Obama at MIT: The Nation that Leads in Clean Energy Will Lead Global Economy

Two weeks ago, I gave a speech at MIT urging the students to use their ingenuity and engineering expertise to help stop global warming. It was inspiring to speak directly to young people who have the talent to help put America at the forefront of the global market for clean energy solutions.

But you know what is even better? Hearing the President of the United States pass on a similar message at the same place just weeks later.

I wasn’t able to attend President Obama’s speech at MIT in person, but I imagine many people in the audience shared my excitement--and relief--at hearing America’s top leader say “there is no question” that we must transition to clean energy for the sake of our economy and our national security (see this section of the speech here).

But Obama made an even more important point. He said that while innovation and discovery have always been part of the American DNA, there is no guarantee that we will lead the world in clean energy.

The world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century.  From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy.  The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy.  I am convinced of that.  And I want America to be that nation.

To become that nation, we have to invest in the engineers, the labs, the factories, and the city and state governments that are leading the way into the clean energy future.

And as Obama said, we can do that best by passing “comprehensive legislation that will finally make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”

I was also pleased to hear Obama single out the young veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who are traveling the country as part of Operation Free--a coalition that NRDC supports. These young service people have experienced first hand the grave consequences of America’s oil addiction.

It’s young people like these veterans and the students at MIT who can help usher in the clean energy century. With leadership like President Obama’s, America just might accomplish it.

 

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

 

Comments

[Badbone]

How can Obama legislate alternative energy to be profitable? By either taxing current energy or lowering taxes on alternative energy. And neither seems likely.

[texfly]

He doesn't have to... all you have to do is START building it. Wind for example, is a very mature technology and can be delivered for 5 ¢/kWh including installation, replacement, admin, labor, maintenace, land rental, connections. That's with no (ZERO) depletion allowances nor subsidies. Then there are the environmental and health impacts - again virtually nil with wind. Coal, natural gas and new nuclear cannot do that.

Solar is not far behind.

A new grid is needed but that require nothing but installing HVDC cable to the best places for wind and solar. In the 50's we put in (socllaistically) over a million miles of welded, leak-tested natural gas pipelines to virtually every home in America.

We still have to improve on capacity factor and dispatchability limitations, but technologies exists to do it (H2O electrolysis, H2 storage, H2 powered steam turbines for example) during slack times.

These two limitations may add another 5 ¢/kWh to 10 ¢/kWh, but that still means power for ALL things at under 15 ¢/kWh -- and dropping.

[noneIn2008]

“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”T.H. Huxley

[jsarets]

"He said that while innovation and discovery have always been part of the American DNA, there is no guarantee that we will lead the world in clean energy."

Innovation and discovery are no more a part of the American DNA than that of several other nations.

At the start of WWII, America had about as much petroleum reserves as Saudi Arabia. We became a superpower by advancing from coal to oil faster and more effectively than anybody else.

Our massive energy resources and geographic isolation from the conflict allowed us to subsequently purchase all the innovation and discovery we wanted, from Werner von Braun (father of NASA) to Masatoshi Shima (designer of Intel's first microprocessor).

Do we honestly see evidence of a special disposition toward innovation and discovery in American culture? I observe a culture that aspires to make money from money and fame from fame.

What we've always been able to do well is find ways to apply more energy to problems in order to increase productivity. This skill set is of limited use in solving the problem of not enough energy.

The innovations and discoveries pertinent to a sustainable future are not likely to come from a nation that's always done more with more. It's more likely to come from places were people have been acclimated to doing enough with less. Our perceived affluence may be a competitive disadvantage.

[texfly]

We have always led in training scientists and engineers since WW-II and have tapped into the brain-power wealth of India and China to maintain our academic institutions. Now these trained technocrats are going home. European science and engineering suffered during WW-II, but they are now leading the world in energy innovation and implementation.

The easy access to carbon-based energy has fueled our economy, but now we have to rely on foreign oil to remain competitive. That will dry up soon. The US has the best sources of solar and wind of any single nation. Size matters. We have to exploit it, NOW.

[sethdayal]

Here’s the answer Obama was asking for at MIT.
Hydro, Wind, solar, geothermal, carbon capture and cap n’trade are simply fiddling while Rome burns.
Germany has already wasted 10 years and $100 billion on the above and has not reduced its greenhouse emissions one iota. It is planning a massive build of dirty coal plants to meet its baseload power requirements.
Fossil fuel use has brought us to within ten years of a civilization destroying climate/peak oil crisis making solution urgent. They cost the United States $800 billion directly and $120 billion or so in environmental damage. Even global warming deniers could see the benefit of eliminating their use.
A world war scale effort converting from fossil fuels to mass produced nuclear power would be paid for by very quickly ending domestic use of fossil fuels. Depending on the amount of nuclear steam heating and cogen, we would need to build as many as 2500 gigawatts of mass produced nuclear power at $1 billion a gigawatt with payback periods as little as three years. All that is required is the political will.
New Generation IV fast metal reactors now being built run for 30 years at a very low cost using current nuclear waste as fuel reducing it to a tiny amount of low level waste.

India has already committed to 450 gigawatts and China to 120 of nukes. Some senators are proposing a miniscule 100 gigawatts in the climate bill - its nowhere near enough.

[texfly]

I defer to your estimates of nuclear. I've done R&D on nuclear fuels many years ago and have seen first-hand the evil hand of capitalism at work in circumventing safety regs during production. When competition threatens you do what you have to stay alive - cut corners, take unecessary risks - all to save the bottom line.

As I've aged, I've learned to think far, far ahead - a 1000 years or more. I see little guarantees other than the sun still shines and the wind still blows. I ask you, where is the fissionable material that will power all human activity when power demands increase 1000X?