Category: Solar energy

What Might the 2014 Elections Mean for U.S. Energy and Environmental Policy?

The simple answer is that at this point we don’t know. Lots of different paths are possible, depending on how Republicans interpret their enhanced power in the U.S. Congress, how the President approaches his final two years in office, and how Congressional Democrats react to their minority party role. Nevertheless, I will offer my current thoughts and speculations, subject of course to significant change as we proceed in Congress’ 2014 lame duck session and the start of a new Congress in January with Republicans in charge of both Houses for the first time in eight years.

One major consideration that dominates my thinking is that Republicans, facing inevitable demographic realities in future elections (older white people as a declining percentage of the voting population, more non-white voters/mostly Latino and Asian, and a growing number of young voters generally more progressive than their parents and grandparents), must demonstrate that they can govern effectively if they are to win national elections in the future. Remembering the Gingrich era in the 1990’s, when Republicans took over the Congress, it proved much easier to be in the minority and sling arrows than to govern effectively when finally in power. The modern House of Representatives, under John Boehner as Speaker, has proved to be one of the least effective in American history, but with control of both Houses in Republican hands after January, Boehner and McConnell (the presumed Majority Leaders in the new Congress) have the opportunity to do more than just oppose Obama Administration initiatives. What Boehner and McConnell want to do and are able to do will determine their places in history.

The issues as I see them are as follows: policy for fossil fuel supply – coal, oil, natural gas, fossil fuel exports, Keystone XL pipeline, global warming and climate change, support for clean energy, water issues. Each will be discussed briefly below.

– Fossil fuel supply: with Kentucky’s senior Senator setting the agenda for the Senate it is likely that anti-coal activists will be unsuccessful in accelerating the pace of closure of coal-fired power plants in the near future. These decisions, made on economic grounds by power plant operators, will be self-interested decisions based on the legislative environment they are facing. With Republicans in charge I anticipate every effort will be made to slow down or repeal the EPA’s proposed rules on carbon emissions. While there are Republicans who understand the need to replace coal combustion with natural gas and eventually with renewable energy, the political reality that they may be challenged in reelection primaries by climate change minimalizers or deniers tends to keep them in line with status-quo positions. Coal’s role in power generation in the U.S. is clearly diminishing, faster than most people probably anticipated just a few years ago, but low-cost coal exports to other countries are picking up. As the UK experienced several decades ago, closing coal mines and losing the associated jobs is difficult politics, as this year’s Senate election in Kentucky demonstrated. Keeping one’s job is priority #1 for most if not all people, and the political system needs to keep this firmly in mind. Balancing this against the needs of environmental protection is what we pay our politicians to do.

The issues with oil and natural gas largely relate to fracking and its associated environmental threats, and with their export to other countries. Both are critical issues that can no longer be avoided and require careful policy prescriptions that Republicans are now in a better place to affect. Fracking of oil and natural gas from extensive shale deposits has expanded rapidly in the U.S. in recent years, and the U.S. Is rapidly becoming the world’s #1 oil producer (when shale oil adds to our declining but still large traditional domestic oil production) and a major souce of natural gas supplies. As discussed in two previous posts on this blog web site, I see no way to stop fracking in the U.S. because of the large associated economic returns, and therefore we must regulate it carefully to avoid the real possibility of water supply contamination and minimize accidental releases of methane, a powerful global climate change gas. Republicans can have their cake and eat it too if they support this needed regulation, gaining brownie points for their environmentalism and still allow the fracking industry to proceed on their profitable path. Substituting fracking gas for coal in power generation is in most people’s interest, and while I would prefer to replace coal with wind, solar and other renewable generation sources, we are not in a position to do that yet. Nevertheless, the U.S. public largely understands the need for this inevitable transition and Republicans would be politically wise to take a long-range view on facilitating this transition. We shall see.

A related issue is what to do about U.S. producers who want to export oil and natural gas. Large and remunerative potential markets await in Europe and Asia but since the 1970’s it has been illegal for companies to export crude oil in all but a few circumstances. The goal of the 1970’s legislation was to conserve domestic oil reserves and discourage foreign imports, but in reality, the export ban did not help accomplish either objective.

The Natural Gas Act of 1938, as amended, requires that anyone who wants to import or export natural gas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), from or to a foreign country must first obtain an authorization from the Department of Energy. This is less of a barrier than the ban on oil exports, but until recently the U.S. was anticipating importing LNG, not exporting it. The fracking revolution has changed all this, and LNG import terminals are now being constructed as export terminals.

An argument against such exports is less fossil fuel and potentially higher energy costs for U.S. consumers. Foreign policy as well as economic considerations come into this discussion as we try to loosen other country’s dependence on Russian and Middle East producers. I anticipate that export controls will be loosened on a bipartisan basis and the U.S. will emerge as a major energy exporter in the decades to come.

Approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline by the President will be a key issue in the upcoming lame duck session of Congress and may carry over to the new Congress in January. My own view, expressed in an earlier blog post, is that stopping construction of the pipeline will not slow Canadian development of its tar sands oil resources and that I’d rather have the oil coming to the U.S. rather than going elsewhere. I also believe that transport of oil by pipeline is safer than transport by rail car, the obvious and unstoppable alternative. With regard to this issue, which many environmentalists have identified as a litmus test for President Obama’s environmental bona fides, I see the pipeline, which has strong Republican support as well as some Democratic support, as a done deal, perhaps as part of a tradeoff with other Democratic priorities such as immigration reform.

The issue of global warming and climate change is a difficult partisan issue but shouldn’t be. The science of understanding global warming is advancing steadily, its risks are clear to most people, and the largely negative impacts of climate change are increasingly being documented. The problem in the U.S. Is the political clout of industries dependent on sales of fossil fuels. In addition, Republican control of the Senate means that chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee will fall to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a climate change denier. This is clearly bad news for environmentalists and others who are concerned about climate change, but also for Republicans and Democrats who will eventually have to deal with this global crisis. Inhofe can slow things down and probably will, at least for the next two years before another Senate election is scheduled. It will be up to members and leaders of both parties to limit the damage that Inhofe can do.

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Support for clean energy (efficiency, renewables) should also not be a partisan issue, but unfortunately is. Vested interests in the traditional energy industries still have too much power with a Congress highly dependent on campaign funds. My views on the need to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy are clearly stated in quite a few of my blog posts, reflecting my view that such a transition is inevitable and clearly in the national interest. Unfortunately, I expect the next few years, under Republican control of Congress, to be a repeat of the years under President George W. Bush (‘Bush 43’) when lip service was paid to clean energy but budget support didn’t follow. As I was taught on my first days in Washington, DC in 1974, budget is policy. I hope President Obama will take a strong stand on these issues, despite Republican electoral gains, since he no longer has to protect vulnerable Democratic candidates.

I bring water into this discussion because water and energy issues are ‘inextricably linked’. Energy production requires water and provision of clean water supplies requires energy. Republicans as well as Democrats must recognize the need to consider these two issues together, and I think they will. This issue needs visibility and increased understanding on the part of politicians and the public, and is a natural for bipartisan cooperation. I hope I am right.

Obviously, I have only touched lightly on the many energy and environmental issues facing the U.S., and encourage others to join me in this discussion. These next few years should be interesting indeed!

A Letter to President Obama

This letter, which will be published as a blog post, is a followup to my earlier post entitled ‘A Conversation With S. David Freeman’. In that post I stated:
“….. despite the obvious resistance that Obama faces from Republicans on anything he proposes, and the need to keep a Democratic Senate if at all possible (so that his last two years in office will not be even more difficult than his first six years), should the President think big and propose what he knows the country needs as opposed to what is politically feasible? My heart says yes, and the side of me that claims to be practical, after many years in Washington, DC, tries hard to understand Obama’s strategy and support it. But Dave may be right – we may have an intellectual President whose nature just won’t allow him to stick his neck out. As I said to Dave, the test for me will be after the November elections, when Obama will have no Democratic candidates to protect and nothing to lose by proposing farseeing energy and environmental legislation. He will not succeed in getting it passed by the most dysfunctional Congress I’ve seen in forty years, but as Dave says, we have to start somewhere.”

I’m also aware that a number of my liberal/progressive friends and colleagues, in addition to Dave Freeman, have expressed disappointment with the President for not doing more on energy and environmental issues as they assumed he would when he was elected. I have resisted joining this group and continue to support the President’s analytic and pragmatic approach to dealing with these issues. It has led to some difficult discussions, and despite my long and transparent political history led one long-standing friend to write: “…it is interesting, for sure, to see you moving toward the real Democrats.”

Needless to say, I disagree with this friend’s characterization of what a true Democrat believes, as if there is only one way to address these issues, and we will have to agree to disagree. Nevertheless, these interactions with friends and my own impatience about seeing more done quickly to achieve a clean energy society, leads to this appeal to you as you approach the final two years of your presidency.

Once we are past the elections in the first week of November you will have little reason, in my opinion, to hold back on your vision for this country’s energy future. I believe you have a clear understanding of what that future must be, but that vision has to be translated into a national energy policy that is codified by the U.S. Congress. As a nation we need to set long-term goals for moving away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward an energy system increasingly dependent on increased energy efficiency and renewable energy generating sources, as the European Union has done and even China is doing in its multiple five-year plans. You need to level with the American public about the policy choices we have to make now to ensure we are well on our way to that energy future that other nations have identified more clearly than we. Republicans and some Democrats may not agree but your leadership is needed to point the way forward and put pressure on the Congress to protect our long-term interests.

You have recently taken important steps to do what you feel you can reasonably do within your executive powers to reduce energy-related carbon emissions. You are taking some political heat for that. but that comes with the job and as best I can tell from media reports the majority of Americans agree with your approach. What is less clear is your vision for a long-term clean energy policy and how we can move rapidly to that end, which is part-and-parcel of addressing global warming/climate change and improving national security. Your all-of-the-above energy strategy leaves many of us wanting more clarity from you on the hard choices we have to make to ensure our energy future. This letter is a request for such clarity while you still have a chance to make a significant difference as President. It will undoubtedly lead to further political attacks, but so what? You were overly patient with Republican intransigence in your first Administration, a serious mistake that took you too long to learn from, and you must not repeat that again in setting out your goals for the future. They will huff and puff and perhaps slow down national progress, as they threaten to do on health care, but you must lead in pointing the way. We will get there eventually but the sooner the better. You can make a difference and I await your post-November 4th leadership.

A Conversation With S. David Freeman

Had a most interesting discussion at lunch today (3 September 2014) with Dave, whose name is well known to older generations of energy policy types but less well known to many younger folks. He and I first met when we both joined the staff of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on October 1, 1974. Dave joined as a full-time energy staffer just after leading a major review of national energy policy sponsored by the Ford Foundation (‘A Time to Choose: America’s Energy Future’), and me as a Congressional Fellow/Staff Scientist. Dave is now 88 years old (I’m a relatively young 77) and in my opinion is as sharp, feisty and opinionated as he was when I first met him forty years ago. In the interim he has held a series of high level jobs (Chairman/TVA, General Manager/Sacramento Municipal Utility District, General Manager/New York Power Authority, General Manager/Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) and is still active in trying to close down California’s aging and poorly located nuclear power plants. We had not seen each other in a number of years and today’s lunch was a chance to catch up a bit.

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We met at noon at his apartment building in DC, and after walking to a nearby barbeque restaurant we got down to filling in the years. We reflected on the work we both did in the 1970’s on energy issues during Senator Warren Magnuson’s tenure as Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and on the many talented people we worked with at that time. We then discussed Dave’s time in Knoxville where he pushed hard to introduce conservation and solar energy into TVA’s energy portfolio and resisted the pressures to add more nuclear power plants. These priorities characterized his subsequent roles at SMUD, NYPA, and LADWP, and remain his priorities today. He was an early voice for clean energy in the U.S., and was appointed by President Johnson in 1967 as “..the first person with an energy responsibility in the federal government.” He has also been termed an “‘eco-pioneer’ for his environmentally-oriented leadership of SMUD.”

Our lunchtime discussion, after appropriate reminiscences, devolved into a discussion of energy policy under President Obama. Dave appreciates that Obama has an understanding of the importance of energy efficiency and renewble energy to our future energy system, but feels strongly that Obama is indecisive and has failed to put action behind his words. In fact, Dave called him “gutless” for failing to provide needed leadership on reducing our use of fossil fuels and making an all-out push on renewables. Dave’s feeling is that Obama is too cautious by nature (he quoted the opinion of an Illinois politician who had worked with Obama) and unwilling to stick his neck out, when what this country needs is a Preident who does just that. Notwithstanding the argument that the President is having a hard time getting any legislation through the Congress, and may have even more trouble after the November elections, Dave’s argument is that we have a critical need to reduce carbon emissions and that we have to start somewhere, even if it takes 10 years to get a meaningful program implemented. It is a powerful argument, as nothing gets done if one doesn’t try.

Dave gave me a lot to think about, as I’ve been a strong supporter of the President and his energy policies, but admit to being concerned about the President’s limited public explanations of his policies, whether energy or foreign policy. He may understand the issues, and Dave and I agree that he does, but is the President being too cautious by far? As a result, is he passing up an opportunity to lead the country in a needed direction at a critical time? As the leader of the nation is it encumbent upon him to propose legislation that limits our use of fossil fuels and puts us more aggressively on the path to a renewable future, even if the likelihood of passage is low to nonexistent in the near future? Upon leaving Dave after lunch I decided to write about our conversation and raise the question that Dave poses. This is the result.

My thoughts upon reflection are the following: despite the obvious resistance that Obama faces from Republicans on anything he proposes, and the need to keep a Democratic Senate if at all possible (so that his last two years in office will not be even more difficult than his first six years), should the President think big and propose what he knows the country needs as opposed to what is politically feasible? My heart says yes, and the side of me that claims to be practical, after many years in Washington, DC, tries hard to understand Obama’s strategy and support it. But Dave may be right – we may have an intellectual President whose nature just won’t allow him to stick his neck out. As I said to Dave, the test for me will be after the November elections, when Obama will have no Democratic candidates to protect and nothing to lose by proposing farseeing energy and environmental legislation. He will not succeed in getting it passed by the most dysfunctional Congress I’ve seen in forty years, but as Dave says, we have to start somewhere.

As those who read my blog will recall, I’ve taken issue with the Clinton-Gore Administration for not doing more on clean energy when they had the chance in the 1990’s. Dave’s point about Obama is similar – we need leadership that looks down the road despite today’s political realities. My final verdict on the Obama Administration’s achievements on energy policy will depend on what comes out of the White House after November. I hope that the President has it in him to do what Dave and I both agree the country needs, but at this point I still have confidence in President Obama. Dave does not.

This is a lot to think about, and I will continue to cogitate on Dave’s perspectives. Hopefully, others will join this discussion via comments on this blog post.

Looking Ahead 30-40 Years – A Risky Business

History has always been my favorite subject, starting in high school, and still constitutes a major part of my personal reading. Needless to say I have a strong interest in other topics as well, as attested to by my long career in science and engineering and education/mentoring activities with young people. What often fascinates me is looking back at how things have changed in the past, often in unexpected ways, and how people looking back in the decades ahead will put their perspectives on what we are doing today. This blog post is my attempt to flesh out these thoughts, while acknowledging the difficulty of looking into the future. If I look far enough into that future I will not be around to suffer the slings and arrows of projecting incorrectly, or collecting the kudos for projecting accurately. Nevertheless, it feels like a stimulating and challenging activity to undertake, and so here goes.

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Let me start by going back seven decades to the 1940s when I was a young kid growing up in the Bronx and just beginning to form my likes and dislikes and develop opinions. My love for science fiction developed at that time and was probably a dead give-away of my future career interests. An important shaping event was the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945, an event that I still clearly remember learning about on the radio while sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car. Without a deep or much of any understanding at that time, I somehow sensed that the world had changed in that August moment. I still feel that way after many subsequent years of reading and studying.

The following decades saw several other unexpected and defining events: the addition of fusion weapons (hydrogen bombs) to our nuclear arsenals, commercial applications of controlled nuclear fission (nuclear submarines and nuclear-powered surface ships, and the first commercial nuclear power plant which was actually a land-based nuclear submarine power plant), development and emergence of the transistor as a replacement for vacuum tubes (first using germanium and then silicon), the development of the first solar cell at Bell Labs, the development and application of laser technology, the emergence of the information technology industry based on the heretofore abstract concepts of Boolean algebra (0s and 1s), and the increasing attention to a wide range of clean energy technologies that had previously been considered impractical for wide scale application – wind, solar, geothermal, ocean energy, fuel cells, advanced battery technologies, and a broad range of alternative liquid and gaseous fuels. Each in its own way has already changed and will further change the world in future decades, as will other technologies that we now only speculate about or cannot imagine. This is the lesson of history – it is difficult for most of us to look ahead and successfully imagine the future, and one of my earlier blog posts (‘Anticipating the Future: It Can Be Difficult’) discusses this topic. In the following paragraphs I speculate about the future with humility but also great anticipation. My only regret is that I will not live long enough to see most of this future unfold.

I will divide this discussion into two parts on which I have focused some attention and feel that I have some knowledge – medicine/health care, and energy. That leaves all too many aspects of the future that I don’t feel qualified to comment upon – e.g., what more will we learn about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, Cuba’s possible participation in John Kennedy’s assassination, and the future of the tumultuous Middle East and the countries of the former Soviet Union. My primary focus in this post will be on the latter of the two parts, energy.

To help you understand my interest in medicine and health care I confess that at one point in my career, before committing to pursuing a PhD in physics, I gave serious consideration to attending medical school. During this period in the early 1960s I was a research scientist at Texas Instruments (TI) and was excited about the possibilities of miniature electronics which TI was pioneering in. I even suggested to my TI bosses that we undertake the application of transistors and sensors to artificial vision, but it was much too early for the company to make such a commitment. Today, 50 years later, that vision is being realized.

I also see great promise in the application of miniature electronics to continuous in-vivo diagnosis of human health via capsules that float throughout a human’s blood network, monitor various chemical components, and broadcast the results to external receivers. This will depend on low-powered miniature sensors and analysis/broadcast capability powered by long-lasting miniature batteries or an electrical system powered by the human body itself. Early versions are now being developed and I see no long-term barriers to developing such a system.

A third area in which I see great promise is the non-invasive monitoring of brain activity. This is a research area that I see opening up in the 21st century as we are beginning to have the sensitive tools necessary to explore the brain in detail. Given that the brain is responsible for so many aspects of our mental and physical health I expect great strides in the coming decades in using brain monitoring to address these issues.

The energy area is where I have devoted the bulk of my professional career and where my credibility may be highest – at least I’d like to think so. Previous blog posts address my thoughts on a wide range of current energy, water-energy, and related policy issues. Recognizing that changes in our energy systems come slowly over decades and sometimes unexpectedly, as history tells us, I will share my current thoughts on where I anticipate we will be in 30-40 years.

Let me start with renewable energy – i.e., solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, and ocean energy. I have commented on each of these previously, but not from a 30-40 year perspective. Renewables are not new but, except for hydropower, their entering or beginning to enter the energy mainstream is a relatively recent phenomenon. Solar in the form of photovoltaics (PV) is a truly transformative technology and today is the fastest growing energy source in the world, even more so than wind. This is due to significant cost reductions for solar panels in recent years, PV’s suitability for distributed generation, its ease and quickness of installation, and its easy scalability. As soon as PV balance-of-system costs (labor, support structures, permitting, wiring) come down from current levels and approach PV cell costs of about $0.5-0.7 per peak watt I expect this technology to be widespread on all continents and in all developed and developing countries. Germany, not a very sunny country but the country with the most PV installed to date, has even had occasional summer days when half its electricity was supplied by solar. In combination with energy storage to address its variability, I see PV powering a major revolution in the electric utility sector as utilities recognize that their current business models are becoming outdated. This is already happening in Germany where electric utilities are now moving rapidly into the solar business. In terms of the future, I would not be surprised if solar PV is built into all new residential and commercial buildings within a few decades, backed up by battery or flywheel storage (or even hydrogen for use in fuel cells as the ultimate storage medium). Most buildings will still be connected to the grid as a backup, but a significant fraction of domestic electricity (30-40%) could be solar-derived by 2050. The viability of this projection is supported by the NREL June 2012 study entitled ‘Renewable Electricity Futures Study’.

Hydropower already contributes about 10% of U.S. electricity and I anticipate will grow somewhat in future decades as more low-head hydro sites are developed.

For many years onshore wind was the fastest growing renewable electricity source until overtaken recently by PV. It is still growing rapidly and will be enhanced by offshore wind which currently is growing slowly. However, I expect offshore wind to grow rapidly as we approach mid-century as costs are reduced for two primary reasons: it taps into an incredibly large energy resource off the coasts of many countries, and it is in close proximity to coastal cities where much of the world’s population is increasingly concentrated. In my opinion, wind, together with solar and hydro, will contribute 50-60% of U.S. electricity in 2050.

Other renewable electric technologies will contribute as well, but in smaller amounts. Hot dry rock geothermal wells (now called enhanced geothermal systems) will compete with and perhaps come to dominate traditional geothermal generation, but this will take time. Wave and tidal energy will be developed and become more cost effective in specific geographical locations, with the potential to contribute more in the latter part of the century. This is especially true of wave energy which taps into a large and nearly continuous energy source.

Biomass in the form of wood is an old renewable energy source, but in modern times biomass gasification and conversion to alternative liquid fuels is opening up new vistas for widescale use of biomass as costs come down. By mid-century I expect electrification and biomass-based fuels to replace our current heavy dependence on petroleum-based fuels for transportation. This trend is already underway and may be nearly complete in the U.S. by 2050. Biomass-based chemical feedstocks will also be widely used, signifying the beginning of the end of the petroleum era.

I expect that other fossil fuels, coal and natural gas, will still be used widely in the next few decades, given large global resources. Natural gas, as a cleaner burning fossil fuel, and with the availability of large amounts via fracking, will gradually replace coal in power plants and could represent 30-40% of U.S. power generation by mid-century with coal generation disappearing.

To this point I have not discussed nuclear power, which today provides close to 20% of U.S. electricity. While I believe that safe nuclear power plants can be built today –i.e., no meltdowns – cost, permanent waste storage, and weapons proliferation concerns are all slowing nuclear’s progress in the U.S. Given the availability of relatively low-cost natural gas for at least several decades (I believe fracking will be with us for a while), the anticipated rapid growth of renewable electricity, and the risks of nuclear power, I see limited enthusiasm for its growth in the decades ahead. In fact I would not be surprised to see nuclear power supplying only about 10% of U.S. electricity by 2050, and less in the future.

To summarize, my picture today of an increased amount of U.S. electricity generation in 2050 is as follows:

Generating Technology : Percent of U.S. Generation in 2050
nuclear: 5-10
coal: 0-5
Oil: 0
natural gas: 30-40
solar + wind + hydro: 50-60
other renewables: 5-10

I am sure that some readers of this post will take strong issue with my projections and have very different thoughts about the future. I welcome their thoughts and invite them to join me in looking ahead. As the title of this post acknowledges, looking ahead is risky business, but it is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. This seems as good a time as any to do so.

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A Personal View

The attached article entitled ‘Why the U.S. has not made more progress in moving toward a renewable energy future – a personal view’ was published on June 30, 2014 in the ejournal energy post (www.energypost.eu). My reason for writing this piece is explained in the text. It expands on an earlier blog post by adding, in some detail, my personal answer to the question raised in the article’s title.

Why the U.S. has not made more progress in moving toward a renewable energy future – a personal view
June 30, 2014 – Author: Allan Hoffman

Editor’s note: In 1978 a monumental multi-departmental study was submitted to President Carter concluding that “solar energy could make a significant contribution to U.S. energy supply by the end of this century”. The study, backed by 30 federal departments, stated that “even with today’s subsidized energy prices, many solar technologies are already economic.” Yet no action was taken and solar power and other renewable energies stagnated for over 30 years. Until now? Allan Hoffman, former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy, who personally delivered the report to the White House back in 1978, recalls what went wrong – and what lessons the U.S. should draw if it is to avoid another failed renewables revolution.
……………………………………………….

On December 6, 1978 I personally delivered a multi-agency report to the staff of the Domestic Policy Advisor to President Carter entitled ‘Domestic Policy Review of Solar Energy: A Response Memorandum to The President of the United States’. It is popularly known as the DPR. The report had been requested by the President in a May 3, 1978 speech in Golden, Colorado, dedicating the newly formed Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI). SERI has since become the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The DPR was the final report of the first comprehensive review by the U.S. federal government of its policies for renewable energy. It involved 30 federal departments and agencies, and at its peak this 6-month study involved the efforts of 175 senior government officials detailed to the DPR task force. As the U.S. Department of Energy’s senior representative to the DPR, and just one month after I had joined DOE as a political appointee, I was designated to head the effort by my new boss, the head of DOE’s Policy Office.

My hopes were dashed when President Clinton tried to put a price on carbon by raising gasoline prices by five cents a gallon and ran into a political firestorm. He never tried again.
The next six months were rather intense, starting with the fact that the other 29 departments and agencies didn’t trust the 30th, DOE, because of some recent history. Shortly before the DPR was announced the Carter Administration had released a National Energy Policy, also a multi-agency effort chaired by DOE. The story I was told by non-DOE staff was that DOE, at the last minute, had pulled out a draft it had prepared on its own and submitted it as the multi-agency report. As a result I inherited a problem of trust and spent much of the DPR’s first month building relationships with the non-DOE detailees to reestablish that trust. The DPR was completed in early December 1978, and delivered to the White House shortly thereafter. The full report, with appendices, was formally published in February 1979 and is available in DOE’s archives.

Point well taken
The reason I am writing about it now is that my wife recently happened to read it for the first time, and had a ‘strong’ reaction. She asked me, quite forcefully, WTF has it taken the U.S. so long to implement what we recommended more than 35 years ago? Point well taken! She also recommended that I write about this failure and “name names”. As a government retiree (as of September 30, 2012) I feel free to do that without constraint, recognizing that others may have different views on the subject. In fact, I will let the readers of this piece make up their own minds by reproducing the seven-page Executive Summary in full below before offering my views. It also serves as a piece of history that most people today are not familiar with.

Here it is.

“Domestic Policy Review of Solar Energy: A Response Memorandum to The President of the United States
(February 1979, TID-22834/Dist. Category UC-13)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

In your May 3, 1978, Sun Day speech, you called for a Domestic Policy Review (DPR) of solar energy. Stuart Eizenstat followed on May 16 with a memorandum defining its scope to include:

A thorough review of the current Federal solar programs to determine whether they, taken as a whole, represent an optimal program for bringing solar technologies into widespread commercial use on an accelerated timetable;
A sound analysis of the contribution which solar energy can make to U.S. and international energy demand, both in the short and longer term;
Recommendations for an overall solar strbategy to pull together Federal, State and private efforts to accelerate the use of solar technologies.

In response to this memorandum, an interagency Solar Energy Policy Committee under the chairmanship of the Secretary of Energy was formed to conduct the review. Over 100 officials representing more than 30 executive departments and agencies have participated since early June.

This review was conducted with significant public participation. Twelve regional public forums were convened throughout the Nation during June and July to receive public comments and recommendations on the development of national solar energy policy. The response of the public was impressive, and reflected the growing support for solar energy identified by several recent opinion polls. Several thousand people attended the meetings and over 2000 individuals and organizations submitted oral or written comments.

In addition, briefings were given to members of the Domestic Policy Review by representatives of solar advocacy groups, small businesses, state and local government, public interest and consumer groups, utilities, the energy industry and solar equipment manufacturers. This public input was an important part of the Review.

In large part, themes reflected in the public comments are consistent with the findings of the DPR and the premises of the National Energy Plan. These premises include an emphasis on conservation as a cornerstone of national energy policy, awareness that energy prices should generally reflect the true replacement cost of energy, and recognition of the need to prepare for an orderly transition to an economy based on renewable energy resources. The public forum comments also reflected a deep concern that the poor and the elderly have access to affordable energy.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS

The results of the Domestic Policy Review can be summarized in nine major findings.

1. With appropriate private and government support, solar energy could make a significant contribution to U.S. energy supply by the end of this century. Renewable energy sources, principally biomass and hydropower, now contribute about 4.8 quads or six percent to the U.S. energy supply. Since estimates of future energy supply and demand are imprecise, three generic forecasts of possible solar use were developed. They can be distinguished most readily by the level of effort that would be required to reach them. In the Base Case, where present policies and programs continue, solar energy could displace 10-12 of a total of 95-114 quads in the year 2000 if energy prices rise to the equivalent of $25-32 per barrel of oil in 1977 dollars. A Maximum Practical effort by Federal, state and local governments could result in solar energy displacing 18 quads of conventional energy by the end of the century. Thus, if one assumes the higher future oil price scenario and this Maximum Practical effort, solar could provide about 20 percent of the nation’s energy by the year 2000. The Technical Limit of solar penetration by the year 2000, imposed primarily by the rates at which changes can be made to existing stocks of buildings and equipment, and rates at which solar techniques can be manufactured and deployed, appears to be 25-30 quads.

2. Solar energy offers numerous important advantages over competing technologies. It provides the Nation with a renewable energy source which can have far fewer detrimental environmental effects than conventional sources. To the extent that increased use of solar energy can eventually reduce U.S. dependence on expensive oil imports, it can also improve our balance of payments, alleviate associated economic problems, and contribute to national security. Widespread use of solar energy can also add diversity and flexibility to the nation’s energy supply, providing insurance against the effects of substantial energy price increases or breakdowns in other major energy systems. If oil supplies are sharply curtailed or environmental problems associated with fossil and nuclear fuels cannot be surmounted, solar systems could help reduce the possibility of major economic disruption.

In addition, because solar systems can be matched to many end-uses more effectively than centralized systems, their use can help reduce a large amount of energy waste. Although the U.S. now consumes about 76 quads of energy a year, less than 43 quads actually are used to provide energy directly in useable form. The rest in consumed in conversion, transmission and end-use losses.

3. Even with today’s subsidized energy prices, many solar technologies are already economic and can be used in a wide range of applications. Direct burning of wood has been economic in the private sector for some time, accounting for 1.3 to 1.8 quads of energy use. Combustion of solid wastes or fuels derived from solid wastes is planned for several U.S. cities. Passive solar design can significantly reduce energy use in many structures with little or no increase in building cost. Low head hydroelectric generation is currently economic at favorable sites. Solar hot water systems can compete successfully in many regions against electric resistance heating, and will compete against systems using natural gas in the future. A number of solar systems installed by individual users are cost-effective at today’s market prices. In addition, other solar technologies will become economic with further research, demonstration, and market development, and if subsidies to competing fuels are reduced or removed.

4. Limited public awareness of and confidence in solar technologies is a major barrier to accelerated solar energy use. Public testimony continually emphasized the need for more and better solar information. New programs to educate designers, builders, and potential solar users in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors are needed. Because consumers lack information, they often do not have confidence in solar products. Programs to provide reliable information to consumers, to protect them from defects in the manufacture and installation of solar equipment, and to assure competition in the solar industry can help build consumer confidence in the future.

5. Widespread use of solar energy is also hindered by Federal and state policies and market imperfections that effectively subsidize competing energy sources. These policies include Federal price controls on oil, and gas, a wide variety of direct and indirect subsidies, and utility rate structures that are based on average, rather than marginal costs. Also, the market system fails to reflect the full social benefits and costs of competing energy sources, such as the costs of air and water pollution. If solar energy were given economic parity with conventional fuels through the removal of these subsidies, its market position would be enhanced.

6. Financial barriers faced by users and small producers are among the most serious obstacles to increased solar energy use. Most solar technologies cannot compete effectively with conventional fuels at current market prices, in part because of subsidies, price controls, and average-cost utility rate structures for these conventional fuels. The tax credit provisions in the National Energy Act (NEA) will improve the economics of certain solar technologies, particularly in the residential sector.

Other barriers exist because the high initial costs of solar systems often cannot be spread over their useful lives. Industry and consumers have yet to develop experience in financing and marketing solar systems. Some of the provisions of the National Energy Act will help expand credit for residential/commercial solar systems. In addition, the new Small Business Energy Loan Act will provide credit assistance to small solar industry firms. Other existing Federal financial programs, which were created for other purposes, could also help finance solar purchases if they were directed toward this end.

7. Although the current Federal solar research, development and demonstration (RD&D) program is substantial, government funding priorities should be linked more closely with national energy goals. Solar RD&D budgets, which have totaled about $1.5 billion in the Fiscal Year (FY) 1974 to FY 1979 period, have not adequately concentrated on systems that have near-term applications and can help displace oil and gas. Electricity from large, centralized technologies has been over-emphasized while near-term technologies for the direct production of heat and fuels, community-scale applications and low-cost systems have not received adequate support. Basic research on advanced solar concepts has also been under-emphasized, limiting the long-term contribution of solar energy to the nation’s energy supply.

8. Solar energy presents the U.S. with an important opportunity to advance its foreign policy and international trade objectives. The United States can demonstrate international leadership by cooperating with other countries in the development of solar technologies, and by assisting developing nations with solar applications. Use of decentralized solar energy can be an important component of development planning in less developed counties which do not have extensive power grids, and cannot afford expensive energy supply systems. In many cases, solar may be the only energy source practically available to improve rural living conditions. Through such efforts, the U.S. could also help to develop new foreign markets for U.S. products and services, thereby increasing opportunities for employment in solar and related industries at home. And, as solar energy eventually begins to displace imported oil and natural gas, the U.S. will enjoy greater flexibility in the conduct of its foreign policy. Insofar as solar energy systems reduce the need for nuclear and petroleum fuels in the long-term, they can help reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation and international tensions arising from competition for increasingly scarce fossil fuels.

9. Although the Federal government can provide a leadership role, Federal actions alone cannot ensure wide-spread use. Many barriers to the use of solar energy, and opportunities to accelerate its use, occur at state and local levels. In order to overcome these barriers and take advantage of these opportunities, a concentrated effort at all levels of government and by large segments of the public will be required. Nevertheless, the Federal government can set a pattern of leadership and create a climate conducive to private development and use of solar energy in a competitive market. These efforts must also recognize the wide variation among solar technologies and the resulting need to tailor initiatives to specific solar applications.”

This was 35 years ago and in hindsight it is clear that the powerful recommendations in our study were largely ignored. We thereby missed a great opportunity to transform our society in a way that would have enabled us to avoid many of the traumatic geopolitical, economic and environmental problems we faced in the ensuing years.

Why? Allow me to offer some personal reflections on this. My views take issue with both political parties and with vested interests in traditional energy industries. They are based on my experiences over nearly forty years in Washington, including service as Staff Scientist for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and many years as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy. Let me start with President Carter.

I served in the Carter Administration for nineteen months as head of the renewable energy policy division in the newly established Department of Energy. The DPR was my primary responsibility during that time and was received by a President who was favorably disposed towards renewable energy technologies. In fact he installed solar hot water heating panels on the White House roof and used the DPR as the basis of his dedication speech in April 1979.

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President Carter installs solar power at White House
(Photo: AP/Harvey George)

Where I take issue with his promotion of renewable energy is in his denial of a requested increase in the R&D budget for renewables, arguing that we had to balance the FY1981 budget. I accepted his argument at the time but rejected it later when the President somehow found $88 billion for a new synfuels program, probably motivated by his then poor standings in the polls. I was sufficiently upset by this development that I left DOE shortly thereafter.

Of course President Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election and the following eight years were terrible for renewable energy, and for DOE in general. President Reagan and his aides set out to eliminate two Federal Departments – DOE1 (Energy) and DOE2 (Education), but succeeded in neither. Nevertheless, they did remove the solar panels from the White House roof and serious damage was done in those years to the renewable energy budget – it was reduced by a factor of eight! Only the determined efforts of a few dedicated DOE managers (particularly Bob San Martin, the head of the renewable electric programs) kept the programs alive. It was also during this period that oil prices took a dive to below $10 a barrel and public interest in alternative energy was diminished significantly.

Things improved in the four years under George Bush Sr. – budgets edged up slightly and SERI was designated as a National Laboratory, NREL. The 1992 election also saw Bill Clinton elected as President and Al Gore as Vice President, and hopes were high that renewable energy R&D budgets would increase. I was now back at DOE helping to run the renewable energy programs, first as Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary, and then as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for more than three years. While annual budgets did increase somewhat to about $300 million, I knew that this was less than required for a fully effective program (the budget covered solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, ocean energy, energy storage, and superconductivity), which I estimated to be $450 million.

Political firestorm
Not expecting much action in a first Clinton term (there were lots of other ‘fish to fry’) I looked forward to Clinton’s second term. Of course my hopes were dashed when the President tried to put a price on carbon by raising gasoline prices by five cents a gallon and ran into a political firestorm. He never tried again. Vice President Gore was also responsible for a serious setback when he insisted that all programs aimed at reducing global warming be so labeled in the FY1996 budget request, which many of us argued against strongly.

We were unsuccessful, the Republicans won both the House and Senate in that off-year election, and the Gingrich Revolution that followed used the Gore budget identifications as a guide to reducing the renewable energy budget by 25%. This had serious consequences for NREL, which received 60 % of its operating funds from that budget, and NREL was forced to lay off 200 of its 800 staff. It was a devastating time for renewables, about which I still carry strong feelings. One of those feelings is that we had a President and Vice President who understood energy issues and the need to move toward a renewable energy future. In my opinion they should have taken more steps to put us on that path, and they didn’t. I’m still angry.

The Clinton/Gore years were followed by the Bush/Cheney years where the energy focus was on fossil fuels and nuclear power. It was a discouraging period for renewables and we lost valuable time while the rest of the world began to make significant progress in their development and deployment of renewables. We clearly lost out on the economic activity and jobs that were going to other countries as the new, clean energy industries were being developed. It was only with the coming of the Obama administration that this situation began to change, but our progress has been seriously slowed down by a dysfunctional Congress these past few years, the worst I have seen in all my years in Washington, DC.

Let me also say a word about the role of traditional energy companies in the oil, natural gas, and coal industries. Clearly their role in supplying energy would be affected by the penetration of renewable technologies, and they have reacted as one might expect. In the mid 1990s, as renewables began to emerge, the coal industry sponsored several studies that attacked the ability of renewables to provide a significant fraction of national energy needs. These studies were not accurate, even misleading, and required a great deal of effort to refute. I’ve always thought of them as similar in intent to the studies sponsored by the tobacco companies to raise doubts about the health effects of smoking and slow down regulatory activities. Modern analogs are the studies sponsored by fossil fuel companies to disprove global warming and climate change and slow down efforts to reduce dependence on carbon-based fuels.

A plague
This is not to say that fossil fuels don’t have an important role to play in our future energy supply. Renewable technologies are not ready yet to provide the large amounts of energy required to power our economy and fulfil our international responsibilities, and probably won’t be for several more decades. Nevertheless, recent studies document that renewables can provide the major share of our electrical energy requirements in 2050 if we have the will to do so and make the necessary investments (see ‘Renewable Electricity Futures Study’, NREL, June 2012). It is also true that our transportation fleets are highly dependent on petroleum-based fuels, and will be for many years until they are electrified and alternate liquid fuels are developed. Also, natural gas has always been recognized as a needed transition fuel to a renewable future. With the U.S. and other countries entering a new natural gas era with the emergence of large amounts of shale gas via fracking , and the ability of natural gas to substitute for coal in power generation and thus reduce carbon emissions, it will be an important part of our energy supply for decades to come. Unfortunately, this glut of shale gas may lead to reduced investments in renewables if national energy policies don’t take this into account.

To sum up my views on why more hasn’t happened in the U.S. since February 1979 when the DPR was released to the public and provided an excellent framework for moving toward a renewable energy future: a plague on all houses. Too many Republicans and some Democrats have been too protective of traditional energy companies, Democrats have often failed to provide needed leadership when opportunities presented themselves, and fossil fuel companies, particularly coal companies, are generally doing what they can to protect their vested interests. However, it is also fair to recognize that several oil companies did invest resources in the early days of photovoltaics to help get things started, as Peter Varadi well documents in his newly published book about the history of PV ‘Sun Above the Horizon’ (Pan Stanford Publishers). Nevertheless, they mostly retreated from these investments when they realized that short term profits were not available, and that a long term perspective would be required.

Today, in my opinion President Obama ‘gets it’ about the promise and importance of a renewable energy future.

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I believe he is doing what he can to put the U.S. on that path but is facing serious opposition from a too often recalcitrant U.S. Congress. In my view Congress has an obligation to look down the road, anticipate national needs, and take positive steps to address those needs before they become crises. This is an obligation I believe recent Congresses have often not met. We can do a lot better and must if the U.S. is to derive its fair share of benefits from an emerging and inevitable clean energy industry that other countries are working hard to develop and know is the future.