GAO Report Released: Energy: Federal Support for Renewable and Advanced Energy Technologies

Recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report, titled Energy: Federal Support for Renewable and Advanced Energy Technologies GAO-13-514T (Apr. 16, 2013). The details of the 15-page report, available here, are discussed below:

Why GAO Did This Study

This testimony discusses federal support for renewable and advanced energy technologies. Americans' daily lives, as well as the economic productivity of the United States, depend on the availability of energy, the majority of which comes from fossil fuels. However, faced with concerns over the nation's reliance on imported oil, volatile energy costs, and greenhouse gas emissions, federal policymakers have increased support for deployment of renewable and advanced energy technologies to help meet our nation's energy needs. Federal agencies including the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Energy (DOE), and the Treasury, among others, provide support for these technologies through tax expenditures, grants, loans, and loan guarantees. This support helps finance production of electricity from wind and solar farms, manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicles, and construction of advanced nuclear power plants, among other things. Energy produced from nonfossil fuel sources has increased over the last several decades, growing to about 22 percent of total U.S. energy production in 2012, according to projections by DOE's Energy Information Administration, an independent statistical and analytical agency. At the same time, the increase in federal support for renewable and advanced energy technologies and the involvement of multiple agencies in supporting such technologies have raised questions about the effectiveness of this support. In the current fiscally constrained environment, it is especially important to allocate scarce government resources where they can be most effective. GAO has issued a number of reports related to federal support of renewable and advanced energy technologies including, most recently, the following two reports:

(1) a broad review of federal initiatives that promote wind energy, including the extent to which initiatives may provide duplicative support and the extent to which agencies assess applicant need for the initiatives' support, and

(2) a review of the status of DOE's efforts to use its loan and loan guarantee authorities and remaining credit subsidy appropriations to support projects under its Title XVII Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), which guarantees loans for projects that, among other things, use new or significantly improved technologies, and Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program, which provides loans for projects to produce more fuel-efficient passenger vehicles and their components.

This statement presents highlights from these two reports.

CRS Report Released: Desalination and Membrane Technologies: Federal Research and Adoption Issues

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), the public policy research arm of Congress, recently issued the report Desalination and Membrane Technologies: Federal Research and Adoption Issues (Jan. 7, 2013). The 18-page report authored by Nicole T. Carter discusses the following:

Summary

In the United States, desalination and membrane technologies are increasingly used to augment municipal water supply, to produce high quality industrial water supplies, and to reclaim contaminated supplies (including from oil and gas development). As of 2005, approximately 2,000 desalination facilities larger than 0.3 million gallons per day (MGD) were operating in the United States, with a total capacity of 1,600 MGD which represents more than 2.4% of total U.S. municipal and industrial freshwater use. At issue for Congress is what should be the federal role in supporting desalination and membrane technology research and facilities. Desalination issues before the 113th Congress include how to focus federal research, at what level to support desalination research and projects, and how to provide a regulatory context that protects the environment and public health without disadvantaging the technology.

Desalination processes generally treat seawater or brackish water to produce a stream of freshwater, and a separate, saltier stream of water that requires disposal (often called waste concentrate). In the last decade, many states (e.g., Florida, California, and Texas) and cities have actively investigated the feasibility of large-scale municipal desalination. Coastal communities look to seawater or estuarine water, while interior communities look to brackish aquifers. The most common desalination technology in the United States is reverse osmosis, which uses permeable membranes to separate the freshwater from the saline water supply. Membrane technologies are also effective for other water treatment applications. Many communities and industries use membranes to remove contaminants from drinking water, treat contaminated water for disposal, and reuse industrial wastewater (e.g., saline waters co-produced from oil and gas development). For some applications, there are few competitive technological substitutes.

Wider adoption of desalination is constrained by financial, environmental, and regulatory issues. Although desalination costs dropped steadily in recent decades, significant further decline may not happen with existing technologies. Electricity expenses represent from one-third to one-half of the operating cost of desalination. Its energy intensity also raises concerns about associated greenhouse gas emissions and its usefulness as a climate change adaptation measure. Substantial uncertainty also remains about the technology’s environmental impacts, in particular management of the saline waste concentrate and the effect of surface water intake facilities on aquatic organisms. Desalination facilities require a significant number of local, state, and federal approvals and permits.

Emerging technologies (e.g., forward osmosis, nanocomposite and chlorine resistant membranes) show promise for reducing desalination costs. Research to support development of emerging technologies and to reduce desalination’s environmental and social impacts is particularly relevant to the debate on the future level and nature of federal desalination assistance. The federal government generally has been involved primarily in desalination research and development (including for military applications), some demonstration projects, and select full-scale facilities. For the most part, local governments, sometimes with state-level involvement, are responsible for planning, testing, building, and operating desalination facilities. Some states, universities, and private entities also undertake and support desalination research. While interest in desalination persists among some Members, especially with drought concerns high, efforts to maintain or expand federal activities and investment are challenged by the domestic fiscal climate and differing views on federal roles and priorities.

Energy Innovation Summit -- DOE

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) will hold its third annual Energy Innovation Summit from February 27–29, 2012 at the Gaylord Convention Center just outside Washington, D.C.


"Now in its third year, the Summit is designed to unite key players from all sectors of the nation’s energy innovation community to share ideas for developing and deploying the next generation of clean energy technologies. The event is co-hosted by ARPA-E and Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI).


Last year’s annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit attracted more than 90 speakers and 2,000 attendees from 49 states and 20 countries. Attendees included members of research and development institutions, global corporations, technology entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and government officials.

The event will feature a technology showcase with more than 150 exhibits from DOE and ARPA-E-funded projects and applicants in areas such as energy storage technologies for electrical grids, power electronics, batteries for electric vehicles, energy-efficient building technologies, advanced carbon capture, and electrofuels. The showcase will also feature new ARPA-E programs that aim to advance alternatives to rare earth materials, plant engineering for fuel applications, advanced thermal storage, network integration architecture for the electrical grid, and power electronics for solar photovoltaic applications. A wide range of other energy technologies and new topic areas will also be discussed at the Summit."

A Green IT Action Plan -- HP

This Guide from HP (the printer people) describes how to get the most "Green" out of your printing and paper usage.

Climate Innovation Centres: A New Way to Foster Climate Technologies in the Developing World

Accelerating innovation in emerging technologies is essential to help reduce the current and long-term impacts of climate change. However developing countries, which are most immediately threatened by these impacts, lag in their capacity to transfer, develop and deploy innovative climate technologies. Climate Innovation Centers: A New Way to Faster Climate Technologies in the Developing World explores how Climate Innovation Centers (CICs) can help developing countries accelerate the deployment of climate technologies, companies and industries by:

o Over 550 relevant organizations in 68 countries identified to assess existing global capacity in climate innovation
o Providing an inventory of existing relevant support organizations, including incubators, centres of excellence, multilateral programmes,
o Analaysing existing centers by geography, technology, innovation, and climate focus;
o Identifying the gaps in the existing institutional capacity
o Exploring the early stage financing landscape for climate technologies;
o Providing detailed advice about the design of CICs and their development as a global network.

Where Activism Meets Technological Innovation: The Challenge of Environmental Problem Solving -- Pace Academy

Advocacy and technology have each played a part in our environmental successes and failures to date, but to what degree should each be leveraged as we face new environmental challenges? Has advocacy lost its way? Is technology a blessing, curse, or both? This roundtable discussion will explore the relative value of advocacy and technology as well the notion that a union of the two may be our only way forward.

Speakers: John Cronin, Senior Fellow for Environmental Affairs, Pace University
Janisse Ray, Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, Writer, Naturalist, Activist
Andrew C. Revkin, Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, Pace University
Welcome by: Nira Herrmann, Dean, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Pace University
Moderated by: Michelle D. Land, Director, Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies

Monday, Nov. 1, 2010

5:30pm – 6:15pm Reception in Choate House Gallery (Pace Community)
6:30pm – 8:00pm Roundtable in Butcher Suite, Kessel Student Center (all)

RSVP: paceacademy@pace.edu or 914-422-4077 by Wednesday, Oct. 27th