC Power

is a member of the EPA CHP Partnership, a public-private endeavor committed to

providing clean, efficient power and thermal energy and reducing pollutants and

greenhouse gases.

We thank the House Science Committee for giving us the opportunity to share our

thoughts on the DOE Strategic Plan and some steps that need to be taken to ‘‘stimulate and strengthen the scientific and technological enterprise of the United States,

through improved coordination and prioritization of multi-agency federal climate

change technology R&D programs and investment. . ..’’

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STATEMENT OF DANIEL M. KAMMEN

Professor in the Energy and Resources Group (ERG); Professor of Public Policy

in the Goldman School of Public Policy; Co-Director, Berkeley Center for the Environment; Director, Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), University of California, Berkeley

Introduction

Chairwoman Biggert and Members of the House Committee on Science, I am

grateful for the opportunity today to speak with you on the critical issue of the

United States’ approach to the great challenges that climate change presents our

nation and the planet. At the heart of my comments is the finding that leadership

in protecting the environment and improving our economic and political security can

be achieved not at a cost, but through political and economic gain to the Nation in

the form of reasserted leadership both technologically and financially, through increased geopolitical stability and flexibility, and through job growth in the ‘clean energy’ sector.

I hold the Class of 1935 Distinguished Chair in Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, where I am a Professor in the Energy and Resources Group, the

Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Department of Nuclear Engineering. I am

the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, an

interdisciplinary research unit that explores a diverse set of energy technologies

through scientific, engineering, economic and policy issues. I am also the Co-Director of the University of California, Berkeley Institute of the Environment. I have

served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and have testified before both U.S. House and Senate Committees on the science of regional and

global climate change, and on the technical and economic status and the potential

of a wide range of energy systems, notably renewable and energy efficiency technologies for use in both developed and developing nations. I am the author of over

160 research papers, and five books, most of which can be found online at http:/

/socrates.berkeley.edu/∼rael.

In July of last year the Honorable R. John Efford, the then Minister of Natural

Resources Canada, announced my appointment, as the only U.S. citizen, to serve on

the Canadian National Advisory Panel on the Sustainable Energy Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy. The Panel provides advice on energy science and technology

priorities to help Canada develop sustainable energy solutions, and is tasked to

produce a document similar in objectives to the Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan, which we are here today to discuss.

Overview of Climate Change and Innovation in the Energy Sector

As described in the CCTP Strategic Plan climate change presents our nation with

a serious, long-term challenge. Central to the difficulty of this challenge is that reducing the risks posed by climate change will require us to transform the largest

industry on the planet, the energy industry. Energy is important, not only for its

direct contribution to ten percent of economic output by our nation’s private sector,

but also as the fundamental enabling infrastructure for an array of economic activities, from manufacturing to agriculture to health care. The availability of reliable

and affordable energy should not be taken for granted. The challenges of renewing

the U.S. energy infrastructure to enhance economic and geopolitical security and

prevent global climate change are particularly acute, and depend on the improvement of existing technologies as well as the invention, development, and commercial

adoption of emerging ones. Recent trends in the energy sector—which show declining levels of technology investment and innovation—heighten the need for an aggressive response (Appendix A). The CCTP provides a tremendous opportunity to reverse this trend, open up new technological options, and stimulate economic growth

through the development of a new clean energy-based sector of the economy. Key

strengths of the CCTP Strategic Plan are its leadership by the President, the acknowledgement of the long-term nature of the problem, and the breadth of its technology portfolio. Yet the CCTP Strategic Plan, in its current draft, is seriously

flawed. The goal that it seeks to reach, and the basis on which we are here to evaluate it today, is far too modest; it is not commensurate with the magnitude of the

challenges we face and not reflective of our nation’s capacity for innovation. This

testimony will outline the magnitude of effort that will be required, an overview of

the innovation environment in the energy sector, and recommendations for improvement.

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The Nation’s climate technology program should be based on a goal that reduces emissions

The most significant shortcoming of the CCTP strategic plan is that the goal it

seeks to reach is not commensurate with the magnitude of the challenges posed by

climate change and other energy-related problems. In evaluating the CCTP strategic

plan one must first seriously consider what goal it is trying to achieve. To avoid the

adverse impacts of climate change we will need to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This will require real reductions in the amount of

carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we emit. As the strategic plan itself

asserts:

Stabilizing GHG concentrations, at any atmospheric concentration level, implies

that global additions of GHGs to the atmosphere and global withdrawals of

GHGs from the atmosphere must come into a net balance. This means that

growth of net emissions of GHGs would need to slow, eventually stop, and then

reverse, so that, ultimately, net emissions would approach levels that are low

or near zero.’’ (p 2–2)

However, today we are here to evaluate the program based on its ability to meet

the Administration’s emissions intensity target of an 18 percent reduction in GHG

intensity by 2012. Throughout this testimony, I will argue that a major flaw in the

CCTP plan is that it is designed to meet a goal that is wholly inadequate to the

challenge we face. Only when we take this challenge seriously will we be able to

meaningfully mobilize our nation’s scientific, technological, and economic resources

to meet it, as well as to reap the benefits of international leadership in the clean

and sustainable energy sector.

The need to reduce uncertainties in current climate science around climate sensitivity and expected impacts is often cited as a reason for delaying commitments to

emissions reductions. Yet, the plan is correct in pointing out that scientific uncertainty is neither a valid justification nor a wise strategy for choosing to delay. In

fact, there is not much uncertainty about the basic problem and its magnitude. Estimates done at Lawrence Livermore National Lab of carbon emissions which assume

we find a way to reduce emissions to zero by 2050 while meeting energy service demands—i.e., very conservative estimates—will still almost certainly result in CO2

levels exceeding 550 ppm in the atmosphere, if not more. Given that the CO2 level

is now 380 ppm—30 percent higher than it has been at any point in the last 650,000

years—we are essentially conducting an unprecedented experiment with the Earth.

Despite the long time horizons of the climate change problem, the availability of carbon-free energy technologies is a relatively urgent matter because the 100-year residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, the 30- to 50-year lifetime of capital stock

in the energy industry, and the typical decades-long diffusion curve for infrastructure-related technologies are to varying extents outside of our control. The response

to this combination of uncertainty and urgency should be a commitment to the creation of a multitude of new technological options, not a timid approach that narrows

the range of possibilities at our disposal in the future.

In contrast, meeting the Administration’s current target will require only a slight

change from the business as usual case (Figure 1) (EPA 2005). More relevant to the

climate problem, reaching this target would actually allow emissions to grow by 12

to 16 percent. This target would thus represent a larger increase than the 10 percent increase that occurred in the previous decade. If we are to be serious about

meeting the climate challenge we need to set a goal consistent with the CCTP’s objective of moving toward zero net emissions. While the Kyoto Protocol has its flaws,

its targets do represent a substantial shift toward reducing emissions. Similarly, the

Governor of California’s GHG emissions targets announced last summer include

both near-term and longer-term goals that delineate a path of emissions reductions

toward climate stabilization. The administration should set a series of targets that

show a clear path to emissions reductions.

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Figure 1 shows actual U.S. GHG emissions from 1990 through 2003 (EPA 2005)

in giga-tons of carbon equivalent. Four future paths for future U.S. emissions are

shown; circles show the business-as-usual (BAU), or ‘‘reference case,’’ as calculated

by the Energy Information Agency (EIA). The diamond shows the Administration’s

GHG intensity target for 2012 of 18 percent below 2002 level in tons of carbon per

unit of GDP, or a 3.6 percent reduction in emissions from BAU. The squares show

U.S. emissions if the Nation were to meet the percentage reductions that have been

announced in California for 2010, 2020, and 2050 (California Executive Order 3–05,

and California AB32, the ‘‘Pavley-Nun ̃ ez Bill). The triangle shows the U.S.’s target

for 2010 under the Kyoto Protocol. Arrows indicate the levels required to meet the

CCTP’s long-term goal of ‘‘levels that are low or near zero’’ (p. 2–2).

What is needed is a serious and sustained commitment to emissions reductions

and a time scale that conveys to the country the urgency of the need to open future

options. Much as President Nixon’s announcement of a program in the early-1970s

to reduce reliance on foreign oil stimulated efforts by the private sector to invest

in alternative energy sources, the articulation of a bold and clear target for emissions reductions would send a signal to the private sector that would leverage the

Federal Government’s direct investments in new technologies.

Raising climate technology investment to adequate levels

In recent work, we calculated the investment in R&D required to reach a climate

stabilization level of 550 ppm, a level that would double the amount of GHG in the

atmosphere relative to that at the beginning of industrialization in the eighteenth

century. Using emissions scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change and a previous framework for estimating the climate-related savings from

energy R&D programs (Schock et al., 1999), we calculate that U.S. energy R&D

spending of $15–$30 billion/year would be sufficient to stabilize CO2 at double preindustrial levels (see Appendix for calculations). A strategy that employs a diversified portfolio approach to manage technological uncertainty is diluted quickly when

funding levels are five to ten times below their socially optimal levels.

The plan itself states, ‘‘successful development of advanced technologies could result in potentially large economic benefits’’(p. 3–28). As an example of the effect of

policy on abatement costs, we can observe how a combination of R&D and demandside policy has stimulated cost reductions in energy technologies (Duke and

Kammen, 1999, Margolis and Kammen, 1999). For example, solar cells, known as

photovoltaics, have declined in cost by more than a factor of 20 and wind turbines

by a factor of 10. Accelerating future cost reductions in these and other technologies

will require further investments in technology development and market creation.

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Climate change programs would address other problems as well

An important finding in ours and previous work on energy R&D is that many of

the same programs that would help abate the climate problem would address other

societal problems too. Adoption of improved zero emissions energy production and

end-use technologies would offset the adverse health effects associated with emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. Increased use of renewables-based power and fuels would reduce our sensitivity to energy production in politically unstable regions. A more distributed power system based on smaller scale

production would enhance the robustness of the electricity system and reduce dangerous and costly power outages. And a more diverse mix of technologies and fuels

would lessen the macro-economic effects of rapid changes in energy prices.

Comparing a major R&D initiative on climate to past programs

In our recent work we have asked how feasible it would be to raise investment

to levels commensurate with the energy-related challenges we face. One way to consider the viability of such a project is to set the magnitude of such a program in

the context of previous programs that this committee has participated in launching

and monitoring. Scaling up R&D by five or ten times from current levels is not a

‘pie in the sky’ proposal, in fact it is consistent with the scale of several previous

federal programs (Table 1), each of which took place in response to a clearly articulated national need. While expanding energy R&D to five or ten times today’s level

would be a significant initiative, the fiscal magnitude of such a program is well

within the range of previous programs, each of which have produced demonstrable

economic benefits beyond the direct program objectives.

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Declining investment in energy R&D

My students and I have documented a disturbing trend away from investment in

energy technology—both by the Federal Government and the private sector (Figure

3). The U.S. invests about $1 billion less in energy R&D today than it did a decade

ago. This trend is remarkable, first because the levels in the mid-1990s had already

been identified as dangerously low, and second because, as our analysis indicates,

the decline is pervasive—across almost every energy technology category, in both

the public and private sectors, and at multiple stages in the innovation process. In

each of these areas investment has been either been stagnant or declining. Moreover, the decline in investment in energy has occurred while overall U.S. R&D has

grown by six percent per year, and federal R&D investments in health and defense

have grown by 10 to 15 percent per year, respectively.

By looking at individual energy technologies, we have found that in case after

case, R&D investment spurs invention. For example, in the case of wind power patenting follows the wild swings in R&D budgets (Figure 4).

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A further concern regards U.S. competitiveness in these increasingly important

technologies. For example, a glance at other nations’ investments in new renewable

energy technology shows the U.S. playing a secondary role (see Appendix C). Both

Europe and Japan are investing more in R&D for renewable energy. Moreover, they

have established leading companies in the fast growing wind and solar industries.

Our economic competitiveness in these increasingly important sectors hinges on our

commitment to investing in new technologies.

Finally, the drug and biotechnology industry provides a revealing contrast to the

trends seen in energy. Although energy R&D exceeded that of the biotechnology industry 20 years ago, today R&D investment by biotechnology firms is an order of

magnitude larger than that of energy firms (Figure 5). Today, total private sector

energy R&D is less than the R&D budgets of individual biotech companies such as

Amgen and Genentech.

Addressing the Committee’s questions

I now address specific questions posed by the Committee.

To what extent will the draft strategic plan meet the Administration’s goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emission intensity (the amount of emissions per unit of production) by 18 percent by the year 2012?

In responding to this question, it is important to make clear how small a change

is necessary for the Nation to meet the Administration’s GHG intensity goal for

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2012. In Figure 6 we compare the President’s climate change goal to the businessas-usual reference case established by the EIA. In order to achieve the President’s

goal, a reduction of 3.6 percent, or 66 million tons of carbon equivalent, would be

required below the BAU projection. To put this amount in perspective, this change

could be accomplished by switching about 100 of our nation’s 1500 coal burning

power plants to natural gas. New technology would make such a switch easier. But

we could accomplish such a change with no research program at all with a relatively

modest change in only one sector. If an array of changes were implemented throughout the energy sector, to include end-use and transportation, meeting the carbon intensity goal would be even easier. Meeting other goals such as the Kyoto Protocol

or stabilization at levels of 450 or 550 ppm would require much larger changes, including widespread deployment of technologies described in the Strategic Plan.

Figure shows the carbon intensity of the U.S. economy (in gC-equivalent/2000$GDP).

The historical trend is shown from 1975 to 2002, with the EIA’s ‘‘business as usual’

(BAU) projection to 2025. Also shown are is the President’s 2002 goal of an 18 percent reduction in carbon intensity below the 2002 level by 2012 and the Kyoto Protocol’s goal of a seven percent reduction in carbon emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

Additionally, the world ‘‘WRE stabilization pathways,’’ named for the authors of a

paper in Nature that has become a frequently used basis for carbon stabilization concentrations (see references), are used to calculate projected world average carbon intensity in 2020 for the 450 ppmv and 550 ppmv stabilization levels. In order to

achieve Bush’s goal, a reduction of 3.6 percent, or 66 million tons of carbon equivalent, would be required below the BAU projection. By contrast, in order to achieve

the Kyoto Protocol’s goal, a reduction of 33 percent, or 613 million tons of carbon

equivalent, would be required. Note also that the WRE projections are world averages, which means that if enough other countries had carbon intensities higher than

these values, it is possible that the U.S. would have to reduce carbon intensity to

below these values.

Does the Administration’s strategic plan provide clear, unambiguous resource allocation guidance for the government’s climate change technology R&D portfolio?

The plan’s description of each technology program, including each program’s overall strategy, current status, and future directions, does provide insight into the

where resources will need to be allocated in order to bring programs toward commercially viable products. The broad array of technological options is an impressive

feature of the plan. However, it is difficult to reconcile this rich and diverse technology portfolio with the budget summary in Appendix A.3. First, the plan does not

clearly and unambiguously describe how each of the dozens of technology programs

are to be funded. The budgets are listed at the level of the funding agency which

gives little direction, for example, as to how much should be invested in biofuels

versus carbon capture and sequestration. Second, it is difficult to imagine how a

budget of slightly over three billion dollars per year can be used to fund the array

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of activities described in the plan at more than a trivial level. Real progress in programs such as fusion facilities and demonstrations of geological storage will require

construction of facilities that will range in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Funding a wide array of programs at relatively equal levels will ensure that

these levels are low. A real danger exists that this funding will remain below critical

thresholds for mobilizing needed technological improvements. If there is a

prioritization of the programs that will allocate significant funds to a few key areas,

it is not evident in the current public draft of the plan. Finally, a troubling omission

is that the plan contains no budgets beyond 2006. This extremely short timeline for

the budgets contained in the plan lies in stark contrast to the well-specified descriptions at the beginning of the document about the long-term nature of the problem

and the time it will take to develop the technological solutions to address it. The

lack of clarity here is especially damaging because the absence of a longer-term commitment sends an unnecessarily ambiguous signal to the private sector dampening

the effect of the virtuous cycle that can emerge from government investment in

R&D and subsequent investment by the private sector.

Does the draft strategic plan appropriately balance the research needs that will enable the country to take short-, medium- and long-term actions to limit our greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to any anticipated effects of climate change?

The strategic plan makes good use of emissions scenarios in its treatment of technology timing. On page 3–28, the plan makes the crucial point that the slow turnover of capital stock in the energy sector implies that technologies that need to

achieve widespread deployment by mid-century will need to reach commercial readiness well before that, maybe even decades earlier. This infrastructural inertia combined with natural lags in the flows of GHG in the ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere creates an urgency that belies the long-time scales involved in the climate

problem.

The ‘‘roadmap’’ in Figure 10-1 is a helpful visualization of the staged deployment

of technology programs within the plan. Perhaps the most important text in Chapter

10 is the phrase ‘‘significant deployment.’’ Offsetting GHG emissions with new technologies requires widespread deployment of low and zero-carbon technologies. This

need for broad adoption of the technologies at issue really brings into question the

adequacy of our near-term response to the problem. For example, achieving widespread deployment of hydrogen fuel cell automobiles in the 2025 to 2045 period, as

the plan recommends, means that a significant number of those vehicles would need

to begin entering the market ten years from today when a viable hydrogen fueling

infrastructure would need to be in place. Significant deployment by 2035 means almost all new vehicles would need to be fuel cell vehicles by 2025, which implies that

a large number of commercially available models would be available by 2015. Yet

the plan’s goal for 2015 is merely to achieve reliability and cost targets in demonstration projects.

The roadmap is a succinct outline of the sequencing of the technology programs.

What is missing is a clearer path for how these technologies emerge from modestly

funded research programs, to demonstration, to early commercial applications, to

rapid adoption, to the end goal, which is widespread deployment. As an example of

what such a path might look lie, my students and I have produced a detailed analysis that shows how we can ‘‘decarbonize’’ the vehicles and electricity sectors

through a small set of specific policies. We provide these illustrative scenarios in

Appendix D, and note that work underway place in the Energy and Environment

Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under the leadership of Dr.

Jane Long is coming to similar conclusions.

Two important considerations: incentives for high-payoff research and

commercialization

I would like to emphasize two additional important aspects of a substantially enhanced climate technology program. First, special emphasis may be needed to create

incentives for high risk, high payoff research. We refer to a section within a recent

National Academies report on this topic. And second, development efforts to hasten

commercialization need to be included as well so that research programs acknowledge the need for demand-side incentives too.

This past fall, the National Academy of Science released an important report that

raised the issue of American technological competitiveness and provided recommendations for improving the country’s capacity for innovation (Augustine, 2005).

That report focused on the two fundamental issues that, in the opinion of its panel

of experts, challenge our country’s technical competence:

• Creating high quality jobs for Americans, and

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• The need for clean, affordable, and reliable energy.

Setting energy-related challenges at the top of our country’s science and technology agenda is an important step and fits well with the situation outlined in the

rest of this testimony. The recommendations in this study are admirable for their

breadth including suggestions for K–12 education, basic research, university training, and incentives for innovation. Of particular interest to this committee is the

panel’s vision of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for energy,

‘‘ARPA–E.’’ Such a program would fund ‘‘high-risk research to meet the Nation’s

long-term energy challenges’’ including universities, existing firms, and start-up

ventures. The flexibility and independence of the DARPA model are key attributes

that such a program seeks to emulate. Establishing an adequately funded organization like this would be a powerful commitment to securing our nation’s energy future much as the way DARPA has done for our military power.

Important details to consider in setting up such an agency include ensuring that

the demand-side of the problem is addressed as well. The military is unique in that

the technologies being developed are created for a single customer under public sector control. Decision-making and technology adoption in the energy sector are much

more dispersed and are deeply impacted by market forces as well as regulation. As

a result, an ARPA–E program would need to be more cognizant of the demand-side

of the innovation process in order to bring high-risk, high-payoff energy technologies

to widespread adoption. This may include more emphasis on collaboration and technology transfer activity between the government and the private sector. Prior work

on federal energy R&D, such as the PCAST studies (PCAST, 1997, 1999), has emphasized the importance of designing programs and policies that provide pathways

for technologies that emerge from R&D programs to find full-scale commercial applications. The notion of the ‘‘valley of death’’ is based on the observation that technologies that succeed in proceeding from research to development to demonstration

face important new obstacles in becoming viable commercial products. Technologies

at this stage are often one-of-a-kind demonstrations and have not been built at full

scale, large volume manufacturing problems need to be solved, and reliability must

be demonstrated to skeptical customers. Past experience shows that technological

success is not sufficient to bring new energy technologies to market. The challenges

of scaling up, investing in manufacturing and distribution, building institutional capacity, and customer education need to be addressed as well. Past energy R&D programs may have put too little emphasis on this critical stage and a large new initiative needs to address these issues as well if the United States is to take full advantage of the benefits that emerge from the research programs. For example, public

funding may need to be allocated for demonstration projects that stimulate learning

effects, prove the viability of unfamiliar technologies, and mediate the risks to early

adopters.

Common misconceptions about an aggressive energy R&D program

Some have expressed skepticism about the need for a national program for highpayoff energy R&D. Here I’d like to point out important misconceptions behind five

criticisms of such a program:

1. ‘‘Energy research is already well funded by private firms.’’ Our figures shown

above show that this is clearly not the case, as R&D investment by private

firms has fallen by 50 percent in the past decade and R&D intensity by energy firms is a factor of 10 below the U.S. average.

2. ‘‘Public sector R&D will crowd-out private sector R&D.’’ For the economy as

a whole, the evidence for this assertion is mixed at best (David et al., 2000).

In the energy sector, there is so little private energy R&D that could be

crowded out that this problem is small if it exists at all.

3. ‘‘Venture capital will identify promising opportunities in the energy sector.’’

The emergence of VC investment in the energy sector has been encouraging.

However, this is overwhelmingly for late-stage technologies with the potential for widespread adoption within three to five years.

4. ‘‘Government programs would pick winners rather than let markets decide.’’

In early stage technologies, when uncertainty is high and risks are large, the

best strategy is making a diverse set of uncorrelated investments. This strategy is best seen as placing multiple bets, not picking winners.

5. ‘‘Emulating the success of DARPA for an ARPA–E program does not make

sense because Department of Energy research programs are more productive

than DARPA’s.’’ It is extremely difficult to measure the productivity of the

early stage research that DARPA funds. R&D productivity measures that

focus on the direct and easy-to-measure benefits of new technologies, tend to

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underestimate the benefits of public R&D. For example, how would we assess the worthiness of DARPA’s funding of research on semiconductors in the

1940s and 1950s and the Internet in the 1970s?

Recommendations

• Make Energy and the Environment a Core Area of Education in the

United States. Public interest and action on energy and environmental

themes requires attention to make us ‘eco-literate and economically savvy.’

We must develop in both K–12 and college education a core of instruction in

the linkages between energy and both our social and natural environment.

The Upward Bound Math-Science Program and the Summer Science Program

each serve as highly successful models that could be adapted to the theme

of energy for a sustainable society at all educational levels. The launch of

Sputnik in 1957 mobilized U.S. science and technology to an unprecedented

extent, and should serve as a lesson in how powerful a use-inspired drive to

educate and innovate can become. The Spring 2005 Yale Environment Survey

found overwhelming interest in energy and environmental sustainability.

Contrast that interest with the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) where American secondary school students

ranked 19th out of 21 countries surveyed in both math and science general

knowledge. The United States can and should reverse this trend, and sustaining our natural heritage and greening the global energy system is the

right place to begin.

• Establish a Set of Energy Challenges Worthy of Federal Action. Establish Sustainable Energy USA awards—modeled after the successful efforts of

the Ashoka Innovators awards for social entrepreneurs and the Ansari X

Prize initially given for space vehicle launch—that inspire and mobilize our

remarkable resources of academia, industry, civil society, and government.

These initiatives would support and encourage groups to take action on pressing challenges. An initial set of challenges include:

Æ Buildings that cleanly generate significant portions of their own energy

needs (‘zero energy buildings’);

Æ Commercial production of 100 mile per gallon vehicles, as can be

achieved today with prototype plug-in hybrids using a low-carbon generation technologies accessed over the power grid, or direct charging by renewably generated electricity, and efficient biofuel vehicles operating on

ethanol derived from cellulosic feedstocks.

Æ Zero Energy Appliances (Appliances that generate their own power).

Æ ‘Distributed Utilities’; challenges and milestones for utilities to act as

markets for clean power generated at residences, businesses, and industries.

• Make the Nation the Driver of Clean Vehicle Deployment. As the Zero

Emission Vehicle Mandate and the Pavley Bill (AB 1493) have shown in California, dramatic improvements in vehicle energy efficiency and reductions in

carbon emissions are eminently achievable, given political leadership. A clear

message, as well as dramatic carbon and financial savings, would come from

a decision to only purchase for state transportation needs vehicles meeting a

high energy efficiency target, such as 40 miles per gallon for sedans and 30

miles per gallon for utility vehicles. These standards are now possible thanks

to improvements in vehicle efficiencies and the wider range of hybrids (including SUV models) now available. A key aspect of such a policy is to announce

from the outset that the standards will rise over time, and to issue a challenge to industry that a partnership to meet these targets will benefit their

bottom line and our nation.

• Expand International Collaborations that Benefit Developing Nations

at a Carbon Benefit. The needs of many developing nations are focused on

the challenges meet fundamental economic and environment goals for their

people. At the same time, these are our goals as well, both as a nation that

must lead the charge to a sustainable and equitable world, and as citizens

of a world where we share the rights and responsibilities to protect the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases emitted anywhere impact us all, not only today

but for decades to come. In many cases, tremendous opportunities exist to offset future greenhouse gas emissions and to protect local ecosystems both at

very low cost, but also to directly address critical development needs such as

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sustainable fuel sources, the provision of affordable electricity, health, and

clean water. My laboratory has recently detailed the local development,

health, and the global carbon benefits of research programs and partnerships

on improved stoves and forestry practices (Bailis, Ezzati, and Kammen, 2005)

across Africa. Far from an isolated example, such opportunities exist everywhere, with the recent wave of interest in ‘sustainability science’ (Jacobson

and Kammen, 2005) a resource, aid, and business opportunity that the U. S.

should embrace.

• Recognize and Reflect Economically the Value of Energy Investment

to the Economy. Clean energy production—through investments in energy

efficiency and renewable energy generation—has been shown to be a winner

in terms of spurring innovation and job creation. This should be reflected in

federal economic assessments of energy and infrastructure investment.

Grants to states, particularly those taking the lead on clean energy systems,

should be at heart of the federal role in fostering a new wave of ‘cleantech’

innovation in the energy sector.

• Begin a Serious Federal Discussion of Market-Based Schemes to

Make the Price of Carbon Emissions Reflect Their Social Cost. A carbon tax and a tradable permit program both provide simple, logical, and

transparent methods to permit industries and households to reward clean energy systems and tax that which harms our economy and the environment.

Cap and trade schemes have been used with great success in the U.S. to reduce other pollutants and several northeastern states are experimenting with

greenhouse gas emissions trading. Taxing carbon emissions to compensate for

negative social and environmental impacts would offer the opportunity to simplify the national tax code while remaining, if so desired, essentially revenue

neutral. A portion of the revenues from a carbon tax could also be used to

offset any regressive aspects of the tax, for example by helping to compensate

low-income individuals and communities reliant on jobs in fossil fuel extraction and production.

Acknowledgments

This testimony was prepared in collaboration with my students Gregory Nemet,

Carla Peterman, Sam Arons, Jenn Baka, and Derek Lemoine, and with my postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Frank Ling. Additional collaboration has and continues

to take place with Drs. Jane Long and Gene Berry of Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory. This work was supported by a grant from the Energy Foundation, the

support of the Karsten Family Foundation endowment of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, and the support of the University of California Class of

1935.

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References and Further Reading

Augustine, N.R. (2005). Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Washington, DC, National Academies Press.

Bailis, R., Ezzati, M. and Kammen, D.M. (2005). ‘‘Mortality and greenhouse gas impacts of biomass and petroleum energy futures in Africa,’’ Science 308:98–103.

David, P.A., B.H. Hall, et al. (2000). ‘‘Is public R&D a complement or substitute for

private R&D? A review of the econometric evidence,’’ Research Policy 29(4–

5):497–529.

Duke, R.D., and Kammen, D.M. (1999). ‘‘The economics of energy market transformation initiatives,’’ The Energy Journal 20(4):15–64.

EPA (2005). Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 to 2003.

Washington, D.C., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001). The Scientific Basis, Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK.

Jacobson, A. and Kammen, D.M. (2005). ‘‘Science and engineering research to value

the planet,’’ The Bridge: the Journal of the National Academy of Engineering,

Winter:11–17.

Kammen, D.M. (2005). ‘‘Lack of vision on policy clouds energy future,’’ The San

Francisco Chronicle B9, May 13.

Kammen, D.M., Kapadia, K. and Fripp, M. (2004). Putting Renewables to Work: How

Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate? A Report of the Renewable

and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley. Available at: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/∼rael/papers.html#econdev

Kammen, D.M. and G.F. Nemet (2005). ‘‘Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy

R&D Budget,’’ Issues in Science and Technology 22:84–88.

Margolis, R. and Kammen, D.M. (1999). ‘‘Underinvestment: The energy technology

and R&D policy challenge,’’ Science 285:690–692.

Nakicenovic, N., J. Alcamo, et al. (2000). Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, A

Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.

PCAST (1997). Report to the President on Federal Energy Research and Development

for the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. Washington, Office of the President.

PCAST (1999). Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role in International Energy Cooperation on Energy Innovation. Washington, Office of the President.

Schock, R.N., W. Fulkerson, et al. (1999 ‘‘How much is Energy Research and Development Worth as Insurance?’’ Annual Review of Energy and Environment

24:487–512.

Wigley, T.M.L., R. Richels, et al. (1996) ‘‘Economic and environmental choices in the

stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations,’’ Nature 379:240–243.

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