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RENEWING AMERICA’S FUTURE: ENERGY VISIONS 

OF TOMORROW, TODAY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE 

AND GLOBAL WARMING 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 31, 2008 

Serial No. 110–47 

( 

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on 

Energy Independence and Global Warming 

globalwarming.house.gov 

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SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE 

AND GLOBAL WARMING 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, 

South Dakota 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin, Ranking Member 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

GERARD J. WALDRON, Staff Director 

ALIYA BRODSKY, Chief Clerk 

THOMAS WEIMER, Minority Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement .................................................... 1 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Wisconsin, opening statement .............................................................. 9 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 7 

Hon. John Hall, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 10 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, prepared statement .......................................................................... 11 

Hon. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Missouri, prepared statement ............................................................................. 14 

WITNESSES

Cathy Zoi, Chief Executive Officer, Alliance for Climate Protection ................... 15 

Prepared Testimony ......................................................................................... 18 

Gregory Yurek, Ph.D, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, American Superconductor Corporation ......................................................................................... 22 

Prepared Testimony ......................................................................................... 24 

Dr. Andrew Frank, Professor, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, University of California at Davis .............................................................................. 30 

Prepared Materials ........................................................................................... 32 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 81 

Dr. Aristides A.N. Patrinos, Ph.D, President, Synthetic Genomics .................... 36 

Prepared Testimony ......................................................................................... 38 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 84 

Steven Lockard, CEO, TPI Composites ................................................................. 44 

Prepared Testimony ......................................................................................... 46 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 87 

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HEARING ON RENEWING AMERICA’S FUTURE: 

ENERGY VISIONS OF TOMORROW, TODAY 

THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

AND GLOBAL WARMING, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 2325 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey (chairman 

of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Markey, Hall, Herseth Sandlin, Inslee, 

Cleaver, McNerney, Sensenbrenner, and Shadegg. 

Staff Present: Jonathan Phillips 

The CHAIRMAN. We welcome you all to the Select Committee on 

Energy Independence and Global Warming for this important hearing on Renewing America’s Future: Energy Visions of Tomorrow, 

Today. 

This country stands at the precipice of a renewable energy revolution. Electricity generated from wind, and solar is flooding onto 

the grid at exponential rates. U.S. industry is retooling their facilities for mass production of hybrid and plug-in cars and trucks. 

Some of the same scientists that mapped the human genome have 

turned their genius to putting grasses, crop waste and algae into 

our gas tanks. The entrepreneurs and financial markets get it. 

Communities like Newton, Iowa, where wind blades are now produced by the same blue collar workers left unemployed when 

Maytag left town, are living the renewable energy revolution. 

But Big Oil and its dreams die hard. President Bush is still continuing to block tax incentives for renewable energy and holding it 

hostage to Big Oil’s drilling agenda. They refuse to look at the future and stubbornly hold onto policies that belong in the last century. One can understand why, because the oil allies of the two 

oilmen in the White House are doing very well, while the American 

consumer is getting tipped upside down. 

This morning Exxon Mobil announced the largest quarterly prof- its in corporate history, raking in nearly $12 billion in profits in 

just the last 3 months. Analysts estimate that when 2008 profits 

are fully counted, all that consumer pain will add up to $160 billion 

in profits for the big five oil companies. This is all great news for 

the old guard and their supporters in Congress. 

But Americans suffering with high energy prices know that old 

policies don’t work anymore and a change is needed. Change is 

needed to end our addiction to high priced oil and change is needed 

to curb our emissions of dangerous greenhouse gasses. 

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Today we are fortunate to have a group of visionaries here to 

share with us how technology already in existence is poised to 

transform America’s energy future. 

These are not pie in the sky dreams. The technology already exists to power much of our auto fleet with clean electricity. With the 

right Federal policies, that transition will happen many years before oil from the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge could possibly 

come online. Huge 10 megawatt wind turbines will churn out energy from deep offshore locations, long before oil platforms possibly 

could. 

The creative thinkers of the world have been laying the foundation for this energy transition for years, and even decades. All that 

remains in the way is Big Oil and the old guard protecting them. 

The American economy has a major leak. This year more than 

half a trillion dollars will gush from that leak and float into the 

coffers of foreign governments. It is time to plug this growing hole 

and redirect these energy dollars from hostile foreign governments 

to blue collar American workers. This will put millions of Americans back to work, rejuvenate the economy and strengthen our national security. 

The term ‘‘disruptive technology’’ is one we will probably hear 

frequently today. It has been one that I encounter a lot in the telecommunications and Internet hearings that I chair. It represents a 

paradigm shift. It represents what is possible by working smarter 

instead of harder. It is what some of the visionaries here today 

have dedicated their careers to. But for some people getting rich off 

the status quo, disruptive technology represents a threat, and from 

this group we must expect a political struggle for America’s energy 

future. 

We are comforted by the harsh reality that our planet is undeniably warming. This dictates that carbon-free renewable energy will 

inevitably win out. The question that remains is whether America 

will be at the forefront of this once in a generation economic opportunity or whether we will cede these benefits to the global leaders 

of tomorrow. 

This is going to be a very important hearing. I now turn and recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 

Sensenbrenner. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Markey follows:] 

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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I thank the Chairman. I am going to do 

what the staff always fears, and that is ask unanimous consent 

that my opening statement get put in the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sensenbrenner follows:] 

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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. And I am going to talk extemporaneously. 

What you heard from the chairman is a prescription for economic 

disaster for this country. And a lot of the debate on what we do 

about our energy problem, which everybody concedes exists, is an 

us versus them philosophy. And the chairman has been one of the 

most eloquent proponents of us versus them and we just heard 

about 5 minutes worth of that in his opening statement. 

The way we get ourselves out of the barrel that we are in now 

is not by taking anything off the table, but by the Congress acting 

in a leadership role to come up with market driven, balanced energy policies. And this is not a balanced energy policy, but it is a 

package of pay offs to special interest groups that have good lobbying organizations. Something that will say that whatever we can 

do to increase our energy supply with either traditional sources of 

energy or alternative sources of energy is what we need to do to 

get out of a situation which will be economic catastrophe if this is 

not addressed. 

And the reason I say that this has to be market driven is that 

if Congress comes up with something that is more expensive than 

the current energy alternatives, the market is going to work and 

Congress’ regulation is just going to make less energy flow to our 

consumers and at a higher price. So we need to have common sense 

alternatives. 

What we are going to be hearing today are some of the common 

sense alternatives, and I don’t criticize any of the witnesses here 

today, but the attitude of exclusivity and pointing fingers at one 

another is going to mean that nothing meaningful passes. 

Yesterday we had a hearing talking about natural gas. And natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel that we have in great 

supply here in this country. But if we emphasize natural gas at the 

expense of coal, we are going to end up driving up the price of natural gas, which a goodly number of our people in this country heat 

their houses with. And if we have a cap and tax response to climate change issues, which the majority party seems to be moving 

toward, we are going to have the market make choices based upon 

how much in carbon credits or how little in carbon credits you have 

to buy, and there are going to be winners and losers. 

Now, I have heard a lot of talk about how we can put together 

major energy legislation where everybody is a winner. Folks, that 

ain’t going to happen and I think we all know it. And people who 

say that we can draft energy legislation with no winners and losers 

I think are deluding themselves and deluding those who listen to 

what they have to say and believe it. 

The fact of the matter remains that if we want to fuel a $14 trillion economy, we have to do it in a balanced manner. We shouldn’t 

take anything off the table. We shouldn’t regulate it. We shouldn’t 

say that Congress knows best because the market and the people 

of this country who participate in that market collectively know a 

lot better than the 535 of us who have been elected to the Congress 

of the United States. 

I thank the gentleman and yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. A frightening thing just occurred here, ladies and 

gentlemen, and I just wanted to comment upon it as the gentleman 

from Wisconsin has—— 

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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, I yield the balance of my time to the 

chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. I just wanted to point out 

that congressional staffers everywhere are petrified that a Congressman just finished a 5-minute statement where all sentences 

parsed and had a beginning and a middle and an end, and that 

threatens job security everywhere. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Reclaiming my time, I got an A in English. 

The CHAIRMAN. So let me turn now and recognize the gentleman 

from New York, Mr. Hall. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member. 

I am looking forward to our testimony, welcome our witnesses. And 

I would say if we have learned anything over the last few months 

and years it is in fact that the market, at least under the current 

administration, has not solved our problems and in fact has been 

part of the equation that has pushed up prices to the point where 

people in my district are seriously concerned about home heating 

oil in the coming months. They are seriously concerned about the 

cost of gasoline for their cars. Many of them are already adopting, 

even those who are not so-called early adopters because they are 

not particularly wealthy, but they are already adopting alternative 

technology such as geothermal, solar and other renewables. 

But we know that our relationship with energy is going to 

change one way or another. The sky high prices that have plagued 

America’s drivers and undermined our economy are something that 

is wrong and we need to fix. And we have two choices, the policies 

of the past or the future. The other side of the aisle has made a 

vigorous argument for pursuing the policies of the past. Their noneof-the-above energy policy would reject every solution that doesn’t 

involve old disproven drilling plans. 

And by the way, I did get to speak to the chairman of Chesapeake Energy yesterday, one of the biggest oil and gas producers 

in the country. And I asked him is Congress, are we holding you 

and the natural gas industry back from drilling anywhere? Do you 

have enough places to drill? And he said, yes, we do, that is not 

our problem. We are discovering new fields all the time and we are 

happy with the available land for leasing today. So I would be curious to ask the same question of the oil companies. 

Anyway, even T. Boone Pickens, one of the original oil wildcatters, admits that we can’t drill our way out of a crisis. In fact, he 

said he is more excited about wind power today than he has ever 

been about any other oil field that he has ever discovered. 

So change can happen and we are in the middle of it, and I hope 

you make the right choice. The time is now and we cannot fail. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman very much. That completes 

the time for opening statements from members. We are going to 

turn to our very distinguished panel. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Blackburn follows:] 

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Cleaver follows:] 

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Our first witness is Cathy Zoi, who is the founding CEO of the 

Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization pushing 

for broader education on climate change. She has extensive experience in the environmental and energy sectors. She has been 

profiled as a global warming warrior and hero by Rolling Stone 

Magazine. We are honored to have you here. Whenever you are 

ready, please begin. 

STATEMENT OF CATHY ZOI, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION 

Ms. ZOI. Thank you very much. And members of the committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to appear today. Thank you for your 

continued leadership. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can you turn on your microphone, is that possible? 

Ms. ZOI. Thank you for your continued leadership on this issue, 

which is perhaps the most important challenge facing the country. 

As mentioned, I am Cathy Zoi, CEO of the Alliance for Climate 

Protection, a nonprofit organization focused on solving the climate 

crisis and mobilizing millions of Americans through the We Campaign. Our bipartisan Board of Directors is chaired by Al Gore. 

Many Americans have a hard time thinking about our energy future, largely because their energy present is so challenging. Gas 

prices are hovering near $4 a gallon, electricity and heating bills 

are up as well, and the economy is struggling with the burden of 

imported oil, insecurity over future energy supplies, the urgent 

need to address climate change, and our troops under fire today in 

part due to our need to satisfy the Nation’s oil appetite. 

To solve these problems we must repower our economy, fast. Vice 

President Gore has issued a challenge for us to do just that, to generate 100 percent of our electricity from truly clean sources that do 

not contribute to global warming and to do so within 10 years. It 

is an ambitious but obtainable goal. American know-how and an industrious workforce are up to it. 

Meeting this challenge will deliver affordability, stability and 

confidence that our economy needs, as well as a healthy environment, and it will generate millions of good American jobs that can’t 

be outsourced, investing in clean energy technologies here at home 

by people’s good hard work. 

Meeting the challenge to repower America will involve simultaneous work on three technical fronts: One, get the most out of energy we currently produce; two, rapidly deploy the clean energy 

technologies we already know can work; and three, create a new, 

smart, integrated grid to deliver power economically from where it 

is generated to where people live. 

The first front is about energy efficiency. The potential is vast 

and largely untapped. Now is the time to commence a comprehensive national energy upgrade that will reduce the energy bill of 

homeowners and businesses, even as cost of energy supplies may 

be on the rise. 

The second front in meeting the repower America challenge, the 

expanded use of existing generation technologies, has a number of 

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staller of wind technology last year. T. Boone Pickens says we can 

get at least 20 percent of America’s electricity from wind power. We 

think he is right. 

Solar thermal power is also booming and poised for rapid acceleration. The resource potential is so vast that a series of collectors 

in the American Southwest totaling just 92 miles on a side could 

power our entire electricity system. Utilities in Arizona, Nevada 

and California have already begun to tap this potential with plans 

for powering nearly 1 million homes already underway. And advances in thermal storage technologies, along with investments in 

our grid mean solar thermal power will be able to provide electricity at night, like coal power does today. 

Other energy sources will play a role as well. Nuclear and hydroelectric power currently, combined, contribute roughly 25 percent of 

America’s electricity, and that will continue. Coal and natural gas 

can play a significant role by capturing and storing their carbon 

emissions safely. Our hope is that CCS emissions technology can 

be developed and commercialized quickly. Coal isn’t clean without 

it. 

There are reportedly a few CCS plants now proposed in the U.S., 

although another roughly 70 proposed coal plants have no such 

plans to capture their carbon pollution. This must change. 

The third front to repower America challenge is the creation of 

a unified natural electricity grid. A supersmart grid will form the 

backbone and entire skeleton of our modern power system. Efficient high voltage lines will move power from remote resource rich 

areas to places where power is consumed. It will also allow households to make money by automatically using energy at the cheapest times, and sell electricity back to the grid when they can. A 

smart meter spins both ways. 

Now what about the money for meeting this 100 percent clean 

power challenge? It will require a one-time capital investment in 

new infrastructure, with a bulk of funding coming from private finance. If policies reward reducing global warming pollution, private 

capital will flow towards clean energy solutions. 

But the most important cost figures to consider may be the ones 

we will avoid. American utilities will spend roughly $100 billion 

this year on coal and natural gas to fuel existing power plants, and 

they will spend more next year and the year after that, until we 

make the switch to renewable fuels that are free and limitless. 

Now why a 10-year challenge? The science, the economic pressures and our national security concerns demand swift, concerted 

action. The best climate scientists tell us we must make swift 

progress to turn the corner on global carbon emissions or the ecological consequences will be irreversible. 

Second, the solutions are available now. We will hear from the 

fellow panelists. There are no technology or material impediments. 

We can and must seize this moment. Failing to move swiftly will 

deprive the U.S. economy of earnings from one of the fastest growing technology sectors in the world. Let’s get going. 

We have done this before. We mobilized the auto industry in 12 

months to service the hardware needs of World War II. The Marshall plan to reconstruct Europe was executed in 4 years. And as 

Vice President Gore pointed out, we reached the Moon in 8 years, 

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not 10. We can do this. I am hopeful that with your leadership we 

will accept the challenge of building a safe, secure and sustainable 

energy future. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Zoi follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Zoi, very much. 

Our second witness is Dr. Gregory Yurek, the founder, chairman, 

and CEO of American Superconductor Corporation, previously a 

professor at MIT and cofounder of their corrosion laboratory. His 

expertise in advanced materials has led to critical developments in 

energy systems and efficiency. 

We look forward to your testimony, sir. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GREGORY YUREK, FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN, 

AND CEO, AMERICAN SUPERCONDUCTOR CORPORATION 

Mr. YUREK. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Turn on your microphone, please. 

Mr. YUREK. I think it is. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and 

House committee members. It is a pleasure—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Hold on. 

Ms. ZOI. Try mine. 

Mr. YUREK. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure and honor to come 

before this committee and speak about the critical energy independence issues facing our country. 

If our Nation is to continue to thrive, we must embrace new technologies that will increase our energy independence and strengthen 

our electricity infrastructure. 

American Superconductor is a leading provider of energy technologies for the power grid and alternative energy sectors. 

Before I proceed further, I would like to ask you to examine the 

copper cables that are in my left hand here and the superconductor 

wires manufactured by my company in my right hand here. Similar 

wire bundles are available for you to be looking at and they will 

be passed around. These few hair thin superconductor wires carry 

as much power as all of this copper that has transmitted power 

since the days of Thomas Edison. In fact many power cables in the 

U.S. grid are about a century old. 

I submit that we will not solve our country’s difficult energy 

problems with 100-year old technology. After 2 decades of development, superconductors are beginning to play a key role in powering 

their homes and businesses. Superconductor power distribution cables have been operating in the power grids in Albany, New York, 

Columbus, Ohio for 2 years now. And just a few months ago we energized the world’s first superconductor power transmission cable 

system in a commercial power grid on Long Island. 

The poster you see here shows the three conduits. That would be 

over here. One of the posters on your right, left-hand side shows 

three conduits for the superconductor power cables and the installation process on Long Island. This cable system, these three cables 

are able to carry 574 megawatts of power, enough to power 300,000 

homes in just a 4-foot right-of-way. This is a far, far smaller rightof-way than the 300 feet needed to transmit the same amount of 

power by conventional overhead lines in that same picture. 

To put this all in perspective, you only need seven of these electricity pipelines to carry all of the power that will be generated by 

Mr. T. Boone Pickens first 4,000 megawatt wind farm. These electricity pipelines can and should be a part of our drive to energy 

independence and reduce power plant emissions. 

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American Superconductor, with the support of Departments of 

Energy, Defense, Homeland Security, has led the world in the development of this revolutionary energy technology for more than 20 

years. I am pleased to report that during this period American 

Superconductor has invested over $800 million in developing and 

employing its energy technologies, over two-thirds of which have 

been from private financing. 

This collective private and public investment has produced 

breakthrough technologies that are ready to power our 21st century 

economy. Given the power density advantage you see and even feel 

when you actually feel these wires and cables, it is going to carry 

10 times more power through cables of the same size made with 

copper. This is a tremendous benefit for our cities where power demands continue to rise rapidly and underground real estate is severely congested. 

Grid modernization with superconductor cables and other energy 

technologies, including advanced power electronic converters we 

also manufacture, will provide the capacity needed for the wide use 

of plug-in electric vehicles. They also will reduce the likelihood of 

blackouts such as the one that hit the Northeast in 2003. 

In addition, superconductor cables can add a layer of defense in 

the grid to protect our centers of commerce from severe weather or 

intentional acts of destruction. The superconductor cable project we 

are currently working on for Consolidated Edison’s grid in New 

York City, for example, is the first leg of what will be the Internet 

of power in Manhattan and cities around the U.S. 

Superconductor technology is also being applied in a significant 

way to zero emission wind generated electricity. We have in fact 

begun work on a program to effectively double the power capacity 

of today’s wind turbines utilizing the power of superconductors. 

The largest wind turbines on the market today are rated at 5 to 

6 megawatt. The generators in these turbines are massive, weighing hundreds of tons. In fact, they are so large you cannot even 

carry them over the roads. Superconductor technology is able to 

break through that by using this power density advantage to 

shrink down the size of the generators so that we can actually migrate over to 10 megawatt wind turbines. The impact, to put this 

in perspective, a single 10 megawatt turbine could provide electricity for thousands of homes and eliminate 15,000 tons per year 

of CO2 generated by the mix of fossil plants in use today. 

We will soon be taking the next phase of this project forward, 

which is to design the complete wind turbine and then build and 

test a prototype before commercializing the wind turbine. Our work 

will demonstrate that superconductor technology is the disruptive 

technology needed to significantly reduce the cost of wind power 

and enable broader deployment of this zero emission form of electricity. 

In summary, superconductor technology is a fundamental weapon in our arsenal to lower the cost of energy, reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, and meet the goal of having wind supply 20 

percent of our electricity needs by 2030. 

I thank you for your time and attention. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Yurek follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Yurek, very much. 

Our next witness is Dr. Andrew Frank, who joins us from the 

University of California at Davis, where he is a professor in the 

Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department. He has specialized in the development of fuel efficient hybrid electric cars and 

is widely known as the father of the plug-in hybrid vehicle. It is 

our honor to have you with us here today, Dr. Frank. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW FRANK, PROFESSOR, MECHANICAL AND AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF 

CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you. Father means I am an old guy. I think 

that is what it means. 

Okay, deployment hybrid vehicle I think was mentioned earlier. 

What is it? And what could be its impact on society? 

This is what a plug-in hybrid is. It takes energy from the wall 

and displaces gas, oil, gasoline. And if you do it right, you could 

take 90 percent of the energy to drive a car on an annual basis 

from the wall and only 10 percent from gasoline. Does that mean 

we are going to put the oil companies out of business? I don’t think 

so because oil is still a very important commodity worldwide, and 

the issue is we can use oil for other things. 

But the most important things, once we shift from using oil to 

electricity, we can go to using solar, wind, and biofuels to power 

our entire fleet. We can’t use biofuels to power our fleet today because we use too much of it, but when you use this kind of thing, 

you are displacing oil, 90 percent with electricity, then that 10 percent can be supplied by biofuels and we have enough land to do 

that. 

Now what is this impact in the future? Here is a little issue of 

the price of—this is for the price for a tank of gas essentially. If 

you don’t go to something like plug-in hybrids, the price of gasoline 

is going to continue to go up, and there is no doubt about that. You 

can be pessimistic or you can be optimistic, it is going to go up. But 

with plug-in hybrids we can level the cost, and we can begin to 

bring it down with solar and wind. 

Current movement in plug-in hybrids, there is already movement, General Motors, Ford, all the car companies are thinking 

about it. They are moving much slower than we need, but the most 

important thing is new car fleets cannot replace cars and make 

them into plug-in hybrids fast enough to do any good for our country. It would take 20 years to displace a fleet to get enough cars 

out there to displace oil. 

By the way, the key is not oil fuel efficiency, the key is oil displacement. 

I see Mr. Sensenbrenner left, but what we want to do is to displace the use of oil for energy and not displace the use of oil. The 

oil could be used for other commodities, like this right here is made 

out of plastic. That is what we should be using oil for. This is what 

we should be using coal for. As a matter of fact, we can use oil and 

coal to replace 2 by 4s. And if we did that we would save the forest 

too. 

So let’s let the oil companies pump, and let’s not use oil and coal 

for combustion. This is the key. 

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So how do we accelerate—oh, one quick thing, there are all kinds 

of plug-in hybrids. Plug-in hybrids can range from 10 miles all electric to 60 miles all electric. And I have built cars all along the 

range. If you have a plug-in hybrid that only has a 10-mile all electric range, that kind of car may displace only 10 percent of the oil 

with electricity and be 90 percent oil. But if you use—go to 60 

miles, that will give you a car that will displace 90 percent of the 

gasoline used with electricity and use only 10 percent on an annual 

basis. And that is the key difference. This is a range of plug-in hybrids out there. General Motors actually is building the Volt, which 

is on the right-hand side and the Vue, which is on the left-hand 

side. 

How do we accelerate plug-in hybrids introduction? This is the 

key. We have to accelerate. So what we need to do really is to focus 

on legacy vehicles and modify those as well as focus on new vehicles, because a new car fleet cannot give us a displacement of oil 

fast enough to counter the rise in the price of oil. 

We have also an improvement in the grid. The plug-in hybrid can 

improve the grid because it represents energy storage. Our electric 

system, as pointed out by a previous speaker, hasn’t changed since 

Edison. And this is a possibility for change. Once we have a plugin hybrid it has energy storage capability, and we can improve the 

grid by almost 50 percent because we no longer need peaking 

plants, and this is the key. 

So finally, how are we going to accelerate? I formed a company 

with patents from UC Davis, and we will work with government 

and industry to try to move this plug-in hybrid as fast as we can, 

but you know, no matter what we do in this country, we are only 

one of—we may be the major consumer. But don’t forget that China 

is almost consuming as much as we are and they will exceed us in 

the next few years. This is a worldwide problem. This is not only 

this country. We should be the leaders, and that is where we are 

going. The most important thing is we need government support. 

[The prepared testimony materials of Dr. Frank follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Frank, very much. 

Our next witness is Dr. Ari Patrinos. He is the President of Synthetic Genomics, a private company that uses genomic solutions to 

address global energy challenges. He previously played a historic 

role with the Human Genome Project and then was Director of Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research. 

We thank you, sir, for being here. Whenever you are ready, 

please begin. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ARISTIDES A.N. PATRINOS, PRESIDENT, 

SYNTHETIC GENOMICS 

Mr. PATRINOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to speak 

before this select committee in representing Synthetic Genomics, a 

company that was started by my colleague Craig Venter, a pioneer 

in the field of biology and dedicated to providing genomic solutions 

for our energy and environmental problems. 

We are obviously at a very important crossroads with respect to 

the challenges we face in energy and climate change, and we have 

daunting energy and environmental problems. As an example, we 

import about 600 million tons of crude oil every year, essentially 

last year, and mostly from politically unstable parts of the world. 

Moreover, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells 

us unequivocally that the climate system is warming as is now evident from observations of increases in the global average temperature over the oceans, in land, and in the air; and that CO2 and 

other greenhouse gasses are responsible for this climate change. 

There have been some encouraging signs recently, like the G8, 

for example, agreeing to have emissions by the year 2050, which 

was the first for the Bush administration. They didn’t say exactly 

which emissions they will have, but at least it is a step in the right 

direction. The EPA just this month issued a report claiming and 

explaining how climate change could have deleterious affects on 

human health and other very significant firsts. And ongoing, and 

I am very honored to be involved in, is a National Academy of 

Sciences study on America’s energy future, which has climate 

change and energy security as its principal drivers. 

We need to change the ways we produce and use energy and we 

need to accomplish a net zero carbon emissions into the atmosphere. That does not mean that we can’t burn coal or other fossil 

fuels. It just means that the CO2 needs to be sequestered or, better 

yet, converted, as I would say, into a renewable fuel, which is one 

of the revolutionary disruptive technologies that we believe we will 

accomplish. 

As the committee believes, we also know that there is it no silver 

bullet with respect to solving this problem. It is more a silver buckshot and all technologies need to be improved. 

Even if we make significant improvements, it will be difficult to 

remove about 100 billion tons from our economy over this particular century. However, advances in genomics, we believe in specifically synthetic genomics, which is the field Craig Venter pioneered, is in fact one of the real game changers that can help us 

accomplish this goal. 

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Dr. Venter and his team have pioneered this field and will lead 

to the design and synthesis of microbial systems that can provide 

superior capabilities in converting various feedstocks into biofuels. 

Recent research by Dr. Venter and others have uncovered an incredibly diverse microbial world that was heretofore unknown. We 

have discovered microbes, extremophiles we call them, that thrive 

in extreme temperatures, high temperatures, and high pressures, 

and can survive levels of radiation that are instantaneous lethal to 

us. 

By studying those organisms we can uncover or discover the molecular scenery of life which we can then provide, we can then 

apply it to quickly and efficiently convert various feedstocks into 

fuels. 

We have a deal with the company BP, for example, to convert 

coal bed methane into natural gas, and thus provide a fuel that is 

much cleaner than removing the coal from the ground. It is still a 

fossil fuel, but in terms of its global warming potential it is a step 

in the right direction. 

We are also aggressively pursuing the conversion of various plant 

feedstocks, sugar and cellulose, into a wide range of next generation fuels that are superior to the traditional fuels such as ethanol 

and biodiesel. 

We need to move beyond using foodstuff, such as corn, for the 

production of biofuels. For example, there are plants like jatropha 

that do not compete with food that can grow in marginal lands and 

can serve as feedstocks for biodiesel. 

We have a deal also with a Malaysian company Genting Asiatic 

to work on jatropha in order to improve the yield and capability of 

producing biodiesel. Ultimately the disruptive technological goal is 

to use carbon dioxide as a feedstock. And there we are making significant advances using micro algae and other microbial cultures 

that would be in essence the Holy Grail in bioenergy to use something that we need to squirrel away in the Earth. Instead, we can 

actually convert it into a fuel. 

We recognize there will be problems scaling up in order to replace or challenge the existing infrastructure, like for example 21 

million barrels of petroleum that we process in our infrastructure 

here in the U.S. every day, or 2 trillion cubic feed feet of natural 

gas every month. However, we are confident that we can pilot our 

liquid biofuels within 2 years and go into large scale production 

within 5 years. And if we can accomplish these things that we feel 

confident with, I think we can accomplish stabilizing concentrations of CO2 under 550 parts per million. We—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could summarize. 

Mr. PATRINOS. Yes, indeed. 

We advocate essentially the level playing field with respect to 

biofuels, the removal of tariffs and subsidies that distort the marketplace, as well as sensible regulations for the synthetic biology 

and synthetic genomics technology that we have developed. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Patrinos follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Patrinos. 

Our final witness is Steve Lockard, as the President and CEO of 

TPI Composites, a leading manufacturer of wind energy components. Mr. Lockard has experienced firsthand the impact renewable 

energy can have on local communities and economics. 

We are very happy to have you with us, sir. Whenever you are 

ready please begin. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN LOCKARD, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

TPI COMPOSITES, INC. 

Mr. LOCKARD. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Markey, 

Mr. Sensenbrenner, members of the committee. Thank you for the 

chance to join you this afternoon to talk about a tremendous opportunity to renew America’s future through the creation of U.S. manufacturing jobs to supply the rapidly expanding wind energy industry. I am appearing before this committee as a CEO of TPI Composites and as a corporate member of the American Wind Energy 

Association. TPI is a manufacturer of blades for leading wind turbine makers. 

Wind energy has now moved into the mainstream of U.S. electricity generation. Wind represented 35 percent of all new U.S. 

electrical generation equipment installed in 2007 and generated $9 

billion of U.S. commerce. The dramatic recent growth in the wind 

industry is just the beginning. Today wind electricity accounts for 

a little over 1 percent of our Nation’s generation capacity. According to a U.S. DOE report, wind power could provide 20 percent of 

U.S. electricity needs by the year 2030, which would create 500,000 

U.S. jobs and provide a critical contribution to the climate solution. 

With this potential growth in wind comes a tremendous opportunity to create a complete supply chain. 

Since 2007, 28 new wind industry manufacturing plants have 

opened or been announced in 15 States. By the end of this year the 

U.S. will have a total of 11 wind blade manufacturing locations, 

employing over 5,000 people. In 2005, there were only two U.S. facilities. 

TPI selected Iowa for a blade plant because of its ability to serve 

the north central wind region. We selected Newton, Iowa specifically due to the available, skilled workforce and the support provided by the State and local community. Newton is a city of about 

16,000 residents. For many years Maytag washers and dryers were 

made there. Maytag also maintained its corporate headquarters in 

Newton. 

After being acquired by Whirlpool in 2006, the remaining 1900 

employees in Newton lost their jobs, the last of which in October 

of 2007. TPI announced plans 1 month later to open a wind blade 

manufacturing facility in Newton. We committed to create a minimum of 500 jobs to manufacture blades for our customer GE Energy. The impact that TPI has had on the Newton community and 

economy, according to its Mayor Charles Allen, was to add jobs at 

a crucial time, paying competitive wages, providing great benefits 

to many who just months earlier were questioning their ability to 

stay and work in the area. 

Allen also noted that TPI primed the pump, causing all wind turbine related companies to consider Newton. Trinity committed to 

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adding 140 jobs in Newton to both towers for wind turbines. The 

wind energy industry has restored a sense of hope to this manufacturing community. The value according to Mayor Allen is immeasurable. 

Competing with Mexico, China and even Brazil with wind blades 

is difficult. It comes down to a tradeoff between labor costs, transportation costs and incentives. Meaningful cash incentives at the 

front end of these projects in many cases are required to get a U.S. 

plant approved. 

Another critical need for U.S. competitiveness is for the volume 

to be high and, most importantly, to remain stable. It is impossible 

for U.S. blade plants to be competitive when demand swings up 

and down. To achieve this desired economic and energy growth, the 

U.S. will need to surmount important challenges, planning and 

building transmission lines, providing a stable Federal policy support, reducing capital costs, continuing to build wind turbine manufacturing capacity. 

Federal policies needed to advance wind energy and reduce climate change include an immediate and full value extension of the 

wind energy tax credit, a national renewable electricity standard, 

a national electric transmission plan designed to promote renewable energy and climate change legislation. 

Increases in Federal R&D funding and related appropriations to 

spur continuing innovation will be needed to bring down capital 

costs. The outlook for 2009 is bleak due to the pending expiration 

of the PTC. Already the delay in extending renewable energy credits is reducing investment in wind energy projects scheduled to 

come online in 2009. 

A long-term PTC extension will enable the wind industry to continue our rapid growth, generate higher volume and more stability 

and demand, provide investors with the confidence needed to fund 

new regional manufacturing facilities. There is broad support 

across the political spectrum for extending the credit. It is absolutely critical that this Congress act quickly to find a way through 

the current impasse and enact a full value of long-term extension 

to the PTC. This is the starting point for U.S. job creation, a 

healthier economy and a cleaner energy future. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lockard follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lockard, very much. 

The Chair will now recognize himself for a round of questions. 

Mr. Lockard, last year 35 percent of electricity, new electricity, 

came from wind. That was about 5,400 new megawatts. How many 

new megawatts will be put online this year, do you know? 

Mr. LOCKARD. It is an increase from that number, estimated to 

be probably 20 percent more than that or so. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, perhaps 7,000 megawatts this year? 

Mr. LOCKARD. On the order. Those numbers tend to be refined 

a bit toward the tail-end of the year. What I would say is there is 

a tremendous push—— 

The CHAIRMAN. It could go over 40 percent of new electrical generation? 

Mr. LOCKARD. It will increase for sure. 

The CHAIRMAN. For sure. That is quite a news story. Combined 

with what Dr. Yurek is talking about with his technology, that 

might make it possible for the same old turbines to generate 10 

megawatts of electricity. 

And how confident are you, Dr. Yurek, that you are going to be 

able to make that breakthrough and what is the time frame? 

Mr. YUREK. We are very confident. If I look at that poster to your 

right over there, that is a ship propulsion motor we are putting together for the U.S. Navy based on the same power density advantage of superconductors over copper. 75-ton motor replaces a 300- 

ton conventional motor for ship propulsion. We are using that same 

technology to develop generators—— 

The CHAIRMAN. What is your time frame? 

Mr. YUREK. Three or 4 years we will have that done. 

The CHAIRMAN. So Dr. Frank over here has a plug-in hybrid, he 

needs electricity and your industries, you and Mr. Lockard, providing this new electricity that would also be carbon free. 

Let me ask this question of the whole panel. Given what we have 

heard today from the panel, do you believe that it is possible for 

the United States, deploying new technologies and engaging in energy efficiency, to reduce our greenhouse gasses by 80 percent by 

the year 2050 while still seeing economic growth and innovation as 

the driving characteristic of our economy? Ms. Zoi. 

Ms. ZOI. Without a doubt, without a doubt. Of course we can do 

that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Yurek. 

Mr. YUREK. I think it has every chance in the world if we get 

going now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Frank. 

Mr. FRANK. Well, you know the—it is possible, but it cannot be 

done without energy storage, electrical energy storage, and that is 

what the plug-in hybrid really represents. 

The CHAIRMAN. So if we adopt your ideas, can we get an 80 percent reduction? 

Mr. FRANK. Yes, you can. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s the key. Dr. Patrinos. 

Mr. PATRINOS. Absolutely and much sooner than even our most 

optimistic—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And again your company is the one that basically 

cracked the human genome, I mean, Dr. Venter and yourself were 

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making that huge breakthrough that would have been incomprehensible just 10 or 15 years ago. 

Mr. PATRINOS. Indeed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lockard. 

Mr. LOCKARD. We are happy to see wind contribute to 20 percent 

or more than that in that time frame. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that is a conservative number, Mr. 

Lockard? 

Mr. LOCKARD. I think there are major issues in the wind energy 

space to get to 20 percent. Transmission is a significant issue. 

There are a number of issues that we need to address together, assuming we address those in a big way, there is limitless potential 

for wind. The question is getting to work on some of the big constraints to 20 percent. We have identified those constraints. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me get back to you, Ms. Zoi, talking about 

solar, and you made a mention of it. Can you talk a little bit about 

that and the role that you believe that can play in solving this 

greenhouse gas problem? 

Ms. ZOI. The world is rich with solar thermal, which we can put 

in the sunny places in the Southwest that I mentioned, but also 

photovoltaic. I live in Silicon Valley, and just about every week a 

company has a new announcement about a way to make solar voltaic sunlight directed electricity more efficiently. They are now 

making it in rolls where they can roll out 100 feet at a time sheets 

of solar of which you can put anywhere. 

The CHAIRMAN. There is a company up in Boston, Evergreen, the 

Germans just bought their entire production capacity for the next 

4 years, 160 megawatts of photovoltaics per year, and the Germans 

bought it, which is a shame. This should be happening more and 

more in the United States. What is the roadblock to that, Ms. Zoi, 

in your opinion? 

Ms. ZOI. Well, we do need—one of the reasons that I had talked 

a lot about the supersmart grid is that we do need to be able to 

get the power from where it is generated, often in remote places, 

to where it is consumed, often big cities. Investing in that 

supersmart grid is something that is important. The storage technologies that were mentioned by my copanelists, but again that is 

all doable and within our reach. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s go to you, Dr. Yurek. You are the expert 

on electrical transmission issues. What is the biggest obstacle in 

ensuring that we get the change in the electrical transmission system that we need in our country? 

Mr. YUREK. Well, I think the superconductor electricity pipelines 

are really ready to break into the marketplace on their own. Utilities really need to start investing in this, and that is about to happen. But we need to push across that last 10 yards to get across 

the goal line in demonstrating this technology for broader use. 

The CHAIRMAN. I have been working with you for 20 years now, 

Dr. Yurek, on this issue. Do you think we are at that point right 

now? 

Mr. YUREK. We are definitely at the tipping point. Again we have 

cables operating commercial grids in Columbus, Albany, Long Island. We are about to go into Midtown Manhattan. So we are really at that tipping point. We just need to cross that goal line. I think 

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that is going to happen in a couple of years. So that will become 

available as electricity pipelines to move that power through the 

grids. 

The CHAIRMAN. And in conclusion, how much are utilities still 

fighting you on this? I don’t mean Long Island, but across the country. Is there an acceptance of the need for change to redo this grid? 

Mr. YUREK. Oh, I absolutely believe that. The utilities are not 

fighting it. It is a matter of adoption of new technologies, and so 

the help that we have gotten from the Department of Energy and 

Defense and Homeland Security over the last years has helped 

bring that technology out of the lab to the marketplace. We now 

have just got to get across that goal. They are ready to go. 

The CHAIRMAN. Over the years I have worked with you on the 

military adoption of it, but you now think it is ready for the commercial. 

Mr. YUREK. Absolutely, and the utilities are now working with 

us on commercial quotes in fact, so it is about to get going. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. 

Shadegg. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for arriving 

late. Had I gotten here on time, I would have welcomed Steve 

Lockard. I used to represent a part of Scottsdale where his company is located. However, they took that little piece of Scottsdale 

away from me. But nonetheless, he is from the valley of the sun, 

and I welcome him here and thank him for the work his company 

is doing. 

I want to say, Mr. Chairman, this is a very impressive panel and 

it continues to encourage me. When you look at the technological 

breakthroughs we are making and that we are on the verge of, it 

is indeed very encouraging, and I have enjoyed the education that 

I have gotten here. 

I have got a number of questions, but I want to begin with one, 

Mr. Lockard, that kind of goes to the point you made. I want to 

compliment you for the jobs you created and the story you told 

about the plant. I presume your blades are on the windmills that 

I pass as I drive to either San Diego or Los Angeles to Phoenix and 

go through the field of windmills. 

Mr. LOCKARD. Some of them. More recently in west Texas, but 

yes. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Keep it up. It is good work. I am very, very 

pleased to see you say it, but I want to build on a point you made. 

You talked about the very critical importance of renewing the wind 

energy production tax credit. As you know, as you pointed out, that 

expires this year. We also have the solar energy production tax 

credit or investment tax credit, which also expires at the end of 

this year, and which tragically just today Arizona Public Service 

Company announced that if the tax credit is not renewed very, very 

quickly they are losing capital and may have to abandon the 

Solana project, which is the largest solar energy project in the 

world. 

I am willing to bet that every single person in this panel will 

agree with me that it is critical that Congress renew those tax 

credits and do so immediately and that every day we delay causes 

us to lose capital. Would you agree, Mr. Lockard? 

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Mr. LOCKARD. Absolutely. And we do support as part of it and 

not just wind but the renewable sector in terms of support of tax 

credits. It is an important level of playing field, policy stability is 

critical, and we are without it right now. 

Mr. SHADEGG. I just met with the Arizona Solar Energy 

Industry Association. They talked about something I hadn’t 

thought about, which was even the delay is driving capital away 

and doing material damage right now. No one, I take it, would disagree with that? 

I don’t want to run out of time. I am fascinated by this demonstration and it is encouraging to see that we are at that cutting 

edge. Dr. Frank, I focused for a long time in Arizona, we have 

dams where we actually created what are called pump back systems, where you take the peak load and they run all day and they 

run in the evening, when Arizona has a high energy demand. And 

then when demand goes way down at say 10:00 or 11:00 or midnight, we now pump water from one dam back up to the other. It 

looks to me like hybrid electrical vehicles, plug-in electricals have 

a tremendous capability of kind of evening out the demand for electricity. And I guess that is an important part of this whole process, 

right? 

Mr. FRANK. Absolutely. The main difference is that the plug-in 

hybrid, the electric vehicle, can be about 90 percent efficient, 

pumping energy back and forth at 1 kilowatt, whereas those dams 

are about 60 percent efficient. So it is a better technology. Most important thing about electricity, don’t forget that it is about oneeighth of the cost of gasoline today. That is the key. So that is 

where quality of life improvement and all this comes from is from 

using electricity. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Dr. Patrinos, you really kind of piqued my curiosity. I have to tell you that I am somewhat of a skeptic about the 

notion of capturing carbon and putting it underground and storing 

it forever. And so when you talked about, I don’t know if you called 

it the nirvana or the—— 

Mr. PATRINOS. The Holy Grail. 

Mr. SHADEGG. The Holy Grail of being able to convert carbon dioxide into a usable energy source that sounds exciting to me. Can 

you go further into where we are in that process? 

Mr. PATRINOS. We are well underway towards accomplishing this 

and having certainly a pilot project within the next couple of years. 

This is a method that has had some history, especially in the Department of Energy as long ago as 15 years ago through the use 

of algae that essentially take sunlight and the CO2 that gets 

pumped in them, and grow and then we can farm them, basically, 

remove the oil and create biodiesel. 

Mr. SHADEGG. And they are fed by carbon dioxide. 

Mr. PATRINOS. Yes, they are fed, it is a photosynthetic creature 

that essentially combines the sunlight with the photons with the 

carbon dioxide and provides the biomass that is then converted into 

fuel. This program was abandoned back in the nineties at the Department of Energy when oil dropped under $10 a barrel. Also at 

the time biology was still in a very primitive stage. The revolution 

that the Human Genome Project ushered in has converted the 

science into a much more rigorous discipline. And therefore the 

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tools and capabilities we have today are vastly superior to what we 

even had in the nineties. And moreover, many more smart people, 

essentially attracted by the fascination, like you were a few minutes ago, and joined this field. 

So we are extremely bullish about what biology can do for many 

of our problems. 

Just as a note this plant is bathed by 130,000 trillion watts. And 

we are using as a planet 13 watts. 

Mr. SHADEGG. My time is obviously out, the chairman has been 

generous. Arizona Public Service Company has already talked to 

me about a program using microbes, and I think the future is nothing but encouraging. 

Mr. PATRINOS. I am aware of that program, George Post, at Arizona State University. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Hall. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I understand it, the 

ACSC wire has the ability to carry 300 percent of the electricity of 

standard copper wire. Is it safe to say that if we jumped in behind 

this technology with both feet we could expand transmission capacity on existing rights-of-way? Would a wholesale commitment to a 

semiconductor transmission grid help to obviate the need for things 

like the national interest electric transmission corridors or perhaps 

make them more acceptable to the communities that they have to 

run around or through? 

Mr. YUREK. Well, once again going to the power density difference that you just described and you can feel here again, yes you 

can use existing rights-of-way, electricity pipelines, 300 feet gets 

shrunk down to 4 feet in terms of the right-of-way. So you can go 

underground, you are not subject to hurricane damages, you are 

not subject to ice storms, terrorist attacks and so forth. You can do 

all the things you said. 

Mr. HALL. EMP? 

Mr. YUREK. Yes, indeed. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is immune if it is buried to electromagnetic 

pulse. 

Mr. YUREK. You have the burying effect, plus these tend to be 

coaxial cables so there is a self shielding effect as well. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you. Dr. Frank, you talk about plug-in hybrids. 

Are there any conversion kits you are aware of so far that are worthy of public consideration? If an individual like myself who owns 

a hybrid, there are a number on the Internet that are being advertised, are you aware of any that are—— 

Mr. FRANK. Yes. The hybrid could be converted to plug in hybrids 

simply by adding batteries. Now, it is going to cost you 10, 20, 10, 

$15,000 more to do that, but the important thing in my testimony 

what I was talking about was legacy vehicles, conventional cars 

can also be converted. There are no companies doing this in volume 

today. It can be done. 

Mr. HALL. And that will be important considering the time it will 

take to switch our existing—— 

Mr. FRANK. Absolutely. So the most important thing is to get 

those legacy vehicles converted to using electricity. 

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Mr. HALL. And if someone were to produce a patent for a battery 

that got—that could carry a vehicle on all electric charge before it 

starts to use the gasoline a thousand miles or more, that would be 

considered to be a breakthrough I would say. No? 

Mr. FRANK. Well, that would be a huge—but that is not in the 

cards as far as we can see. You might be able to get 60, 70 miles 

on electricity, but to go much more than that, Tesla talks about 200 

miles, but one of the biggest things about the Tesla car is that they 

forget, they don’t tell the whole story. They talk about high acceleration and high range, but you can’t have both. When you accelerate hard, your range goes from 200 miles to 100 miles. So there 

is problems with all electric. 

Mr. HALL. Given the grid that we are talking about constructing 

that all of you I think have mentioned at one time or another, 

might there be a silver bullet if we were to use in the areas where 

we have constant sun or near constant sun or steady reliable winds 

such as the Wind Belt through the middle part of the country and 

on the coast to use hydrogen as a storage device? We know how to 

store and cool and transport hydrogen much better than we did 

during the time of the Hindenburg which was the Three Mile Island of the hydrogen age. And it is of course a loss in efficiency 

every time you go back and forth from one form of energy to another, but nonetheless some of the same siting that would go into 

siting a nuclear plant or perhaps even a coal plant might apply to 

a hydrogen storage and generation plant, which could be used to 

store via electrolysis, splitting hydrogen from oxygen in the water 

and then burning it, producing emission water at the end of the 

process. 

Again, is this something that we should be looking at, at least 

in areas like Lake Havasu or places where the sun shines and 

there is plenty of water? 

Mr. YUREK. Yes, go to a remote site whether it is wind or solar, 

generate the electricity, do the electrolysis, make the hydrogen, 

condense it to make liquid hydrogen, which will cool the superconductor wire. So we can pump it out and you get hydrogen and 

electricity out the other end. 

Mr. HALL. Better than I thought. 

Mr. YUREK. Yes, the provision for that from Electric Power Research Institute. 

Mr. FRANK. I will add my two bits. The problem with generating 

hydrogen, you are converting, as you know, the loss efficiency. If 

you compare a hydrogen economy versus a plug in hybrid, where 

you are using electricity directly, the hybrid car will go four times 

farther than a hydrogen car. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time—I am sorry. 

Mr. HALL. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate that, because we have six roll calls. 

This is a fantastic panel. We have a chance to recognize the 

gentlelady from South Dakota for her questions, but my intent, 

with the will of the committee agreeing with that, is that we would 

come back after roll calls as we continue to ask this panel questions. And I apologize to the members because of that. The 

gentlelady is recognized. 

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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the 

witnesses for their testimony today. I would like to pick up on 

questioning along the lines of transmission for wind energy that 

the chairman and Mr. Hall were pursuing. 

I represent the entire State of South Dakota. We are rich in wind 

energy resources, but they are very rural, remote areas and transmission is the key along with the PTC and other incentives to 

unlocking, unleashing this energy source. 

I would like to get your opinions on the energy corridors that will 

be needed. Mr. Hall was asking about that. We have some FERC 

authority for additional siting of the corridors that the DOE has 

put together, started the work on the map for the transmission. 

But also this issue of private investment versus the public infrastructure investment like the interstate highway system and on the 

timeline we are working on. And just maybe Mr. Lockard, Dr. 

Yurek and Ms. Zoi, if you could comment on your thoughts about 

the private investment, will that be sufficient without additional 

congressional support and guidance? And does FERC need any additional authority as it relates to siting the energy corridors? 

Mr. YUREK. If I may comment on that, the FERC would allow 

toll roads to be put in place with a private investment and then 

charge a toll for moving the electricity. You can’t do that in our alternating current grid, you disturb power flows through very wide 

regions. 

However, with superconductor cables, the ones I am showing up 

here, you can actually allow that control, they act like DC, direct 

current cables. So the FERC has already given permission for DC 

cables made with copper. I believe they should be able to give that 

for superconductor alternating current cables which would allow 

them to do exactly what you want. And then you would have encouragement for private investment, because if I can put that cable 

system in to take power from South Dakota to Chicago and somebody will pay me a fee for that, I will make the investment. 

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentlelady will yield. There is only 3 minutes left on the 6 roll calls. If the gentlelady would like to continue 

at this point she can at the risk of—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. How about I resume my time when we 

come back from votes? 

The CHAIRMAN. Why don’t we stop right there with the 

gentlelady having 4 minutes left to go? And we will come back, if 

you don’t mind. It is really a great, great panel and there is a lot 

of interest in it. We will take a recess until the six roll calls are 

completed. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. We are about to reconvene the Select Committee 

on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The interest level is 

high; our control over the floor schedule is low. As a result there 

is a delay that we apologize to everyone for having to endure. 

But it gives us a chance to once again recognize the gentlewoman 

from South Dakota, and we will give her her full 5 minutes back 

on the clock. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just to start off where we left off, any other responses on the 

wind—the transmission capability issue and the issue of private inWReier-Aviles on DSKDVH8Z91PROD with HEARING

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vestment versus maybe more of the public investment, like we have 

done with the interstate highway system. 

Ms. Zoi. 

Ms. ZOI. I will chime in my 2 cents. 

I think the notion of a supersmart grid or national integrated 

grid is a great opportunity for the Congress. I think that the technologies are available; we have heard about some of them today. 

If the rules are set, I don’t think access to capital is going to be 

the issue. I think what is paralyzing us now are the institutional 

barriers. We have got fights between the Federal Government and 

the State governments. We have fights between the various land 

authorities at the State level. We have got fights between environmentalists on the one hand and environmentalists on another hand 

with different issues. 

And there is just such an opportunity for you all to lead and say, 

this has got to be the grid, which has never been a really sexy 

thing. But the grid has got to be a top priority, and let’s sit together and hash it out. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

And, Dr. Yurek, I appreciated your comments before we had to 

break about how the technologies that you have been working on 

may make some of this easier as it relates to authority FERC currently has versus what may be necessary if we don’t move as quickly as we should with some of the new technologies that you have 

been at the forefront of. 

Mr. YUREK. Yes, and I think part of the challenge here is that 

FERC and other agencies, regulators, even Congress, really don’t 

know what is available. This hearing is so valuable to reveal some 

of the new things that are possible. Once you take that into account, we could start implementing. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That is a good segue to my question for 

Dr. Patrinos in terms of Congress or Federal agencies or regulators 

not knowing what is available. 

I wanted to talk to you about advanced biofuels. Your written 

testimony states that you are optimistic that within 5 years SGI 

can move to large-scale—and by that I assume you mean commercial scale—production of liquid biofuels. 

You should know when this Select Committee met in June we 

took testimony from Guy Caruso, the Administrator of the Energy 

Information Administration, and he testified that while, ‘‘very uncertain, EIA projected that available quantities of cellulosic biofuels 

prior to 2022 will be insufficient to meet the new RFS targets for 

cellulosic biofuels triggering both waivers and a modification of applicable volumes,’’ such that the overall RFS target in 2022 would 

be reduced from 36 billion gallons to 32.5 billion gallons. At the 

same time, he acknowledged in response to questioning that EIA’s 

assessment was based on the view of the current state of the technology. 

Do you agree with EIA’s projection or do you agree that its view 

is unduly pessimistic, particularly as it relates to the quantities of 

cellulosic biofuels that would be commercially available, as envisioned by the original RFS—not the original, but the new RFS that 

we passed in December. 

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Mr. PATRINOS. I agree that the organizations such as the IEA 

and the EIA—and I have good friends and colleagues in both organizations that I have worked with for many years; these organizations have to be conservative in their projections. 

I certainly disagree about their pessimism with respect to the 

ability of this new science; genomics-driven bioenergy, can deliver 

much, much faster than they are predicting, and in a sense, they 

are projecting on the basis of old technology that is already in 

many ways obsolete. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Is SGI pursuing any other processes? We were just taking testimony yesterday as it relates to fossil fuel and natural gas. But renewable methane gas and biogas through processes such as fermentation, paralysis, gasification, is SGI pursuing any of that as 

well? 

Mr. PATRINOS. I mentioned this partnership that we have with 

the oil giant BP, where we are investing considerable time and effort in understanding the processes by which methane is produced 

in coal beds. 

Most of the methane in coal beds is producing biogenically. It is 

essentially microbial communities that chew up the coal deep in 

the Earth and produce methane, which we then can pump out. Understanding how this happens can give us opportunities to add 

amendments or make other changes that can certainly stimulate 

the production significantly. 

We estimate that even 1 or 2 percent improvement in the yields 

could be translated into billions of dollars. And certainly it is so 

much better to convert the coal into methane and burn methane, 

as opposed to digging out the coal and burning that. In terms of 

its greenhouse warming potential, it is 10 times better when you 

factor in all the processes involved in producing CO2. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I thank you for that. And one of the 

areas—and I appreciate especially, given some of my neighbors up 

in the northern Great Plains, like North Dakota and Montana and 

Wyoming with the vast coal reserves. One of the things we focus 

on in South Dakota is the issue with dairies, large hog farms and 

in some cities it is municipal waste where we can find renewable 

biogas available. 

I see my time has expired, so I will submit any further questions 

I have for the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. And if you want, we might have more time for 

additional questions. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. 

Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. 

Ms. Zoi, thanks for your organization’s great work and the Vice 

President’s leadership. We are impressed by his work, even though 

he has not won the Heisman Trophy yet; he has one more to go. 

I want to share with you kind of a delightful comment I heard, 

or a disturbing comment. I was talking to a radio person the other 

day, and the question was, what do you think of Al Gore’s time 

line, 10-year time line? And David Freeman, who has done great 

work on efficiency in California and a whole bunch of other things, 

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I thought had the right response. He said, ‘‘It is not Al Gore’s time 

line; it is Mother Nature’s time line. That is who set the timeline.’’ 

I thought that was a good way to approach this issue. We really 

don’t have a choice. Failure is not an option. And you might want 

to quote Mr. Freeman sometime. It is a good line. 

Ms. ZOI. It is a good line. I have it. 

Mr. INSLEE. I wanted to ask about—we are in this debate about 

offshore drilling and whether or not to open up some offshore drilling areas. My approach has been, besides the environmental concerns of that whole issue, it is a relatively small amount of energy 

relative to our needs. My view is that we have to essentially 

decarbonize our industrial base, and that means we need enormous 

quantities of additional energy, not just for environmental purposes, but to give us a choice to compete with the oil and gas industry. Then consumers will have a choice, which will hopefully keep 

down the price of fuel. 

My view is that we need much, much more energy than could be 

provided offshore. 

I wanted to ask you, is there any way in orders of magnitude 

that you could talk about how much more energy will be available 

from the sources that you have talked about—from wind, solar 

thermal, solar photovoltaic, algae-based biofuels, enhanced geothermal, wave, efficiencies in the grid, building efficiency, which is 

a form of energy? Could any of you give us sort of an idea of how 

much that represents relative to what you might get drilling a little bit offshore? 

Now, I will not hold you to mathematical precision here, but to 

me it has to be several-fold because we would be replacing our gasoline-based transportation system and our coal-based electrical system, by and large. 

Could you venture any thoughts about that? 

Ms. ZOI. I could start. One of the reasons that Vice President 

Gore issued the challenge that he did a week and a half ago, 2 

weeks ago, was that over the past 18 months he has had a series 

of experts coming along to solution summits in the particular disciplines, whether they are solar experts in photovoltaics and solar 

thermal. There were whole bunches of experts in each area; every 

single one of those experts came along and always would start 

their presentation with, And here is the potential, and here is what 

we are starting to do. 

In every single case, the potential dwarfed what our current 

needs are. So whether it was an electricity figure like the one I 

gave in my testimony, which was a 92-square-mile area in the 

Southwest can meet all of America’s electricity needs; or winds, 

eight times as much wind blows through the Midwest corridor as 

what we need every year in this country; or whether it is geothermal. It is always just that it has absolutely so much potential. 

So this is not limited by the potential; it is limited by our ability 

to mobilize. And I think some of my colleagues can talk more about 

the biofuels and liquid fuels stuff. 

Mr. PATRINOS. I would be delighted to step in and say my piece. 

I know it may sound audacious, but in my remarks earlier I 

spoke about this planet is bathed with 130,000 terawatts of energy. 

And as a planet. As humanity we consume only 13 terawatts. And 

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the current efficiency of photosynthesis is less than 1 percent. Processes involving biology and photosynthesis are not necessarily very 

efficient. Evolution does not necessarily produce the most efficient 

thing; evolution is a messy housewife, like I like to say. 

The new science of biology is that is driven with the advances of 

in genomics is giving us tremendous opportunities to tinker with 

that biology. And if we just even double it to 2 percent with respect 

to efficiency, which may sound audacious—it may sound a bit like 

science fiction—but if we can double it, and I think it is feasible 

in the next couple of decades, we can double the amount of energy 

we can produce using conventional solar energy and also biofuels 

and bioenergy. And that is just doubling to 2 percent. 

So there is plenty of energy there that we can harness with the 

technologies that we currently have and the technologies that are 

in the pipeline. 

Mr. INSLEE. We were very impressed. You were talking about 

algae-based biofuels. There is a company called Sapphire Energy—— 

Mr. PATRINOS. I know them very well. 

Mr. INSLEE. Some of their leadership is on my island in Bainbridge Island, and they believe they can have at least a 

precommercial plant up maybe in the next 12 to 18 months. So 

they are very close to significant reality here, and we are very excited about it. 

I just want—a closing comment. There are a lot of things happening here. Stone cold dead as it may seem, I introduced a bill 

today called ‘‘The America Can’’ bill to start the ball rolling to develop a high capacity grid by at least directing DOE to identify the 

corridors where that can happen. 

I think there is a fair chance of moving this bill this year. It is 

a small step forward. But we don’t want to wait until the big year 

of 2009, we want to get this thing started now. 

Thanks for your great testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Yurek, in my home State of Missouri, a young man by the 

name of Tom Carnahan, whose brother is a Member of Congress, 

has a wind farm in northwest Missouri. And my question is based 

on the fact that the 10-megawatt turbine will reach 400 feet high. 

Is that—— 

Mr. YUREK. Yes, the turbine blades themselves will be about 400 

feet in diameter. 

Mr. CLEAVER. What do you predict in the way of challenges? Because, I mean, it will dwarf what many people consider to be already an intrusive garden of wind turbines. 

Mr. YUREK. Two ways, I guess, you could look at that. That is 

a big machine to be sure, but in fact, it is going to produce twice 

the amount of power, compared to a conventional machine that 

does not use superconductors. And so that means if you want to 

produce 100 megawatts out of a wind farm, you only need 50 wind 

turbines instead of 100 wind turbines if it is a 1-megawatt wind 

machine. So you reduce the total amount of towers. 

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You also reduce construction costs overall, and this becomes really important if you start producing this wind-generated electricity 

offshore. 

There is a tremendous amount of wind offshore. It is going to be 

a tremendous natural resource for the country to tap into. And construction costs go way up. 

This is a real advantage, reducing construction costs. 

Mr. CLEAVER. How many homes could actually receive power, potentially from one—— 

Mr. YUREK. From one 10-megawatt machine you would get approximately 3,000 homes. 

Mr. CLEAVER. So let me make sure I understand. You are saying 

that in terms of, you know, the things that—‘‘not in my back yard’’ 

kind of thing; we have seen this happen already in some places 

where we didn’t think it would happen, in the Northeast area here, 

in Massachusetts. I don’t want to go into details; I am a Democrat. 

But you are saying that we will have fewer—they will be larger, 

but the fact that we will have a fewer would generate less hostility. 

Mr. YUREK. I think that potential is there. On the other side of 

the equation, though, if I could put it this way is that the total cost 

of construction would be reduced. That, I believe, would encourage 

more wind farms to be established, because you can look for return 

on investments, hopefully quicker, with lower construction costs, 

for a given amount of power being generated. 

So I think there are two factors here. 

Mr. CLEAVER. If you have less construction, one of the things 

that would cause a community to embrace these wind farms 400 

feet high is the fact that it creates jobs. And if there is an economy 

created around it—I mean, it is amazing the adjustments people 

can make if it enhances their standard of living. So, you know— 

but if we are talking about reducing jobs and visibility for people 

who live nearby, I am not sure. 

Mr. YUREK. I said reduce construction costs; I did not say reduce 

number of jobs. So you are going to have a lot of jobs here. 

We talked about this earlier—from blades to cells and generators, everything that goes into this, but the total cost of construction could be reduced here. That would be important in terms of 

stimulating further investment. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

McNerney. 

By the way, this is unprecedented that this many Congressmen 

came back at 4:30 in the afternoon in order to hear a panel. Because it is a tribute to the quality of the witnesses. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the reason 

I came back is because I am fascinated by this. It is a passion. It 

is a direction our country must and will go in. 

And when I see people that are approaching me, saying that we 

need to drill for more oil, I tell them that within 10 years most of 

our new cars will be plug-in hybrids or all-electric vehicles, and the 

whole gas price issue will have subsided as a national issue. 

But we need to move forward. I hope I will not be asking questions that have already been asked. 

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But I see how wind power, having been in the industry for years, 

as a tremendous resource. I see solar as a tremendous resource. 

And I see conservation—and I think the chairman agrees with me 

on this—as probably the greatest single resource that we have. 

Do you—I am not sure who to direct to this question to, but do 

you see electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids as a major player in 

our country within the next few years? And if so, how soon do you 

think that is going to be an economic prospect and what would it 

look like? 

Mr. FRANK. That sounds like my question. 

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentleman would yield briefly, Dr. Frank 

is the father of the modern plug-in hybrid. 

Mr. FRANK. Okay, yeah. I personally think that the plug-in hybrid and not pure electric cars; I think pure electric cars have a 

long way to go. There are still issues; you can’t charge very fast 

and—many, many issues. 

But the plug-in hybrid is a car that can begin to transition, or 

the substitution of gasoline directly with electricity. And don’t forget that electricity is one-sixth the cost of gasoline today. So as gasoline prices go up, the differential is going to get higher. 

The most important thing is, we have the technology to do that 

now. And the main question is, how do we get millions of cars out 

there? And by the way, millions of cars translates directly into jobs, 

because it takes people to make those things. 

So we have to look at the new technologies, the OEMs they are 

looking at, the General Motors with the Volt and so on. But we also 

have to look at legacy vehicles, the vehicles that we have already 

constructed, the pickup trucks sitting on the lots that they can’t 

sell right today. A $25,000 pickup truck is selling for $12,000. 

There is a $12,000 difference that can be used for conversion of 

that truck to a plug-in hybrid. 

Now that, plus some help from Congress, I think, is what we 

need to think about, how to get that so that the people, if we bring 

that plug-in hybrid up to the—the pickup truck up to a plug-in hybrid standard, we can restore the value of that car; and that car 

can then go back into the public. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. You feel that can be done at a lower cost than 

constructing a new vehicle with those characteristics? 

Mr. FRANK. Well, yeah. 

No. Actually, here is the problem with conversions, you are picking a car that has already been—you put in a lot of capital investment; you will add more capital, half the cost of it again just to 

convert it. So somebody is going to take that hit, and at the moment, it looks like the bank. 

But if you build plug-in hybrids from the beginning by the 

OEMs, I calculate that when the volume gets up to a half million 

vehicles in a year or so, that plug-in hybrid could be par with the 

conventional car. Then, that is where we have to go. But that is 

not going to happen unless we get a little incentive to get us over 

that initial hump. 

Mr. PATRINOS. By the way, we don’t necessarily have to use gasoline for the nonelectrical part. We could use biofuels. So in a sense, 

we could have an entirely—based on renewable energy. 

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Mr. MCNERNEY. Ms. Zoi, I would like to address a general question. The whole climate change issue has the public’s attention 

now. Do you think that that is something that we are going to be 

able to use to inspire and motivate the next generation to participate in scientific enterprise and move that as a forward strong 

issue for our Nation? 

Ms. ZOI. Absolutely. 

If you ever get tired of being a Congressman, you can come and 

join our team because we have exactly that in mind. We have this 

‘‘We Campaign’’; we have already recruited nearly a million and a 

half people. And one of the things that our research is showing us 

is, across the political spectrum, people from all walks of life, no 

matter whether they are city or country or rural, urban, young or 

old, all believe in the promise of clean energy. Even if they actually 

wonder about some of the climate change issues, they still believe 

wholeheartedly that going on a path to clean energy is going to 

help the country and their livelihoods and their kids. 

A lot of our members, a lot of our We Campaign members, are 

young people. And we are just getting going now on a solutions 

campaign that will roll out in August, and you will see it at bus 

stops and see it everywhere, again to motivate people and get them 

excited about participating in this clean energy revolution that Al 

Gore has called for. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. 

I see my time has expired and I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair will recognize himself on a second round of questions. 

I want to follow up on what Mr. McNerney was just talking about. 

So, Dr. Frank, let me come back to you, I have a 2-year-old Toyota Camry hybrid that the sticker says gets 40 miles a gallon. It 

doesn’t quite get that, but it is a lot better than a regular Camry 

gets. 

Mr. FRANK. That’s right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thirteen or 14 gal better than a regular Camry, 

which is the most popular midsize vehicle in the United States, 

and has been for 7 or 8 years. And I am very happy with it. 

So what can you do for me, Dr. Frank, I have A123 that is up 

in my district; they do retrofits. 

Mr. FRANK. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Talk to me a little bit about what is possible in 

this retrofit business area over the next 10 years and how it can 

become appealing to people to take a vehicle that gets 40 or 30, you 

know, and with some investment, get it up to 60, 70, 80 miles per 

gallon. 

What is the formula for making that work? 

Mr. FRANK. There is a whole bunch of things that you brought 

up in that one question. 

The first thing is, going to the plug-in hybrid is really not about 

increasing fuel economy; it is about displacing oil. And because 

when you go to a plug-in hybrid, you are using electricity and not 

gasoline. So, yes, if you calculate in some funny way, you’ll get better fuel economy. 

But I like to look at it—if you saw my chart on the board—as 

displacing oil on an annual basis. So I calculate that a plug-in hyWReier-Aviles on DSKDVH8Z91PROD with HEARING

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brid with 50, 60 miles of all-electric range would displace 90 percent of the gasoline with electricity, and 10 percent of the gasoline 

will be used on that particular car for the same driving. 

Now, would you say that is going from 20 miles per gallon to 200 

miles per gallon? You could say it that way, but that is really not 

what is going on. What you are doing is, you are displacing energy 

from liquid fuel to electricity. And the most important thing about 

the electricity of course is, it is one-eighth the cost. 

The CHAIRMAN. The only reason I use that term is that it makes 

it accessible to people, so when they invented the automobile, they 

called it a horseless carriage because that is all people knew. And 

then they called it horsepower, but it was to try to get people who 

were using one set of terms to get into the new technology. 

Mr. FRANK. I understand. 

The CHAIRMAN. When we go to wireless phones, it has nothing 

to do with wires, but people are used to making phone calls on 

wires. But that is the only reason I am using that, the analysis 

that I am using. 

So is it something—well, take us out 10 years then, Doctor, and 

I would like each of your thinking—especially you, Ms. Zoi. 

We sell 15, 17 million vehicles in the United States every year. 

Mr. FRANK. That’s right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s go out 10 years. Let’s keep the price of a gallon of gasoline at $4 a gallon, let’s have this revolution coming 

in from Nissan—from, you know, the Chinese and others, and the 

innovation that is going to be spurred by us, having raised the fuel 

economy standards from 25 to 35 miles per gallon. 

What does our fleet look like 10 years from now? I would like 

you, Dr. Frank and Ms. Zoi, to answer that question. 

Mr. FRANK. Well, my feeling on this is, people are going to look 

at how much it costs them to go a mile, every mile. At the current 

time, cars cost 15 cents a mile roughly at $4 a gallon. And with 

electricity, using electricity from the grid, the current grid, it is 

about 22 cents a mile; and if you go to solar, it comes down even 

further. 

So that is, I think, ultimately what people are going to do. They 

are going to look at how much it costs them to go a given distance 

and do their job. And that difference between 2 cents and—that is 

really the cost of living and lifestyle. 

The CHAIRMAN. So you think it is going to be dramatic in 10 

years? 

Mr. FRANK. I think so. People are going to migrate towards something like the plug-in hybrid. The GM Volt is going to demonstrate 

that for us. So when people realize—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Even there, General Motors is still fighting increases in the fuel economy, so even if it is the same—they are 

going to introduce the Volt in 2010, they are saying, but don’t get 

too excited about what will be there by 2016. So don’t try to increase from 31 miles per gallon, which—— 

Mr. FRANK. I have seen this happen at GM. You saw what happened to the electric car; are they really sincere about it? 

The CHAIRMAN. What do you think, Doctor? 

Mr. FRANK. I think this time they are real, and the reason is, 

they look around the world, and they see a peak in the production 

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of oil. And actually that is why it doesn’t make sense to drill, because we can’t drill our way out. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Zoi. 

Ms. ZOI. I, too, think it will look dramatically different. The question of how different is a function of how much we enable it to happen quickly. 

One of my daydreams is to have an energy core that actually— 

I have been in the energy business for a long time—that goes up 

and down the streets in neighborhoods and town centers, and finally does those energy efficiency retrofits that we have been talking about for a long time. 

And I know you have been talking about them. They are really 

simple things; it creates jobs. But it is stuff like insulation and 

thermostats and all that. 

But as we were talking on the break, we could also provide the 

infrastructure so that people could plug in their cars, their existing 

cars, and do retrofits if we wanted the plug-in hybrid thing to happen faster. So as we go street by street, we do the car infrastructure retrofit at the same time, so people can plug in. 

The CHAIRMAN. Were there any partnerships created during that 

break? 

Mr. YUREK. There were. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Yurek. 

Mr. YUREK. If I could add a comment to your point in the last 

gentleman’s question on these hybrid cars, you have to have the 

grid to support this. There is no wireless transmission of electricity, 

so you need the grid. 

And just one data point to consider, Con Ed, Consolidated Edison 

in New York City, concluded a couple of years ago that a 5 percent 

penetration of plug-in hybrid vehicles in Manhattan would increase 

the rate of electricity demand by 50 percent—50 percent—and they 

just don’t have a grid to support that. That is what they concluded 

and stated publicly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Who concluded that? 

Mr. YUREK. Consolidated Edison. 

The CHAIRMAN. What about the argument they are plugging in 

on off-peak hours and you don’t need a dramatic increase in the 

electrical generating capacity? 

Mr. YUREK. We have all been in New York City, and the lights 

stay on pretty much well into the night. It is during the day when 

the taxis running around they have to charge up periodically and 

delivery vehicles are coming in. 

So, yes, there will be a lot of off-peak charging by residential 

folks at your home and apartment, but there are a lot of other vehicles going around that need to charge up all the time. 

The 5 percent penetration gives a great increase—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So you are not that optimistic. 

Mr. YUREK. I am optimistic in the following sense: We are working with Con Ed right now. They recognize it and are taking action. 

They want to create the ‘‘Internet of power’’ in Manhattan, and we 

are about to connect the first two substations in Manhattan to 

start that process. 

All those things have to happen for the vision of 10 years from 

now to come to completion. 

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The CHAIRMAN. I will let you have the final word, Dr. Frank. 

Mr. FRANK. That is the intelligent grid that we are referring to. 

I calculated with an intelligent grid, we don’t have to increase the 

power at all. 

As a matter of fact, PNNL, the National Lab of—Pacific Northwest Lab, they calculate that. Actually, the current grid has 

enough energy to support 80 percent of the cars in this country 

today. So there is not a problem. 

The CHAIRMAN. Maybe we can get them to come in and work on 

New York City. 

Mr. FRANK. Well, maybe. But the key is, with an intelligent grid, 

we have to have a smart plug. That plug doesn’t take energy out. 

Batteries are one of those things that doesn’t have to be charged 

all the time. You plug it in. That doesn’t mean energy has to flow, 

it only has to flow at the right time; that is what intelligent grid 

is all about. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentlelady from South Dakota. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, I just have a couple of quick followup questions. 

But I do think it is interesting, Mr. Chairman, given this panel, 

if we’ve identified an area of disagreement, I think we just maybe 

found it. And to get at the heart of some of these questions, we 

need to agree on a basic set of facts. So I think it is something that 

we should continue to work on to see just what the grid, the existing grid, can take on, and what types of investments for other 

transmission that we had pursued in other lines of questioning earlier, whether there are more populated parts of the country like 

New York City or some of what we hope to achieve in less-populated parts of the country like South Dakota. 

Ms. Zoi, your testimony mentions advances in thermal storage 

technologies. Have we seen similar advancements in wind energy 

storage capacity? And should Congress be doing more there to support research and development of renewable energy storage systems, because that has always been the knock on wind, it is intermittent. 

I met with some folks, and they think the technology could be 

there if they had resources to really advance the research for storage of wind energy. 

Could you comment? 

Ms. ZOI. No. I think you are right. I think that across the board 

what we want to do with the intermittent style of renewable solar 

and wind is to make sure that the investments, that the research 

and storage technologies continue; and a signal from Congress and 

help from Washington would certainly be good. 

The technologies that solar thermal are using are not rocket 

science technologies. Molten salt has been around for a long time, 

flywheels have been around for a long time; it just costs more 

money, but they are not breakthrough things. 

I presume that wind—my colleagues here might be able to better 

comment on this, wind can similarly do those things, but that can 

get even better, just as the photovoltaic cells themselves have continued to improve with more deployment across Germany, et 

cetera, the storage technologies need do the same. 

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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Dr. Yurek, your testimony also described 

your work with superconductor technology to double the output of 

wind turbines. Could existing wind turbines be retrofitted with this 

if your plan sort of goes forward? 

Mr. YUREK. I don’t think that would be a particularly effective 

way to go. There are some instances where that might be possible, 

but there would be very specific generators that you would have to 

go back and retrofit. 

So I wouldn’t hold that out as a terrific way to go. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

My last follow up, Mr. Lockard, you had talked about certain 

States and efforts of certain States to bring wind component manufacturing and test facilities to their States. And you describe incentives that are being provided at the State and local levels for training grants and building buy-downs. 

What are some of those key incentives that local and State governments have offered? 

Mr. LOCKARD. The State of Iowa has been very progressive in 

terms of training grants, building buy-down programs to offset the 

cost of a new building. Building large blades, for example, requires 

big buildings; oftentimes a building is not available somewhere already. The States of Texas, Massachusetts have both put significant money forth to develop blade test facilities that they hope will 

be expanded to further R&D for offshore, further manufacturing capabilities, as well as the chairman understands. So there are pretty 

significant dollars available. 

On the R&D side, we would like to see more cost sharing, winwin-win programs, with industry, State and Federal dollars 

stretching the Federal dollars further, and that way doing some 

more of the higher-risk, higher-return R&D to drive down costs and 

do some of the things that have been described here. 

Those monies are available. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is a rare moment that a Congressperson yields 

back time. So I apologize to you. 

The gentleman from the State of Washington, Mr. Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. The more that I look at this, the more 

the grid becomes central to our ability to electrify the transportation system and really maximize our opportunities. 

When you look at metaphors on how to do this, you look at the 

Federal highway system. People suggested that—look what we did 

with the first Senator Gore on the Federal highway system; the 

Federal Government went out and built it, used tax revenues and 

just built it. 

I am not sure that is the right model for this, either a high DC 

or just an improvement over an AC system. I would like your 

thoughts on really how to finance that and who should do it. 

Now, I have introduced a bill that basically we call the ‘‘rural energy superhighway system’’ that would basically spread the cost, 

create a line’s charge and spread the cost, at least regionally, for 

those who are going to build a system to get out to a renewable 

field—wind or solar or geothermal or whatever they are going to 

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use. So it would create, through a line charge system that the entity that built that line would essentially be able to benefit from. 

Is that adequate? And if that is not adequate, should the Federal 

Government really assume responsibility for building a DC backbone? Is that really the only entity available to do this? What is 

the best mechanism moving forward? 

I will start with Mr. Lockard maybe, if I can. 

Mr. LOCKARD. Yeah, I think others may comment a little better 

than I about the DC–AC issue, but the 20 percent wind work that 

has been done recently identified transmission infrastructure that 

does need to be built by someone somehow, but also real constraints from a planning standpoint and just control areas. 

I think it was mentioned earlier by one of our colleagues about 

just who has control over how wind gets generated and then distributed through multiple regions from windy regions to load centers. It is not just building the infrastructure, but also control area 

optimization. 

The 20 percent report showed that 300,000 megawatts can be 

built. Transmission is one of the biggest constraints, something like 

$60 billion; estimates may be more like $80,000. 

The CHAIRMAN. Three hundred thousand megawatts of wind. 

Mr. LOCKARD. Of wind by 2030. 

That transmission is going to be probably the single biggest constraint, there are other issues to getting there, but getting the wind 

to where load centers are effectively, it needs to be done. I am not 

sure that the Federal role needs to be pay for all of that. 

It seems to be that there is definitely planning and logistics in 

dealing with—the way those decisions are controlled today is a 

place to start. Storage could help augment and probably reduce 

some of the cost of that system as well. 

Mr. INSLEE. Dr. Yurek. 

Mr. YUREK. We have an alternating current, an AC grid, for 

short. You can’t legislate the physics of the grid, so the reason the 

FERC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, does not allow 

someone to just come in and plop a new AC transmission cable or 

overhead lines anywhere is because it would disturb the grid for 

large regions around it. 

You can do that with DC. You can plug a direct current cable in 

there and it won’t disturb power flows over long distances. To put 

an add in here, I guess with superconductors cables, even with AC, 

you can allow that to happen; you can put it in. 

So your thought, I think, is in the right direction to allow somebody to charge for the use of that line and make money on it; 

therefore, they would make the capital investments. But you can’t 

do it with conventional technology; once again, you will have to go 

to advanced technologies, or you will be forced to go to a DC, backbone as you say, which is still a good idea, anyway. But for local 

or rural, you probably are not going to be allowed. 

Mr. INSLEE. When I said rural, that was as much marketing as 

anything else. I don’t mean for rural usages that is where it would 

be located. 

So let me ask you, Dr. Yurek, do we need a DC backbone in the 

United States? Is that investment justified, and if so, who will provide the capital? 

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Mr. YUREK. Well, I think ultimately if we are going to get to 300 

gigawatts of wind-generated electricity in 2030, which seems quite 

feasible, it is possible you are going to have to have that backbone 

to support it. So you are going have to have these parallel paths 

of putting in new sources of zero-emission electricity generation 

along the backbone. 

So South Dakota is not next door to, let’s say, Chicago or New 

York City for sure. So you are going to have to have a backbone 

to support the long distance transmission of power. 

Mr. INSLEE. And what is the best funding mechanism? Is it a 

Federal Government? Is it a coalition of utilities? Is it private enterprise supported by loan guarantees? Is it just private enterprise? 

What is the best mechanism to accomplish this? 

Mr. YUREK. I think if there were some support loan guarantees 

and so forth for private enterprise—you think of this as putting the 

first bridge across the Hudson River; it was a toll bridge and let 

a lot of traffic to occur, west to east, and reverse. But it was private 

financing for that. We ought to give that a shot, I would say. 

But if that is not going to work for some reason, if we can’t handle the regulation around the grid in a proper way, I think the 

interstate highway approach is probably the way to go. 

Ms. ZOI. Just to add something, I think speed is important. So— 

and I recall, unfortunately, in California last year there was a terrible road problem where a bridge or an overpass on one of interstates in the East Bay fell down. They had to fix it really fast. 

So the governor of California created a contract, bid out the job 

to a bunch of infrastructure civil engineering companies; and the 

terms of the contract were, every day that you finish sooner, you 

get more money. And the project was anticipated with—the government department had said, this will take 12 months to fix this 

road. And they got the job done in like 3 months because they had 

a financial reason to do it fast. 

So that was the innovation of private enterprise, but the bill was 

paid by the government. 

So I think it is so important that we get this DC backbone. And 

I think it is such a big enabler of T. Boone Pickens projects, and 

all the projects in the Southwest and so many projects around the 

country, that it might be worth it for the government to bankroll 

it, because it is not that much money to get going. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. 

Dr. Frank, may want to add something. 

Mr. FRANK. Yeah, I have heard storage, storage, storage three or 

four times. The plug-in hybrid is the storage mechanism. We don’t 

need additional storage. One of the things about wind, without 

storage 20 percent is maximum. If you had storage you had plugin hybrids in society where you could take energy into and out of 

the car, you can go to 100 percent wind. 

Mr. INSLEE. Dr. Frank, I got to drive one of your geniuses, a Toyota Remix yesterday. It worked like a charm. So thank you for your 

genius. 

The CHAIRMAN. I worked my way through college driving an ice 

cream truck. So I had to plug it into the side of the house every 

night, and would jump out, it took 5 seconds, plug it in. And in the 

morning rather than having to go some other place, you know, my 

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ice cream it was already inside of my truck and ready to go and 

ready for sale. So the only thing is my father didn’t get to park in 

the driveway, which was an issue. But my mother was on my side 

on that. There will be a lot of issues within families as to who gets 

to pull into the yard and plug in. We will figure that out when we 

hit critical mass in plug-in vehicles. 

The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, is recognized once 

again. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Actually Mr. Inslee pretty much dealt with what 

I wanted to ask you. T. Boone Pickens of course said it would cost 

$2- to $300 million of private investment of his own money to begin 

his wind farm. And I agree I think Ms. Zoi said this, any money 

we spend is good money as far as I am concerned. You can imagine—well, maybe you can—we don’t have to imagine. We know that 

trying to get such an appropriation if the government is expected 

to be involved there it is going to be Herculean. We are still dealing 

with people who deny global warming. I mean in Congress. 

So is this something that the private sector can do without much 

participation from the Federal Government? 

Ms. ZOI. They can do it if the rules create a reason for them to 

do it. The capital is available. If you all say that a utility is not 

able to operate unless they access a DC line, you will have to create some policy settings that mean that the private sector can come 

in. But the engineers are sitting there waiting, they are ready to 

roll, they are ready to dig and run the wires. But unless you guys 

create a policy framework to do this, it may happen organically, 

but it may take a long time, longer than we have. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Policy may be more important right now than—— 

Ms. ZOI. Than money. 

Mr. PATRINOS. I also would like to add in the case of biofuels, in 

order to level the playing field we need to do away with subsidies 

and tariffs that distort the marketplace. There are plenty of opportunities to produce biofuels that are competitive if we level the 

playing field. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Anyone else? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Mr. Patrinos, I see biofuels as a terrific opportunity for my particular district, which is Central Valley, east of 

the San Francisco Bay Area. There is a deepwater port there, there 

are agricultural assets. 

One of the questions I have is how much raw biological material 

is there available in the country that we could use to make 

biofuels? I mean how many barrels equivalent of oil could we 

produce a year without impacting our food supply, just considering 

the growth potential, the green potential? How much can we plant, 

how much can we water? The realistic amount of oil equivalent 

that can be produced using bio feedstocks. 

Mr. PATRINOS. So there have been several studies that have been 

conducted to get as good an evaluation of the available biomass, 

and the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture 

joined forces 3 years ago and produced a so-called billion ton study, 

and concluded that there were at least a billion tons per year of 

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biomass that could be devoted to biofuels. And if all of that was 

converted into biofuels we could certainly replace more than 

20μpercent of the gasoline consumption in this country. 

There have been other studies that question the level and whether it is a billion or whether it is 800 million. I think there is an 

adequate amount to make a significant dent in gasoline consumption. 

Moreover, as I presented in my testimony, we are very optimistic, certainly in the company that I represent, that ultimately 

we can use carbon dioxide, which is what we are talking about 

burying in the subsurface, in the underground. We can use that as 

the feedstock and in many ways replace fossil fuels and convert fossil fuels into renewable fuels, because you could burn coal and the 

CO2 that is produced, rather than releasing it to the atmosphere 

or burying it underground, you can then convert it back into another fuel, whether it is methane or potentially other ones. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So you have a pathway in mind to do that? 

Mr. PATRINOS. We have several pathways in mind and we are 

working very aggressively because clearly if this is successful and 

we are optimistic that it will be, it will be the real game changer. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So you are talking about genetically modifying 

existing materials, existing—— 

Mr. PATRINOS. We are already, the community is using genetically modified organisms for conversion, Du Pont—to produce propane—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So from where we are today there is a significant amount of biological engineering that needs to be done to get 

to where you are talking about? 

Mr. PATRINOS. We are optimistic that we will demonstrate this 

technology within 2 years and put it into large scale production 

within 5. So there are still some hurdles we have to jump, but they 

are within the range of our guns. 

The CHAIRMAN. Would the gentleman yield briefly? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Sure. 

The CHAIRMAN. So when we all kind of incant carbon capture 

and sequestration as the potential answer, you are saying that that 

might not be the answer, that there may be other pathways and 

you might be within 2 years of demonstrating a pathway. 

Mr. PATRINOS. Indeed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Convert the carbon into something more useful 

and doesn’t require any sequestration at all? 

Mr. PATRINOS. Absolutely. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I don’t know how to put this in a politically correct way. Is there going to be an outcry from people who are concerned about the genetic modifications? 

Mr. PATRINOS. It is a reasonable question and we have dealt with 

this from the very beginning whenever we started developing this 

technology many years ago when the Human Genome Project essentially converted biology. So we have had scholars and community leaders and the public. And the public is very involved in the 

deliberations in order to make sure we put in place the safeguards 

that will render this technology safe. 

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Mr. MCNERNEY. I have used all of my time on just one question, 

Mr. Chairman. So I will yield back and maybe I will get another 

chance. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am afraid this is it, but you do have 32 seconds 

left. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I was going to talk a little bit about carbon fibers and wind turbines, but you have sort of gone off, Mr. Lockard, 

in talking about buildings, making more buildings efficient, which 

is a huge sink of energy and a huge source of carbon dioxide. I 

don’t hear too much discussion in that. Is that an area that your 

company has a hold on or is there any technology out there that 

we can say here is a great path forward for people to rehabilitate 

their buildings, make them efficient, help reduce this enormous 

drain of resource into heating and cooling buildings? 

Mr. LOCKARD. Yeah, I think my comment on the building related 

to State incentives that have been made available to us to help create jobs, that was a comment a little bit ago at any rate. The new 

buildings that we are building, we are working on trying to be conscious in that way. I am not sure there was any specific breakthrough there that I was trying to comment on. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I apologize to 

him. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to wrap up the hearing right now 

and we are going to ask each of you to give us your one-minute 

summation of what you want us to remember about the capacity 

here for technology to solve this problem, to give us a pathway to 

energy independence and a solution to global warming. 

We will begin with you, Mr. Lockard. 

Mr. LOCKARD. Yes, thanks again for the time and availability 

today. 

I think from a wind energy perspective, 20 percent wind is a feasible goal, perhaps more with good cost effective storage. Big constraints are transmission related and Federal policy boiling it 

down. We have a unique opportunity in wind to create U.S. manufacturing jobs, unique in part because the size of the components 

we build are physically very large, transportation is therefore expensive from places like China and Mexico. We have a unique opportunity with 20 percent to create 500,000 U.S. manufacturing 

jobs in this time frame. Federal support is critically important to 

make the pie big, make the volume high, make the volume stable. 

So stability of policy and of course again just urgent requests really 

related to the current PTC. It is an issue today before recess, after 

recess, it is an issue today, a pretty pressing issue. Jobs will be lost 

in 2009 already. So just ask for urgent action on that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just a quick yes or no on this. Do the witnesses 

support or oppose the renewal of the production tax credit for renewables? 

Mr. PATRINOS. We certainly support it. 

Mr. FRANK. Support it. 

Mr. YUREK. Yes. 

Ms. ZOI. Support. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Patrinos, your conclusion. 

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Mr. PATRINOS. Thank you for this opportunity. The revolution of 

genomics led by scientists like my colleague Craig Venter have 

transferred biology to the game changer for the challenges we face 

dealing with the energy crisis and the climate crisis. These new 

tools, the scientific tools that have been enabled through the 

genomics revolution will give us the opportunity to produce the 

right and the copious amounts of bioenergy and especially biofuels 

to convert much of our transportation and energy system in a renewable way. Especially the revolution of using carbon dioxide as 

a feedstock for bioenergy would be a great part of the game changing element. 

What we do need, as I mentioned earlier, is leveling the playing 

field for alternative fields as well as promoting sensible regulations 

with respect to the synthetic genomics technology that we have developed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Patrinos. 

Dr. Frank. 

Mr. FRANK. Thanks again for inviting me, I am delighted to be 

here to contribute. 

The most important thing I think to realize about the plug-in hybrid is we are talking about a plug-in hybrid. Once we get to about 

50 percent penetration into the vehicle market of reducing our oil 

consumption substantially and as a matter of fact—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Substantially is what, doctor? 

Mr. FRANK. Substantially meaning 80 to 90 percent of oil. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ah-hah. 

Mr. FRANK. So once you get to that stage, biofuels become practical. The 20-percent that was stated earlier, we don’t have to go 

any further. We don’t even have to have more. So the point is to 

get there we are going to have to do more R&D. And the Federal 

Government—by the way I have developed these plug-in hybrids 

over the last 25, 30 years with no funding from the Federal Government at all. But we are going to have to step that up, because 

now the key is to get these cars into the hands of the public. That 

means development and deployment. We have to do that through 

government help. It is not going to happen by itself. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Frank. 

Dr. Yurek. 

Mr. YUREK. Thanks for having me here today, thanks for the 

committee being formed. I think you are doing just the right 

things. 

I think we have the genius, I think we have the inspiration, and 

the drive in the country to solve the problems we face. I think we 

can be energy independent. We need new sources of generation, 

whether it is solar, thermal or wind, you name it. There is more 

technology that has to be developed and can be developed in this 

country. You need energy storage devices. Whether it is flow batteries or flywheels or what have you, the technology is there. It is 

ready to be developed and brought to the fore. You are going to 

need a grid to support it all, to get it to the customers in a timely 

way with high efficiency. 

I think everybody is agreeing, what I have heard today, about increasing the efficiency of operation of our industrial systems as 

well as our residential and commercial buildings. Motors use up to 

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two-thirds of all the electricity in this country, use is up, burn it 

up. We can make those much more efficient and have big savings. 

A lot we can do, this committee is on the right pathway, keep it 

up. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Yurek. And Ms. Zoi. 

Ms. ZOI. I would close and talk a little bit about the politics. 

When Al Gore issued his challenge 2 weeks ago there was some 

nervousness in the intellectuals about how ambitious it was. The 

response from across America from editorial boards and citizens 

has been that it is very, very enthusiastic. So I guess what I would 

like to leave you with is go bold, be bold. We have the technology 

capability, we have the know-how, we have the wherewithal. And 

the American people, I don’t know about inside of Washington, but 

the American people are rising to that challenge and have an appetite for something big to demonstrate our can do spirit again. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. And thank you all for 

being here. You know, I realize that people want big. People want 

game changers. Back about 3 years ago at Boston University they 

gave me an honorary degree on the same day they gave one to Saul 

Bellow and Craig Venter. I was the lowest card in that realm, but 

then they saved their cheers for the final honorary degree recipient, which was Bill Belichick, who had just won three Super Bowls 

in a row, which seemed to be impossible in Boston until his arrival 

and he was being rewarded with this enthusiastic response. 

Now what Craig Venter had done was of course completely 

change the way we view medicine. In 1900 the average age of 

death was 48, this year it is 79. We know with all these breakthroughs one in three children born today will live to the age of 

100. It has a lot to do with what Craig Venter has done and others 

in all these breakthrough areas, tremendous changes. 

When Al Gore was Vice President and I was the lead Democrat 

on the Telecommunication Subcommittee back in 1995 and 1996, 

when we were passing the Telecommunication Act we had analog 

all across America. No one had broadband in any home in the 

United States, but our goal was to move from narrow band to 

broadband, from analog to digital. That was the goal. 

Well, 1997, people started getting broadband. Did we know the 

names of the companies? Of course we didn’t. We didn’t know the 

names were going to be Google and e-Bay and YouTube. Who knew 

what the names were going to be? All we knew is we were empowering technologists to go out there and do it. Ten years later the 

world is unrecognizable. No one even remembers before broadband. 

It just seems like ancient history and it is only 10 years, which is 

why the Vice President’s goal of 10 years is realistic. As long as we 

get the policies right, as long as we set it up so that we are empowering the same kinds of people that we empowered in the Telecommunications Act, the same kind of game changing, technology 

innovating, companies and individuals that we did in telecom. 

And I don’t think it is a coincidence, the two wires going down 

the street for 100 years were the telephone wire and the electric 

wire. And a lot of people called this stuff low hanging fruit, but it 

is heavily guarded low hanging fruit. These utilities shoot with real 

bullets when they are fighting against innovation. And so if we 

want to change the paradigm it is going to be a tough battle, they 

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are powerful and entrenched, but the tides of history have turned 

against them. 

And so now hopefully next year we will put on the books a mandatory cap and trade system. We will be at Copenhagen as the 

world’s leader, not laggard. We will have a position of moral and 

political integrity from which we can finally be speaking and we 

will be empowering the great innovators who are here at the table 

here today. Each of you in your own way is pushing the edge of 

the envelope. You are trying to change the world through your 

technologies and through your political activism. From most of 

what I have heard this morning, we don’t have to wait for the 

breakthroughs, you have already made them. We are not waiting 

for a new invention, you have already made them. As soon as we 

get them into the marketplace, the quicker they will be improved, 

the quicker that they will be modified, and the quicker we will get 

the solution that the planet needs. 

I am very confident that 2050 will be a year in which we all look 

back and wonder what the big debate was all about back in 2008 

about the price that the economy was going to have to pay, because 

the world will have been so transformed. And the people sitting at 

this table will have played a big role in it, and we thank you for 

it. And we thank you for being here all afternoon. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the select committee was adjourned.] 

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