POWER February 2017 - 8

SPEAKING OF POWER
Energy R&D Is Essential to
Any Great Country
B
ill Gates is taking on another global
challenge: " Reliable, affordable energy
for the world. " On December
11, the richest man in the world announced
yet another commitment to effecting radical
change. It's called Breakthrough Energy
Ventures (BEV). Together with fellow investors,
Gates is betting that private money can
help create " a carbonless future " by spurring
breakthrough technologies around the world.
BEV has made a commitment of $1 billion
over 20 years with an investment fund
described as " patient, flexible, and committed
to the guiding principles of the Breakthrough
Energy Coalition. " BEV investments
will be " guided by solid research as well as
by market priorities. "
Given Gates' prior financial support
for nuclear power company TerraPower's
traveling wave reactor technology, some
have speculated that nuclear energy will
be a beneficiary of BEV funds. However,
while Gates has been noncommittal about
nuclear, he has said there will be a focus
on renewables, storage, and transmission.
Public R&D Financing Is
Foundational
There's no question that private investment
in energy sector research and development
(R&D) is important, but Gates acknowledges
private money can't achieve success
alone. BEV's website says, " Public support
continues to be crucial in providing the
foundation of basic research that unlocks
private investment in company-building
and industry creation. "
Corporate R&D commitments to basic
research come and go because they are
driven by short-term shareholder return
calculations. Private sector initiatives also
may lack easy access to research facilities
and staffs. Government-that is, publically
funded-R&D on the other hand, is
able to sustain long-term projects at universities,
national labs, and elsewhere. Of
course, such projects should be accountable
to receive continued funding, but
visionary programs committed to substantially
new breakthroughs require reliable
financial and institutional support. That
sort of stability is also necessary to attract
top human talent-for which there
is steep, global competition.
8
Current Budgets Are Insufficient
Recent U.S. budgets for energy-related R&D
increased from 2015 to 2016, as well as in
the 2017 budget request. That includes the
Department of Energy's Advanced Research
Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), whose
budget increased from $291 million in 2016
to $500 million in 2017. (Watch for my online
reports from the ARPA-E Summit at
the end of February, posted at powermag.
com.) Additionally, beginning in November
2015, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, along
with 19 other countries and the European
Union, have made a " Mission Innovation "
pledge to double public funding for clean
energy R&D over a five-year period in support
of " economic growth, energy access
and security, and an urgent and lasting
global response to climate change. "
But even these latest increases aren't
enough. A December report by the nonpartisan
technology think tank Information
Technology & Innovation Foundation
(ITIF), showed that, despite increasing
budgets, the U.S. ranks only 11th in energy
R&D investments as a percentage
of gross domestic product. China spends
three times as much as the U.S.
The authors say that, " Asian countries,
in particular, have vaulted to the forefront
of global trade in clean energy technology, "
and China in particular, " is the world
leader in the production of solar panels,
batteries, and wind turbines, and it is
quickly taking the lead in next-generation
nuclear power and technologies to capture
carbon. The United States is losing this
race because Asian countries are out-investing
it and dictating the terms of competition,
often flooding the market with
low-cost, unimaginative products. "
The ITIF report makes several recommendations
to the new president and Congress,
including increased support for programs
like ARPA-E that fund " end-use driven research
programs. " Basic science is crucial
to breakthrough discoveries, but there also
needs to be a game plan for applying those
discoveries to commercially viable technologies.
We don't, for example (in my view),
need another " novel " approach to converting
solar energy into electricity that relies
upon materials that will never be economic
at scale. We do need simple, cheap, reliable
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carbon capture and use technologies to
make the world's fossil-powered plants part
of the near-term and medium-term solution
to climate change.
Government funds were instrumental in
developing nuclear power and fracking technologies,
which led to early American dominance
in those fields. In ways large and small,
public money has supported every aspect of
today's power sector, from prime mover technologies
to environmental controls, and the
innovation needs continue to evolve.
Science Is Not Democratic or
Republican
When it comes to power sector leadership,
the path is clear: It's forward, not backward.
Other nations are investing in next-generation
technologies that buyers around the
world want today. " Old coal " technologies
are being challenged globally on economic,
emissions, and climate change grounds. To
help coal and gas plants continue to supply
needed baseload generation in many parts
of the world, cleaner-but also cheaper
and more reliable-technologies need to be
introduced. It bears noting here that ARPAE's
mandate to advance high-impact energy
technologies that are too early for private
sector investment (including carbon capture)
has enjoyed bipartisan support since it was
introduced under President George W. Bush.
In a December interview with E&E News,
Gates said he told Donald Trump in November
(before Trump chose Rick Perry for
energy secretary) that energy and climate
change provide a " chance for American leadership "
and that there's a lot of opportunity
for innovation generally and that energy can
" provide a lot of return " on the right type
of research. He told E&E that his next conversation
with Trump would emphasize the
importance of federal clean energy research
as well as its impact on jobs and exports.
Because the power industry relies on
innovative technologies to keep electricity
reliable and increasingly clean, I urge
you to tell your representatives in Congress
that supporting increased energy
R&D budgets is important to this keystone
industry-and to all Americans and American
businesses, which rely upon the services
power provides every day. ■
-Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER's editor.
POWER | February 2017
http://www.powermag.com
POWER February 2017

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