U.S. renewables industry wants to commercialize technologies
WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2004-12-15 Refocus Weekly
The American Council On Renewable Energy has launched a national campaign to develop a new public policy framework for renewable energy in that country.
The call for ‘Phase II’ was launched at a conference in Washington, and
was promoted as the “first major advancement” from the research and
demonstration program started by president Jimmy Carter when he created the
Department of Energy in 1977. ACORE wants research budgets to increase by
three-fold, to handle support for a utilization strategy that is similar to
Germany and Japan.
Since the oil crisis of 30 years ago, the U.S. has invested US$14 billion
investment in renewable energy technologies to reduce the need for oil imports.
“There was a flurry of energy-related legislation in the 1970s, followed by a
major energy bill every ten years” that provided support for solar electric,
geothermal, solar thermal, hydroelectric, wind and biomass energy, as well as
legislation to require utilities to allow interconnection and wheeling of green
power and, more recently, laws to promote the use of renewables for farm
security and rural investment.
“Phase I is now defined, in hindsight, as the 30 years from 1974 to 2003,
starting with the oil embargo and energy crisis, leading to calls for energy
independence, federal government leadership, passage of a series of
energy-related laws, formation of the U.S. Department of Energy and National
Renewable Energy Laboratory, and funding of a technology RD&D program for
the purpose of creating new energy technology options for the country,” says
ACORE. While renewables received $14 billion in R&D from 1973 to 2002,
government invested $49 billion for nuclear, $25 billion for fossil fuels and
$11 billion for energy efficiency.
“While there is much more technology to be developed, the goal of creating an
initial inventory of new technology options for the nation has been achieved,”
says ACORE. The U.S. has developed and demonstrated a set of technology options
including solar hot water, solar space heating, solar space cooling, and passive
solar design techniques for residential and industrial applications, as well as
solar PV systems for utility wholesale power generation, grid-connected
distributed power on residential and commercial buildings, and off-grid power.
It has developed solar parabolic trough collectors for large-scale wholesale
power generation, large-scale wind turbine generators for wholesale power
generation, and smaller-scale turbines for distributed generation. It has also
developed hot dry rock technologies for geothermal power generation and earth
energy heat pumps, hydropower turbines, biomass and biofuels, including
corn-based ethanol and biodiesel fuel from waste oil.
“While there is a tremendous amount of continuing RD&D to be done to
advance the performance, extend the lives, raise the reliability and lower the
costs of these and other new technologies that can address America’s energy
challenges, ACORE believes that it is time to declare success on the development
of these technology options, and call for ‘Phase II’ with a new and exciting
focus on putting the technologies to use across our society.”
The second phase will focus on a return to taxpayers for the 30-year investment
by promoting public policies that support putting technology options into use
throughout society, “with benefits for national energy supply, national
security, environmental quality, lower risk of climate change, better human
health, economic growth, investment opportunities and jobs.”
Shifting to a new phase has several implications, including the need for new
policies to achieve the new goals, “even a fundamentally new approach to
public policy at all levels.” All parties “must be willing to embrace change
and new proposals,” and recognize that successes in the first phase might not
be right for the second. “All parties should be given the opportunity to
rethink their policy positions and prepare thoughtful responses to creating a
new and different Phase II.”
It may take one year to adequately address the issues and develop consensus, and
to replicate the policies from Germany, Japan and other countries “where
governments adopted a Phase II-like approach several years ago.”
The ACORE conference was held with the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
Caucus of the Senate and House of Representatives, and has planned a three-day
follow-up conference for late 2005.
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