"Buy American" Is Not a Clean Energy Strategy (bitter pill warning)

[wtmusic]

"The introduction of 'Buy American' legislation in the Senate in response to a report that more than three quarters of funds from a clean energy stimulus program went to foreign companies is understandable and probably good politics. Unfortunately it will do nothing to solve the root of the problem, which is that for 30 years Congress has done little to support the development of domestic clean energy industries. Given the decades-long absence of a national clean energy strategy in the United State, the fact that foreign companies are benefiting most from the stimulus grant program should come as no surprise.

The U.S. has always lacked a proactive, consistent clean energy technology strategy that provided support for clean tech companies through each stage of the technology value chain, from R&D and innovation, to manufacturing and commercial deployment at scale.

Instead, U.S. clean energy policy has historically been characterized by a disjointed collection of loosely associated, often inconsistent incentives. One example is the wind energy production tax credit (PTC), a demand incentive that has routinely been at perpetual risk of expiration, and actually lapsed on three separate occasions over the last decade. With the real possibility that the policy-driven demand for wind turbines would dry up in any given year, companies were understandably wary of investing in large manufacturing facilities in the United States."



http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2010/03/buy_american_is_not_a_clean_en.shtml

[glowing]

1. Maybe all those NASA people could convert their brains into green energy instead

of space for a while?

[wtmusic]

4. An excellent suggestion.

There is enough to deal with on our own planet for awhile.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Um...

You do know that NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (Right?)

http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/what_does_nasa_do.html

What Does NASA Do?

NASA's mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

To do that, thousands of people have been working around the world -- and off of it -- for 50 years, trying to answer some basic questions. What's out there in space? How do we get there? What will we find? What can we learn there, or learn just by trying to get there, that will make life better here on Earth?

...

What you want is government labs that work on "green" energy. Jimmy Carter created these back in the 70's as part of the "Department of Energy." Most important of these was probably NREL, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Renewable_Energy_Laboratory">National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Sadly, Ronald Reagan slashed funding to NREL by about 90%...

The good news is that Obama and Chu have put a fair deal of money into (once again) establishing the sorts of labs that Carter established 30 years ago...
http://energy.gov/news/8409.htm

December 22, 2009

Department of Energy to Invest $366M in Energy Innovation Hubs

Funding Opportunity Announcement for Fuels from Sunlight Hub is Issued

Washington, DC – U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu today outlined the Department’s plans to invest up to $366 million to establish and operate three new Energy Innovation Hubs focused on accelerating research and development in three key energy areas. Each Hub, to be funded at up to $122 million over five years, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.

“Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation,” said Secretary Chu. “The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research. We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday. Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.”

...

However, NASA has done relevant research into space-based solar power (for example) and fuel cells, as well as nuclear reactor design and wind energy.
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2009/er_3.html

...

One morning in 1990, a group of Glenn Research Center (then Lewis Research Center) employees arrived to find their workspace upended by an apparent hurricane. Papers were scattered, lights blown out. All eyes turned to the door connecting the office to its neighbor: a 20-foot wind tunnel.

The employees did not know it, but they had Dr. Larry Viterna to thank for the state of their workspace. An innovation by the NASA researcher may have led to the accidental trashing of their office, but it would go on to benefit the entire field of wind energy.

Viterna joined NASA in 1977, during a time when the country was in an energy crisis. Growing anxiety over fuel costs and environmental impacts led the U.S. Government to explore alternative and renewable energy sources. In a time prior to the formation of the Department of Energy (DOE), the government turned to other agencies like NASA to develop solutions. Glenn had a history of energy research stemming from its work in fuel-efficient aeronautics during World War II and in alternative fuels and related aerospace engines at the start of the Space Age in the 1950s. When Viterna joined the Center, it had already assumed the lead role in the Nation’s wind energy program. NASA’s goal was to develop technology for harnessing the wind’s power and transfer it to private industry.

“Our center had an expertise in propellers, propulsion, rotating equipment, and power systems,” making Glenn a natural choice for the job, explains Viterna. The Center’s efforts, he says, ultimately laid the foundations for much of the wind technologies and industry that exist today.

...

[glowing]

7. Well, they are cutting the space exploration program soon.. I'm just thinking outside the box

to stem the losses that will be coming to these sectors and to the states that host them (FL) will be hit big time.. and conveniently, the aero-space companies have a home in every county.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. You realize that scientists have specialties. (Right?)

Imagine walking into a biotech company and saying, "Sorry, we're going to have to lay a bunch of you off. Have you ever considered working as hydrologists?"

The training of NASA's scientists is not particularly well suited to the development of new energy sources.

[wtmusic]

9. Fire 'em all.

j/k

but it seems a bit crazy to be spending $15B/yr (approx) on exploring space when there are extremely urgent problems to be dealt with here.

For example, they could be developing RTGs for transportation: stick a two-inch cube of ²¹⁰Po into a car and watch it run for 6 months without refueling. Plenty radioactive - for only about 5 years. Can't make a bomb out of it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. I'm sorry

Aren't you one of the guys who thinks putting hydrogen or compressed air in a car is too dangerous?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/world/europe/24cnd-isotope.html?_r=1

Polonium 210 Is Highly Radioactive and Toxic

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: November 24, 2006

If substantial amounts of polonium 210 were used to poison Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who died Thursday, whoever did it presumably had access to a high-level nuclear laboratory and put himself at some risk carrying out the assassination, experts said today.

Polonium 210 is highly radioactive and very toxic. By weight, it is about 250 million times as toxic as cyanide, so a particle smaller than a dust mote could be fatal. It would also, presumably, be too small to taste.

British health authorities said it was found in Mr. Litvinenko’s body.

There is no antidote, and handling it in a laboratory requires special equipment. But to be fatal, it must be swallowed, breathed in or injected; the alpha particles it produces cannot penetrate the skin. So it could theoretically be carried safely in a glass vial or paper envelope and sprinkled into food or drink by a killer willing to take the chance that he did not accidentally breathe it in or swallow it.

...

[wtmusic]

11. Of course.

You think something that's going to push around a 3000-lb car for six months is going to be benign?

You seal it, you crash-isolate it, you tag it with a radio transmitter in case of tampering. It's two inches square, ferchrissakes.

Start with official vehicles (police, fire, city buses) for more control.

This is doable except from a mental standpoint.

[kristopher]

13. Bookmarked as evidence on your perception of risk/reward

That is one of the most insane propositions I've ever heard.

Chemical and Engineering News,
December 4, 2006 Volume 84, Number 49 p. 15

Toxicology
How Polonium Poisons
210Po carpet bombs cells with damaging α-particles
Ivan Amato
The polonium-210 poisoning of former Soviet spy Alexander Litvinenko has health physicists dusting off Cold War-era tomes on the biological effects of radioactive isotopes. Data are scarce, especially for human exposure to the isotope, but scientists still have a good idea of how polonium may have led to Litvinenko's death on Nov. 23, 22 days after his alleged poisoning in London.

210Po, once used in triggers for fission bombs, is an α-particle emitter with a half-life of 138 days. It decays into stable 206Pb by spitting out an α-particle—a helium nucleus—with 5.3 MeV of energy. That's a million times the energy of a typical chemical bond. Even so, α-particles are readily stopped by a single sheet of paper, so 210Po generally becomes dangerous only if it gets inside the body.

If Litvinenko ingested even 1 µg of 210Po, perhaps as a citrate or chloride salt, roughly 3 quadrillion atoms of the isotope would have entered his system, enough potentially for tens or even hundreds of 210Po atoms to reach every cell of his body. Even as he began excreting the poison, most of the polonium atoms would have insinuated themselves into cells by associating with proteins. From those perches, the radioactive nuclei would have shot out α-particles that wreak biochemical carnage.

Wherever these α-particles go, they deposit a huge amount of energy in a tiny region, says radiation researcher Roger W. Howell of the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, in Newark. As each α-particle cuts a path through a several-cell distance, Howell and others say, it leaves a devastating trail of ionization and radical formation, destroying proteins and severing DNA along the way....

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i49/8449notw9.html

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Wow!

Just imagine how these puppies could be used "in the wrong hands."

You'll have to police every mechanic, every junkyard auto recycler...

Anyone who wants to kill a bunch of people just needs to start with stealing a car...

[wtmusic]

19. It's pretty easy to kill a bunch of people with a car right now. nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

21. Different orders of magnitude

Sure, you can drive a car into a crowd. You could even set off a car bomb.

Compare that to a little polonium used to spice up a batch of hot dogs at the factory...

[wtmusic]

22. That's what the radio transmitter is for

You tamper with the innards and the DOE is immediately notified.

10 years / $100,000 fine.

It wouldn't be a problem.

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. Right...

I'm not willing to bet anyone's life on that.

[wtmusic]

24. Why not?

Help me...what's wrong with this scenario? :shrug:

[OKIsItJustMe]

26. Let's see

So, you say there's some sort of radio dingus. OK, and that cannot possibly be blocked or defeated.

God knows the threat of fines and/or imprisonment stopped the trade in illicit drugs!(Right?)

A fine! and possible imprisonment! Well, I'm certain that should be enough to deter any mass murderer. "I'd really like to kill thousands of people, but, I might have to pay a fine!"

(Just so there's no confusion here: The use of the first person and quotation marks does not mean that I am a mass murderer.)

[wtmusic]

27. Yes, it cannot possibly be blocked or defeated.

Like a cellphone, it's constantly relaying/receiving (and it has er, plenty of power). This is not outside the realm of technology.

It would require constant monitoring, which would be paid for by privatizing big oil and selling all service stations. :D

[OKIsItJustMe]

29. Ever hear of tunnels?

I don't use cell phones, and if I did, I wouldn't while driving, but I've heard their signals can be blocked by things like tunnels and buildings (and that's without any fancy-schmancy electronic interference.)

[wtmusic]

30. You wouldn't need tunnels

because your nuclear-powered automobile can fly! :D

[PavePusher]

43. It is well known that technology spin-offs from the space program...

Have paid more it many, many times over.

Got a computer? Space tech.

Got any micro electronics? Natch

Got carbon fiber anything... There you go.

Got thin-film technologies, light-weight/high-strength/heat-resistant materials?

Got any modern medical tech?

Got long shelf-life foods?

High-efficiency batteries, fuel cells?

The list goes on, and on.....

[Kolesar]

12. The NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland does R&D on "energy conversion"

In the 1940s, they developed piston engines, then it was jet engines. They managed the Centaur booster engine and the power system for the International Space Station. They also had a wind turbine project several decades ago.

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. True enough (check my earlier post)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=234405&mesg_id=234414

However, once Carter created the Department of Energy, NASA largely got out of that business.

[glowing]

44. Yes I realize there are differences in the sciences. However, their are many

engineers and phycisists that would be able to use their skills to think about how we could possibly change the atmosphere or think of how to create energy without harming the planet. My specialty is in marine/ environmental science.. I do have to know biology, physics, and chemistry to make my specialty work. AND if you can formulate one math theory, why not another?

[PSPS]

2. The article doesn't exactly "deliver" the headline's message

As best as I can tell, the article simply describes how pitiful the US has become in terms of innovation and long-term investment since saint reagan started the right's destruction of the country. How this equates to "Buy American is not a clean energy strategy" is a non sequitur. Maybe they're promoting the "idea" that, since we suck now, we'll always suck. Maybe they're a front organization for the multinationals. I don't know.

[wtmusic]

6. Buying expensive and inferior American technology

although it provides jobs for American workers, isn't the most effective way to mitigate global warming.

The strategy should be to buy foreign for now, and increase American R&D subsidies.

[kristopher]

15. You don't need R&D, all that is needed is a stable market.

The potential for growth is so large that there is no downside to starting the ball rolling with products from existing foreign firms. If the focus is on ensuring a stable market and you phase in a system similar to the US auto import agreement we reached with Japan, there would be vast opportunity for US firms and labor.

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. More R&D will still help

(As you know) much of the technology currently being used was researched and developed (or its research and development funded) by the federal government.

By all means, let's start implementing current technologies immediately. However, there's plenty of room for more R&D (consider http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/dish_engine_rnd.html">dish-solar-stirling which is just now getting into the market, after years of DoE research.)

[kristopher]

18. At this point all that is needed is a stable market.

That will drive all the R&D we need within the private sector. If there are trillions of dollars worth of market share to be had, private companies will be on it like white on rice.

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. No, I don't think a stable market is enough

The tendency of much of US industry is to settle for "good enough."

Consider, what major developments were made in US automobile technology in the past few years that were not a direct result of government intervention.

Corporations could have been performing fundamental research into alternative sources of power for decades. Why weren't they? (Because they already had a product they could sell.)

Government run R&D is more efficient, because there is less duplication of effort. (Why not have one big lab working rather than a dozen?)

Government run R&D should reduce patent paralysis (making fundamental developments public domain means that all manufacturers can benefit from them!)

[Statistical]

25. Or even better make it openly licensed with a modest royalty.

Eventually with enough good patents the royalty stream could pay for or allow expansion of program.

If NASA ideas had been patented and modest royalty attached to them we would have a surplus in NASA budget today and a colony on the moon.

NASA helped out mankind for decades and the benefits are in the hundreds of billions of dollars yet it is having its manned space budget cut because of "lack of resources".

[OKIsItJustMe]

28. Not to mention "lack of relevance"

Because, as we all know NASA has never done anything that has affected those of us who live in the "real world."

Oh, sure, they provided good TV now and again, but for the most part it got pretty boring. "Oh c'mon! Guys jumping around on the moon again!? Been there, done that!"

[kristopher]

31. Good enough? not when there is a wide open market...

The automobile industry isn't an appropriate example unless you go back to the first half of the 20th century.

Corporations haven't been funding research into renewables because there was no market for them; the energy industry was dominated by fossil fuels and it required policy action to CREATE a market. That policy still has not materialized but the concensus fies is that it is inevitable.

Government R&D is more efficient at BASIC research, not refining well known technologies for market deployment; that is where corporations excel.


Patents at the basic level are already widely available to build on.

[OKIsItJustMe]

33. You have greater faith in "the free market" than I do

In my experience, "the free market," specializes in "playing it safe."

An example:
You often like to suggest a parallel between microcomputers and renewable energy technologies, like solar panels.

The microcomputer industry was innovative until Charlie Chaplin decided to get into the game. Now, Charlie did absolutely as little innovation as possible. He released a computer with a conservative design, with a knock-off operating system, licensed from 3rd company. (It wasn't at all innovative, but it was "good enough" for Charlie to essentially take over the market.)

At that point, the majority of the microcomputer industry became about knocking off Charlie's non-innovative design (rather than introducing a better design.) Innovation was replaced by producing something that was "good enough," for less.

The 3rd company, whose knock-off OS Charlie had licensed, sat back, and watched the money come in. For the most part, they didn't innovate enough to convince their customers to buy the latest version of their products. But that was OK.

When another company did come up with something innovative, they were bought, forced out of business, or the 3rd company simply knocked off their innovation, coming up with an inferior technology, but one which was "good enough."

Things got so bad, that a Federal court http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm">found, "... The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with (The 3rd company's) self-interest."

Despite that legal finding of fact, despite consumers' general disdain for the company, despite their terrible history of producing products that were just "good enough," that 3rd company still essentially controls the market.

A triumph of innovation in "the free market."


Think it won't happen with renewable energy technologies? (Why not?)

[kristopher]

34. There you go into never never land again...

You have nothing of substance so you draft an insanely vague argument that seems to be oriented around a maturing market. I'll take a stab at what I think you are trying to say...

If solar drops to the same level that individual computing drops to I'd be extremely happy with that. What you seem to be describing is the process where market saturation is nearly complete, and ease of entry and exit in the market is achieved. The emphasis for serving this sector then shifts to a model where the manufacturers are price takers instead of the consumer being the price taker. That is where the cost reductions in manufacturing are achieved because that is where the profit lies. That doesn't mean innovation stops or I wouldn't be typing this on a laptop with a 2GB processor, an 8 hour battery and 120GB of memory.

Your example just makes no sense and seems to be another case where you just want to argue even when you have nothing to offer.

[OKIsItJustMe]

35. "... market saturation is nearly complete ..."

Hardly. Innovation in the microcomputer market was squelched as early as 1980.

[kristopher]

36. Riiiiight...

your claims are so vague they are meaningless.

[OKIsItJustMe]

37. I guess you don't know what blue underlined text means.

http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

...

412. Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest.

[kristopher]

38. That doesn't prove your assertion regarding markets and innovation.

Not even close. If you have a cogent argument please make it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

39. I gave an example

Another example I gave earlier was the US automobile industry.

The tendency of companies is to innovate no more than they need to. It still happens, but not more than is necessary. "Good enough," is the rule.

R&D is expensive, and if you can sell today's product, an unnecessary expense in the eyes of many.


Tell you what... I can give you other examples, but you'll just gainsay them.

So, show me a mature industry where innovation is flourishing...

[kristopher]

40. The examples do not support your claim.

And now you are attempting to reframe your original assertion as "...show me a mature industry where innovation is flourishing".

The claim you made was that we need more government led R&D for renewable energy. I said we only need to provide a stable market and that the huge market share up for grabs would provide the incentive for innovation.

You then bring up the auto industry and I pointed out that the relevant comparison would be in the first half of the 20th century when that industry was growing to fill an empty market. Then you claim assert that monopolistic practices of one corporation somehow have a bearing on the discussion. It doesn't. While there is a stifling of innovation from what it otherwise might be, economic theory shows that there is a very limited impact possible from a monopoly before it self destructs; so you've taken the courts remarks to be something they are not.

Basic research is the province of government while research to perfect those developments and hone them into products in order to bring them to market for the least cost is hands down the function of a market.

Grab a text on environmental policy and read about the way regulation works in the area of pollution controls. Compare command and control methods vs goal oriented requirements and you'll see a concrete example of how government development takes a back seat in the area of deployment and innovation. I actually have a great appreciation and fondness for our government's R&D capability, but you don't ask a cat to bark like a dog.

Perhaps what you are objecting to is the idea that there has been a "market failure" when it comes to bringing these products to market. If so, that means clarity is lacking in the area of what role government and private capital have in making markets work. Exploring the command and control vs goal oriented approaches to pollution control should help clarify the division of responsibility and bring the point I'm making into focus.

[OKIsItJustMe]

41. My point is that a "stable market" tends to impede innovation

Innovation is inherently destabilizing.

You agree that government is good at "basic research." You believe there is no more "basic research" to be done in PV (for example?)


As for monopolies self-destructing, did Microsoft go out of business without anyone telling me!? (I just can't keep up!)

[kristopher]

42. You can't keep up because you aren't familiar with the basics

I said that the effect of monopolies are limited because if they go too far they self destruct; it isn't a controversial proposition, it is basic.

I think I now understand your perspective, though. It is the term "stable market". That means a regulatory structure that ensures people wanting to invest in a given sector that 1) the rules are in place to give clear direction on what society wants to accomplish and that 2) the rules are not going to change so that investment gets stranded.

It sounds like you are conflating that with the idea of mature markets that I mentioned earlier. At least, your usage of the two terms as you have indicates that might be the issue.

[wtmusic]

3. delete

[rucky]

32. Sherrod Brown has a plan.

Go to his Senate website and click around. He gets it.