This week, the FY'07 federal budget was released and the details were a
bit more stark, in that the $1.17 billion efficiency and renewable
research and development budget at the US Department of Energy was
essentially level-funded at $1.2 billion. The 78% increase in
photovoltaics research, 65% increase in biofuels funding and the 25.8%
increase in hydrogen/fuel cell funding was paid for within the existing
USDOE program. Yes, harsh realities of a government with high federal
budget deficits.
No conventional energy program was zeroed out, but the Geothermal and
Hydropower programs were recommended to be closed down immediately in the
budget and the small Solar Heating and Lighting budget was given a small
close down budget for a final year. On the energy efficiency side, the
Weatherization program received a $78 million cut as did smaller cuts in
Vehicle and Industrial program RD&D along with electricity delivery and
reliability R&D. The surprise this year was that the Concentrated Solar
RD&D program that had been targeted for close down in earlier
Administration budgets was spared at level funding of approximately $9
million.
So what does this federal budget represent? The good news is that the Bush
Administration, originally led by Vice President Cheney's vision of
reliance on traditional energy sources, has taken a step towards a
portfolio approach not overwhelmingly tilted towards renewable energy, but
clearly more balanced in its perspective and execution. On the negative
side, the King Solomon approach to "divide the baby" is just bad public
policy.
There fundamentally is no rationale to zero out Geothermal and Hydropower
RD&D when the budget handily supports increases in Nuclear Energy and
'Clean" Coal. For Geothermal, another 9000 MWs are accessible and the R&D
program brought industry and the technical community to work on accessing
different heat values within the earth for commercial energy production.
For Hydropower, the R&D program cost-shared with industry to create more
efficient turbines on existing dams to get more electric power while being
fish friendly AND beginning to address the emerging technologies such as
freeflow microhydropower that needs no dams or diversions and kinetic wave
power which opens another clean energy resource. Clearly, the Congress
needs to make changes, and these two programs along with Solar Heating and
Lighting RD&D needs to be immediately restored.
On the efficiency side, the federal program has the focus that was created
under President Bush (senior) and his Assistant Secretary who apportioned
the programs by end use market sectors and aggressively pushed joint R&D
and commercialization with industry and local governments in Buildings,
Industry, Utilities and Transportation. Advocacy groups such as the
Alliance to Save Energy and the ACEEE consistently point out, that if you
want to dramatically lower energy imports - you must have aggressive
drives to increase automobile efficiency (lowering petroleum imports) and
building and industrial end use efficiency (lowering natural gas and fuel
oil imports). And the renewable fuels and power advocates know that the
efficiency technologies mitigate the initial higher costs of renewables to
the consumer.
So the good news is that the balanced energy budgets of the earlier Bush
and Clinton Administrations are now being embraced by this Administration.
But sacrificing certain R&D programs for others just reduces US options at
a time when we need all the clean energy options we can get.
With the loss of miners in our coal operations over the recent months,
stories on blowing off mountain tops ruining farmland and waterways,
reports on how increasing mercury and particulate emissions harm public
health, and the National Academy report on susceptibility of nuclear waste
"pool" repositories to terrorism -- this is no time to reduce our options
in energy efficiency, solar building technologies, or geothermal and
hydropower -- but rather, increase them.
The White House embrace of the biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind options
weren't so much an ideological conversion, as more of an realignment of
the political system with the will of the American public. The
Administration has keenly watched Republican Governors such as Guinn of
Nevada, Pataki of New York, and Schwarzenegger of California endorse and
campaign for a series of bold clean energy initiatives. And Republican
Senators Charles Grassley (IA) and Lamar Alexander (TN) and Congressmen
such as Roscoe Bartlett (MD) have been just as enthusiastic in the
Congress as well.
So the markets are expanding, State and local governments are bullish, and
the federal government is beginning to take notice, again. Hopefully, the
ebb and flow of politics won't reduce federal support of the energy
efficiency and renewable energy options we desperately need to address
other overarching issues of our lack of resilience of acts of god and
terrorism, our increasing energy imports, and changes in our global
climate.
About the author...
Scott Sklar is president of his own policy and strategic marketing firm,
The Stella Group Ltd., Washington, DC. (solarsklar@aol.com). Previously,
he served simultaneously as executive director of the Solar Energy
Industries Association and the National BioEnergy Industries Association
for 15 years. His book,
A Consumer Guide to Solar Energy, was
re-released in 2004 for its third printing.
The information and views expressed in this article are those of the
author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyAccess.com or the
companies that advertise on its Web site and other publications.
