US renewable R&D under threat

London (Platts)--10Jan2006

While President Bush touts technology development as the key to battling the
threat of climate change, the US Department of Energy is preparing to cut the
budget for its chief laboratory for conducting research & development on
renewable energy, an internal laboratory memo shows.

The December 19, 2005 memo from National Renewable Energy Laboratory Director
Dan Arvizu, which Platts Renewable Energy Report obtained, to all NREL staff
warned that as DOE prepared its Fiscal Year 2007 for submission to Congress,
lab workers should "brace for serious budget reductions."

Arvizu, who visited DOE headquarters in Washington, DC six times over a
six-week period in late 2005, said that though he had no definitive
information on the extent of funding cuts for the lab, "we should begin to
prepare for these budget reductions."

NREL, located in the state of Colorado, is DOE's key facility for R&D on
renewable energy technologies, including wind power, solar energy, geothermal
and biomass. Its US $200-mil annual budget is dwarfed by the multi-billion
dollar budgets of DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, much of whose funding is devoted to developing and
testing nuclear weapons.

Arvizu, who became NREL director a year ago, attributed the looming budget
cuts to congressional earmarks in the 2006 financial year energy spending
bill. He said the bill included "an unprecedented number of directed projects"
for DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, which oversees NREL,
totaling more than $163-mil.

"This has significantly reduced the discretionary funding for DOE programs,
from which NREL and other national laboratories, universities and industry are
funded, relative to last year," the lab director said. 

DOE headquarters said that "Congressionally-directed spending significantly
impacted the renewable energy budget this year, and we are in the process of
balancing Congress' priorities with NREL's research activities. While it is
likely that some positions will be affected, at this point we are evaluating
the impact on both jobs and research areas and will work with NREL's
management to minimize these impacts."

This story was originally published in Platts Renewable Energy Report. Request
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