Climate Progress

I was at the US Department of Energy when the Gingrich gang took over and tried to shut down all of DOE’s applied energy research, claiming it was a waste of the taxpayers money. I helped organize a major report documenting the large return to the US taxpayers of federal spending on energy efficiency (and other energy technologies). The once-honorable GAO (formerly General Accounting Office, hypocritically renamed Government Accountability Office) didn’t want to meet the same fate as the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, so it became a wing of the Gingrich hit squad.

The GAO tried and failed to debunk the report, but the end result was a request to the National Academy of Sciences to independently verify the stated benefits of DOE energy research. The ensuing report Energy Research at DOE: Was It Worth It? Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy Research 1978 to 2000 was a stunning vindication:

… the report examines 17 R&D programs in energy efficiency and 22 programs in fossil energy funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). These programs yielded economic returns of an estimated $40 billion from an investment of $13 billion.

Three energy-efficiency programs, costing approximately $11 million, produced nearly three-quarters of this benefit. Most significant were advances made in compressors for refrigerators and freezers, energy-efficient fluorescent-lighting components called electronic ballasts, and low-emission, or heat-resistant, window glass. Standards and regulations incorporating efficiencies attainable by these new technologies ensured that the technologies would be adopted nationwide, thus dramatically compounding their impact.

Let me expand on that last point: The handful of energy technologies cited above, developed through funding by my old office, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, have returned about $30 billion on an R&D investment of about $400 million. I defy anybody to identify an independent report from a body as credible as the National Academy showing such a staggering return on investment for US taxpayer dollars.

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The Rove/Bush/McCain/Palin strategy of simply lying and lying and lying works. As Mark Twain said 140 years ago, “The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.” And while McCain is not a great speaker, he did tell his 10 convention-night energy lies with all his might.

You might think that people actually working on the clean energy transition like the Apollo Alliance could not possibly think McCain’s blather about clean energy represented a reversal from years of very strong opposition (see “Anti-wind McCain“).

McCain is a eco-Luddite who said late last year, “The truly clean technologies don’t work” and who found a VP/soulmate in a global-warming denier, Big Oil shill, and fellow eco-Luddite (see “Palin is an earmark expert, NOT energy expert“). And while the best thing about the Alliance is that they get energy efficiency, one of the worst things about McCain is that he doesn’t (see “McCain is Cheney’s third term!” and “McCain’s cynical efficiency lies“).

So I was stunned when an “Apollo Weekly Update” titled “With McCain Speech Clean Energy Consensus Gets Clearer” appeared in my mailbox. It’s a fawning review of McCain’s speech — with a credulous take on a wolf-in-sheep’s clothing that rivals Little Red Riding Hood:

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“Like it or not, we need Tom Friedman.”

So begins Joseph Nye’s cover review in Washington Post Book World on Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — And How It Can Renew America.

Friedman deserves attention because he is the only “big media” columnist in the country who regularly writes on energy and global warming issues. His book is already #59 on Amazon, and will no doubt jump higher after he appears on Meet the Press Sunday, which I would certainly urge everyone to watch. After all, he is not only the most high-profile columnist on this issue, he is the most thoughtful.

And I’m not just saying that because he interviewed me several times. I am quite confident that most ClimateProgress readers will be impressed by this book, even those who may not agree with every foreign policy position that Friedman has espoused. Or perhaps especially those progressives. Why?

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I won the scientifically rigorous online voting in the Economist.com Oxford-style debate, 55% to 45% — a landslide of epic proportion. And that’s not even counting all the people who voted for the “con” side thinking they were actually supporting the pro side, since, if you actually read my opponent’s argument, he doesn’t really disagree with me that we can in fact solve our energy problems with existing technologies.

I’d like to thank my wife and daughter and all those people who believed in me or at least felt threatened enough to vote for me. Because of your actions, the kitten will live — and so will humanity!

You can read my posts here:

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The text of Obama’s convention speech has been released. Here is what he said about energy:

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

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I interviewed the billionaire conservative oilman for Salon. My article and the interview are now online here. My goal was not to trip him up with the flaws in his plan, but just explore some of the key issues, especially the role of government in making it happen.

Talking to him it is clear he is very genuinely concerned about the impoverishment we face on our current laissez-faire energy path — a $10 trillion transfer of weath from Americans to rest of the world over the next decade, ending with $300 a barrel oil.

But I simply couldn’t get him to acknowledge that or all his claims that his proposal is nonpartisan, it is his fellow conservatives who stand in the way of achieving his dream. The subtitle of the piece tells the story: “The oil tycoon’s support of John McCain for president demonstrates that his heavily advertised plan for wind power is only hot air.”

Pickens says “The government’s going to have to provide corridors to transmit the wind energy to the east and west coast… Second you need to put a 10-year production tax credit.”

I couldn’t agree more. But then again, I’m not in Congress. So I asked him the obvious political question: If you looked at the votes in the last year that have held up just a one-year extension of the production tax credit, the vast majority of Republicans have consistently voted against that, while the vast majority of Democrats voted for it. “So let me ask you, how do we, how do we get Republicans to support that kind of investment in renewables.”

Salon sharply edited down Pickens’ rambling answer to my key question, but I think it is worthwhile to see the whole thing:
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Okay, the kitten is doing fine, but I really need you to vote for me.

Why? I am only winning with 56% of the vote in the online debate sponsored by the Economist on whether we need technology breakthroughs to solve the “Global energy crisis.” I say ‘only ‘ because the other guy’s new post makes clear he agrees with my position entirely. More importantly, I want to crush the breakthrough technology illusion, which keeps attacking the hope for genuine climate action like a relentless, indestructible, killing machine from an apocalyptic future.

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The following op-ed ran in the Denver Post yesterday by John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation, who represented Colorado in the U.S. House and Senate from 1975 to 1992.

The key paragraphs recognize that energy is the essential issue facing this country:

The Democratic Party platform recognizes the energy opportunity in its section on “Investing in American Competitiveness” — but it does not go far enough. The size and urgency of this task require a president willing to make it the top domestic priority in the White House — not pigeonholed as an energy initiative or environmental initiative or even as a security initiative, but made the centerpiece of his economic agenda. Indeed, it will demand that the president refocus the mission and responsibility of all relevant government agencies and convene them in a new National Energy Council in the White House.

The success of this year’s candidates and next year’s elected leaders will rise and fall on how they address the energy issue. Those who convey the scale and scope — and opportunity — of transforming our energy economy will succeed.

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Or at least 7 in 10 say they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. That’s according to a new ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University Poll released this month.

Yes, this headline appears very much a result of higher gasoline prices:

59 percent say they’re using less gasoline — driving less, using smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, carpooling, taking mass transit and the like.

Yet it goes beyond just gasoline:

60 percent, also say they’re cutting their consumption of power (and water).

Let’s dig in and run through some of the numbers -

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The California Energy Commission is considering a proposal by PG&E to require televisions sold in the state to meet a minimum efficiency standard. Why is a utility proposing its customers by more efficient appliances? Because California allows utilities to earn a return on investment from negawatts (see Energy efficiency, Part 4).

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