http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Fast%20Clean%20Cheap.pdf

paulm - how would a recession help attaining “350 not 450″. It would be a)temporary and b) not slow down emissions quickly anyway and c) cause misery out of proportion with any gains.

http://terraverde.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/20technologies/

or

www.greenthoughts.us

I also try to tackle the underlying policy issue(s) that seem to separate these folks.

They’ve got a Table 1 that lists Coal at 4.84 Cents per kWh in 2010 and they use that as a standard cost for fossil energy. Then they list most renewable energy sources and give the costs (I’ve only listed some here) as Solar Photovoltaic 25.83, Wind 6.67, Solar Thermal 14.22, Biomass 5.88, and Geothermal 6.19 cents per kWh in 2010.

The hypothesis is that if the spending on research and development on these was increased greatly, then their costs would come down. It might be true.

But what do the Engineers say? What does a Project Engineer or Engineering Department head at specific companies say their problems are, like, say GE Wind and what is the reason they can’t get costs down? Is it because of a shortage of Test Engineers and Technicians that they can’t increase reliability on windturbines? Or they don’t have enough Engineers working on materials? Maybe they need some more work on the theory of the wind on the blades?

But have these researchers and engineers missed 20 percent or more of their technology? Somehow I don’t think that these guys are going to say, if we just had a bigger Engineering and research budget we could get the 20 percent cost reduction/ performance improvement that these would need to get below the cost for coal.

What Breakthrough Institute is working from is a hypothesis and philosophy that if you increase the research budget, these great finds will be made. But my guess is if you ask these Project Engineers and Engineering Department Heads they are going to tell you that they know most of what they need to know. They will be able to identify specific areas that they are working on in the Test labs of their companies on what they wish to make better on their machines. But if you ask them, I doubt they will tell you that they have missed 20 percent of the efficiency in their technology.

The costs that need to come down are found in the financial side of things by putting up more windturbines per factory and driving the costs down by lower cost per unit, not the technology.

BI likes to write about their hypothesis about more research always will reduce costs enough. Instead of talking to Nobel Laureates about spending money, they need to interview those actually researching, designing, building and installing these things to see if that is the place that costs can come down.

What’s really going on is BI is trying to influence politics instead of writing a technical paper on the best use of our financial resources. We recognize that trying to influence politics has more leeway of what you can write and get away with. But the opinion on whether more funding for renewable energy will make a great difference in lowering the costs of renewable energy shouldn’t come from political activists, but from those actually doing the research. The opinions should come from technical papers, not from political writings.

BI is trying to pass off political opinion as technical expertise.

I think that S&N have a bit overstretched the “breakthrough” rhethoric. What they are mainly demanding is good old innovation. Incremental but extremely important. We need to speed up this innovation through a variety of instruments, including a price on carbon (and why shouldn’t it be 100$/ton ???) and agressive deployment strategies. I am from Germany and one of our most successful instruments to make Germany a leader in renewable energy technologies was a feed in tariff. It costs about 2$ per person per month on the electricity bill, something that we can really afford. And this little money made Germany a world leader in installed wind power capacity. For those who are interested in reading more: http://www.boell.org/ docs/ Rickerson_Grace_FINAL.pdf

I understand that it is sometimes nice to highlight ones profile against others, but I think both sides in this controversy should recognize that there is value in both government investment, regulation, a price on carbon, and agressive deployment strategies.
Let’s fight climate change and not each other!

http://thebreakthrough.org/ blog/ 2008/ 04/ romm_vs_expert_consensus_on_en.shtml

The Center for American Progress’s Joe Romm claims we don’t need technology breakthroughs — defined as disruptive or non-incremental improvements in technology performance and price — to stabilize emissions. Unfortunately for Romm, energy experts do not share his view.

Here’s Jae Edmonds of the University of Maryland:

Fundamental changes in the world’s expanding energy system are required to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Incremental improvements in technology will help, but will not by themselves lead to stabilization” (Edmonds et al. 2007: 11) (my emphasis)

Not a lot of ambiguity there. Is Edmonds alone? He’s not. We reviewed over two dozen expert analyses in a white paper, “The Investment Consensus,”.

Here’s a few other nuggets.

Massive technology innovation is required for stabilization:

Efforts to mitigate global climate change will require technological innovations deployed on a massive scale… [S]ubstantial reductions in U.S. CO2emissions would require that the United States replace or retrofit hundreds of electric power plants and tens of millions of vehicles. In addition, appliances, furnaces, building systems, and factory equipment numbering in the hundreds of millions might also need to be modified or replaced. Technological change on this scale cannot happen overnight. Many of the technologies needed do not yet exist commercially or are too costly (Alic et al.. 2003: 5)

What is one of the main obstacles to innovation? Lack of public investment:

Probably the most significant barrier to ETI [Energy Technology Innovation] is inadequacy of funds, especially for R&D, in relation to the challenges that are faced by energy system (Sims Gallagher et al. 2006: 221-222).

Public investment is key to stimulating private sector investments:

At present, we have insufficient economically competitive substitutes for high carbon emitting technologies. The development of low- to zero-emitting alternatives will require both a sustained commitment on the part of the public sector upstream in the R&D chain and incentives for the private sector to bring the necessary technologies to the marketplace (Richels et al.. 2007).

Romm insists that major government investments weren’t required for past innovations. Energy experts disagree:

Past investments in [Energy Technology Innovation], public and private, led to large improvements over the course of the twentieth century in the performance of specific energy technologies, energy sectors, and the whole energy systems of nations and the world, as measured in increased technical efficiency, increased reliability, and decreased cost and environmental impact per unit of energy output and per unit of economic product (Sims Gallagher et al. 2006: 227).

The International Energy Agency says massive investment in R&D and deployment is needed, even for technologies close to commercialization:

Many of the technologies needed are already available or close to commercialization. But it will require substantial effort and investment by both the public and private sectors for them to be adopted by the market. Pathways need to be opened up to enable these technologies to deliver their full potential. Urgent action is needed to stimulate R&D, to demonstrate and deploy promising technologies, and to provide clear and predictable incentives for low carbon options and diverse energy sources (Mandil/IEA 2006: 3)

Romm points to wind as an example of why we don’t need technological breakthroughs. But, in fact, there was a major technological breakthrough in blade technology that resulted major improvements in performance and price.

How did this wind blade breakthrough happen? The Danish government made large investments to deploy the new turbines off-shore. Same thing was true with Brazil’s biofuels program (whether or not you like its biofuels is beside the point - it took sustained federal investment to scale them up):

Development of the Danish wind and Brazilian biofuels industries each required sustained government support over decades. The Danish subsidies totaled $1.3bn, and Danish wind companies now earn more than that each year (Carbon Trust, 2003). At current oil prices, Brazil may soon similarly recoup its investment in biofuel technology” (Grubb 2004: 26 - 27)

It was only after reading dozens of expert analyses that we came to the view that non-incremental improvements in price and performance are needed to stabilize emissions. Does that mean we should only do R&D and wait for deployment and procurement? Of course not. Rather, we need to invest in deployment and procurement to achieve the innovations we want. We have always been clear about the importance of deployment for innovation. It’s Romm’s who has consistently mischaracterized our position as support for R&D alone.

Romm claims that the solar thermal industry doesn’t need major investments. My view is that the solar industry will make plenty of money for itself without major public investments. But without massive investment, solar won’t constitute a Princeton emission “wedge,” which requires a 700-fold increase in solar.

Romm wants his readers to believe that regulation, regulation, and regulation are more important than investment. Energy experts come to the opposite conclusion:

Industry funded R&D focuses on the domain of existing expertise and on improvements that can be leveraged in the short term (Anderson and Bird, 1992). This suggests that public funding will be the main driver for longer-term developments in new technology and production processes for existing renewables, exploration of untried renewable technologies, energy system integration, superconductivity, and non-hydro storage technologies. The innovation process is not linear but entails various feedback loops between market experience and research activities. This suggests that cost and efficiency improvements in existing renewable technologies (Luther, 2004) require a parallel increase in strategic deployment efforts and public research funding (Neuhoff 2005: 22) (My emphasis).

Can global warming be regulated away? A group of 14 climate and energy experts, including Hoffert, Caldeira, and Wigley, concluded that it cannot be:

Combating global warming by radical restructuring of the global energy system could be the technology challenge of the century. We have identified a portfolio of promising technologies here–some radical departures from our present fossil fuel system. Many concepts will fail, and staying the course will require leadership. Stabilizing climate is not easy. At the very least, it requires political will, targeted research and development, and international cooperation. Most of all, it requires the recognition that, although regulation can play a role, the fossil fuel greenhouse effect is an energy problem that cannot be simply regulated away (Hoffert et al. 2002: 986)

You say:
“Romm claims that the solar thermal industry doesn’t need major investments.”

Joe writes above:
“…none of the industry executives I spoke to believe they need breakthroughs or massive government R&D support of the kind B.I. wants — what they want is the solar investment tax credit renewed this year for eight years and a serious price for carbon dioxide as soon as possible”

There is a big difference between INVESTMENTS and R&D SUPPORT.

You are conflating the two.

You seem like a smart enough guy to get the difference. Its the difference between investment in early stage commercialization and research…they are two different stages of the product/technology development process.

M.S. “Romm wants his readers to believe that regulation, regulation, and regulation are more important than investment.” Not true. I believe private investment is far more important than public investment. Stimulating it does require some regulations, but many other strategies, including some similar to deregulation are needed, too.

I usually delete posts that make several gross misstatement of the facts or of positions I have very clear stated, such as the M.S. quote above or the one about CSP that the previous writer debunked.

I have particularly been deleting this nonsense because you wrote: “Romm insists that major government investments weren’t required for past innovations.”

That is the exact opposite of the truth. And believe me, I noticed your clever use of the word “innovations” and not “breakthroughs” — they are NOT the same thing, as I have explained to my readers. Please show me where I ever said “major government investments weren’t required for past innovations.”

So that’s why I deleted the comment. I told my readers weeks ago I would do that. The TOU clearly allow it. It affects under 1% of all comments.

Joe,

It is a good thing that you only delete comments that make gross misstatement of the facts or the positions that YOU have taken. Were such a policy to extend to the positions of other people you would have to delete almost every post you have written about Michael and I (and Roger Pielke).

Bud, I don’t think a lot of people realize or want to face up to the fact that to reduce CO2 emissions our standard of living is going to have to take a BIG nose dive.

In any case with peek oil and extreme weather already upon us we are heading for more like a depression, with much civil unrest.

While these things will contribute to CO2 reduction, I think that we have probably past the West Antarctica Ice Sheet tipping point.

We, however, have to try to curtail CO2 in any case as it will just keep on getting worse.

The authors use the quote from J. Edmond, 2007

“Fundamental changes in the world’s expanding energy system are required to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Incremental improvements in technology will help, but will not by themselves lead to stabilization”

(authors comment) Not a lot of ambiguity there. Is Edmonds alone? He’s not.”

Yes, there is ambiguity.

Now the author of ‘Fast, Clean and Cheap’ read the whole Edmond paper and I’m still looking for it. But writing what he wrote doesn’t mean Edmond thinks that breakthrough technology will occur if we spend more money on it. Edmond may think that breakthrough technology will have nothing to do with the ‘Fundamental change in the world’s expanding energy system.’ Edmond may think that we need carbon taxes to make the fundamental change in energy system, we don’t know, the quote is inadequate.

The other example is when the author of ‘Fast, Clean and Cheap’ uses the example of public investment in wind energy of 1.3 billion in Denmark and now Danish companies get that money back every year. That’s probably true, but that doesn’t mean if they spent 13 billion they would be getting that back every year. The spending on research payback is incremental, the first billion does more than the last billion. Maybe it’s the last billion is where the breakthrough occurs and we should spend on research as much as possible to get to the last billion. I think we should spend 30 billion a year on renewable energy research, but it’s not enough to be our central plan on global warming.

To me, ‘Fast, Clean and Cheap’ was not convincing. Every researcher says we need to spend more money on research.