New Report Recommends Technology Deployment Targets to Decarbonize Industry

Originally posted at The Breakthrough Institute

Here's the current climate stalemate: While US and EU negotiators keep pushing for an international treaty based on cutting emissions, developing nations like China and India keep refusing to adopt hard emissions caps. But according to a new report by the Center for Clean Air Policy, those emission caps are too hard to measure and monitor in developing nations, anyway. Instead, the report concludes, developing countries should adopt a new approach to increase efficiency in their most energy-intensive industries by setting measurable clean energy technology targets.

Dan Klein of CCAP, a co-author of the report, explained:

"To be able to say we're going to improve our emissions intensity by 5 percent, that's a nice concept. But to be able to actually do that means ... you have the ability to measure industrywide what you're doing now and what you're doing after."

On the other hand, "It's not such a difficult thing to count the number of plants that have a certain technology," Klein said.



In a close examination of China's cement, iron and steel industries, Klein and his colleagues--including collaborators from China's Tshinghua University--found that adopting targets for the deployment of more efficient technologies in the cement industry alone could reduce emissions in that sector by 10-20%.

Not only would a technology-based approach reduce emissions more quickly and effectively than setting a hard cap, it would also make developing nations more likely to get on-board for an international climate treaty.

Haibing Ma, another co-author of the report, said:

"This kind of approach will have more buying power. [China has] shown a greater level of interest in this type of approach" than in energy-intensity or hard emissions cap approaches.

A technology-based approach also follows logically from the rapid deployment actions China is already taking. The nation has set ambitious targets for clean energy technologies including wind, solar, and nuclear. The Chinese government has implemented a wide range of subsidies and incentives to facilitate the deployment of these clean energy technologies. And it will continue to foster clean technology deployment with a massive $440-660 billion clean energy investment plan, set to be released this year.

As Breakthrough and others have reported, it's not emissions caps but targeted technology deployment policies-- underwritten by substantial and stable government support--that have put China on track to surpass the US in the race to dominate the burgeoning clean energy industry.

Last week's CCAP report isn't the first to call for direct decarbonization of global industries. It falls in line with a recent paper coordinated by British professor and researcher Gwin Pryns, who recommends a strategy called the "Direct Kaya Approach" to reduce the carbon intensity of an economy by increasing energy efficiency and deploying low-carbon technologies. Such a framework could replace the failed, emissions-centric Kyoto model and provide the backbone for a new international climate agreement like the one Breakthrough has advocated.

The sooner climate negotiators heed the call of experts like Klein and Prins, the better. Pledges to slash emissions may make for rosy-sounding headlines, but without a plan to reach these goals, an international climate deal will amount to nothing but empty promises. The world has a far ways to go in order to avert catastrophic climate change--and a framework based on clear, measurable technology targets provides a roadmap for how both developed and developing countries will get there.

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Secretary of Energy: Breakthroughs Essential to Fully Meet Nation’s Energy Challenges

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $377 million in funding to establish 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) pursuing potentially path-breaking basic and translational research at the cutting-edge of clean energy innovation. Of this funding, $277 comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, otherwise known as the stimulus package) and $100 million comes from the DOE’s FY2009 budget. The funding will be sustained over the next five years, with the DOE committing $100 million of its budget to the research centers each year.

“Meeting the challenge to reduce our dependence on imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions will require significant scientific advances,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu as he announced the new funding for EFRCs. “These centers will mobilize the enormous talents and skills of our nation’s scientific workforce in pursuit of the breakthroughs that are essential to expand the use of clean and renewable energy.”

The majority of EFRCs are based in universities, with several harnessing the skills and resources of the national laboratories, and just three awarded to non-profit organizations and private corporations. Over the course of the program, these centers will employ over 1,800 people in research into four primary realms: Renewable and Carbon-Neutral Energy (including Solar Energy Utilization, Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, Biofuels, and Geological Sequestration of CO2); Energy Efficiency (Clean and Efficient Combustion, Solid State Lighting, Superconductivity); Energy Storage (Hydrogen Research, Electrical Energy Storage); and Crosscutting Science (Catalysis, Materials under Extreme Environments).

A few examples of the research this funding will support include (full list here):

• Columbia University will focus on achieving higher sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiencies from thin film solar photovoltaics.
• Cornell University will focus on advanced battery chemistry and design that could enable affordable electric vehicles or mass on-grid energy storage
• University of Texas-Austin will focus on advanced materials used in energy storage technologies.
• Purdue University will focus on improved conversion of biomass to energy, fuels or chemicals.

To be sure, this funding should be celebrated – this research is crucial to developing the scientific foundation for breakthrough energy technologies. It is a great (small) step. But the time has long since come to fully invest in our nation’s innovators and the cutting-edge research essential to both improve today’s clean energy technologies and to achieve breakthroughs that pave the way for the transformational energy technologies of tomorrow. Both forms of support are necessary to make clean energy cheap.

Unfortunately, total U.S. spending on energy research, development and deployment is in a sorry state. I noted yesterday that the entire budget for ARPA-e (a newly funded government agency centered on high-risk, high-reward energy research) is less than talk show personality Rush Limbaugh’s latest contract. In total the U.S. government spent about $4 billion on energy research in 2007 (the same as the Navy’s phone bill that year by the way). That figure is thankfully up somewhat, with this new infusion of innovation investment in the stimulus and President Obama’s FY 2009 budget, but still just barely tops $5 billion. In contrast, the United States spends over $30 billion annually to pursue cures to deadly diseases and improve human health through the National Institutes of Health – evidence of the scale of a true national innovation priority.

While spending on energy research is expected to be higher this year than in recent years (in large part due to the stimulus), we need a sustained commitment to clean energy that reflects the scale of our mounting energy and climate challenge. The Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, currently promoted as the next driver of a clean energy economy, would invest only about $1.2 billion annually in energy research and development and roughly $10 billion in the clean energy sector as a whole – less than 0.1 percent of U.S. GDP. In contrast, South Korea is investing a full 2 percent of its GDP in clean technologies, and China is planning to invest $44-66 billion annually to build their own modern clean energy industries and infrastructure. We must inspire and empower our nation’s youth to become the next generation of energy innovators by fully funding President Obama’s RE-ENERGYSE initiative, and we must build and expand upon this new funding for Energy Frontier Research Centers as just the first launching pad into the next frontiers of clean energy deployment.

Cross-posted at The Breakthrough Institute

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Shouldn’t Energy Innovation be Worth More than Rush Limbaugh?!

Despite President Obama’s call for an energy revolution, it is up to Congress to provide funding. The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-e) made a recent call for research proposals into “high-risk, high-payoff transformational energy-related R&D,” for projects that “(1) translate scientific discoveries and cutting-edge inventions into technological innovations and (2) accelerate transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of high technical or financial risk.”

Over 3,500 research teams submitted proposals for a slice of the available $150 million. As a result, over 98% of applicants we “discouraged” from submitting a full application.

Sure, some of the applications were “undoubtedly unrealistic, fundamentally flawed, written in crayon, or the like,” as Andrew Revkin aptly noted at Dot Earth. But with 98% of all proposals rejected, there’s got to be another explanation for the high rejection rate as well. Surely at least 5%, 10%, maybe even one third of these proposals are worth further consideration. Remember: this round of project proposals was simply to get into the next round of consideration where ARPA-e program managers would being the real project grant selection process. No, the reason so many proposals were rejected has more to do with the fact that there is simply not nearly enough money to fund all the good, potentially game-changing clean energy ideas out there.

This problem is not unique to this ARPA-e or this round of research proposals. It is a chronic symptom of this country’s (under)commitment to clean energy. For FY 2009, ARPA-E received $15 million, just enough to cover operating expenses, to say nothing about grants for research. The agency did receive $400 million from the stimulus, which is the source for this round of proposals, and may last through a year or two of project grants. Although the stimulus funding is admirable, it is nowhere near the sustained level of energy funding needed to transform our energy system. In 2007, the federal government spent just $4 billion on energy-related R&D, which was just 3 percent of total federal R&D investments and a measly 0.03 percent of GDP.

Here are a few comparisons to help illustrate the scale of money I'm talking about.

• $150 million: The amount of funding for the recent ARPA-E grants. The State of Wisconsin alone is dedicating $150 million to clean energy projects, albeit for clean energy deployment (not research).
• $400 million: Amount of funding for ARPA-E in the stimulus. Rush Limbaugh’s extended contract in 2008 was worth $400 million as was former Exxon Chairman Lee Raymond’s retirement package in 2006.
• $3 billion: That’s how much money the U.S. invests each year in defense-related innovation through DARPA alone. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (responsible for funding the invention of the Internet, GPS, among many others) is the highly-regarded inspiration for ARPA-e and provides a good example of what a fully-funded federal innovation agency looks like. (By the way, total annual defense-related R&D spending tops $80 billion annually!)
• $4 billion: Amount federal government spent on energy research in 2007. Also how much the Navy paid in phone bills that same year.
• $30 and $84 billion: Amounts Japan and South Korea are spending on energy research and support for new clean energy technologies over the next 5 years.
• $30 billion is also the amount the U.S. government invests every year in the National Institutes of Health, as we pursue cures to ravaging diseases. That is what a national commitment to research and innovation really looks like. We’ll know that the U.S. is truly serious about clean energy innovation when it invests at least the same order of magnitude in energy R&D as we spend on health care research ever year.
• $440-660 billion: Amount China is reportedly investing in their clean energy technologies and industries over the next ten years.

Oh, and don’t expect private investments to make up the difference. The Brookings Institute estimated that in 2007 private sector investments in R&D were at only $2.4 billion, and investments have declined since the recent economic meltdown. Individual biotech companies invest more in R&D than the entire energy industry combined. In short, current U.S. investments in energy are pretty much chump change – and it’s time we got serious about remedying that fact.

The federal government, specifically Congress, must provide adequate funding for energy research if we are to take the nation’s mounting energy challenges seriously. $150 million for ARPA-E projects is a start (a small one), but we should increase federal energy innovation spending by at least $15 billion per year to make the scale of commitment necessary to make a difference in our nation’s energy challenges – and even more if we are to compete in the clean energy race with countries like Japan, South Korea and China.

Cross-posted at Breakthrough Generation

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