June 18, 2008

Energy Research Would See Big Growth Under House Spending Bill

Washington — Federal spending on energy research would get a hefty spending boost of 21 percent in the 2009 fiscal year, under a spending bill approved by a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee this week.

The proposed increase would lift the budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to $4.86-billion, outpacing the 19-percent increase requested by President Bush in February. Both proposals aim to put the office’s budget back on track to double over seven years, as called for by the America Competes Act enacted last year. The bill aims to increase federal spending on fundamental research in the physical sciences to help improve America’s global economic competitiveness.

Congress and the president approved an initial installment toward the doubling goal in the 2007 fiscal year but deadlocked over aggregate spending levels in 2008, agreeing eventually to only a minimal increase for the Office of Science this year.

The House bill for 2009 includes $100-million to establish roughly two dozen new, interdisciplinary research programs, to be called Energy Frontier Research Centers, to study renewable energy and atmospheric-carbon sequestration. —Jeffrey Brainard

Comments

1. So, NOW we’re figuring out that we need more research into alternative energy? I realize that funding has existed for some time, but more is certainly needed.

   And has anyone figured out that since oil is a finite resource, maybe we should NOT use up all of it that’s within our borders? Seems to me that it’s better to use the other country’s supplies and keep ours as a last reservoir.

   — Al    Jun 19, 12:47 PM    #

2. I would agree, except it takes about 10 years or so to build all the oil wells and refineries that are required to get it from the ground to the gas pump. I say we start that process now. That should cause the speculators (the real reason, in my view, that the cost of crude is so high) to begin selling more than buying, which would immediatedly lower the price at the pump. Then, while we are building refineries and oil wells and every other type of recovery system that is required to get the massive amounts of shale oil we have within our own borders, we not only are we reducing the price for awhile, but we are keeping more of our money here, instead of giving it to regimes that really don’t like us very much (Venezuela and Iran).

   In the mean time, we buy more time for research on fuel cells. Once we develop a fuel cell that is small enough but powerful enough for practical use in a car we can begin to supplement gas stations with hydrogen stations, the hydrogen produced using the increased electrical capacity we will have from all the new nuclear power plants that will also be built over the next 10 to 30 years. About 38 are planned. In a generation or two, gas stations will have been generally phased out, replaced by hydrogen stations. There may be a few larger commercial vehicles that will use gasoline or diesel, but most of us will not. I can envision an eventual regulation against the use of a gasoline or diesel powered non-commercial vehicles, which will not eliminate the use of petroleum altogether, but will significantly reduce it.

   The only byproduct of a fuel cell is water – no carbon dioxide. The only byproduct of nuclear energy is hot water and nuclear waste, which can be reprocessed and reused in another capacity. The French do it now, but we are too skiddish to consider it. We will overcome that out of necessity.

   Before we get there, though, we still need to burn gasoline, and it needs to be as affordable as possible.

   Fantasy? Just stick around and watch what goes on for the next 30 years…

   — FB    Jun 19, 01:29 PM    #

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