Speaking at MIT, Obama countered recent statements from his administration that climate legislation is bogged down.
In a speech today at MIT, President Barack Obama called for optimism in addressing climate-change issues, saying that rapid progress is being made on a climate bill in Congress. His remarks, delivered to a crowd of students, professors, venture capitalists, and local politicians, came after one key Obama administration official recently said that legislation is unlikely to pass before a major international climate treaty meeting in Copenhagen this December.
Obama came short of assigning a date for the passage of the bill, but he called attention to the fact that a portion of the bill has already passed out of committee on its way to the Senate floor. He said that efforts to support clean energy through February's stimulus bill and other legislation "must culminate in legislation to make renewable energy the profitable form of energy" in this country. The climate bill could do this in two ways: by offering direct incentives and subsidies to clean energy, and by putting a cap on carbon dioxide emissions, which would make fossil fuels more expensive.
Earlier this month, Carol Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and a top Obama energy and climate advisor, said that the climate legislation will likely not be passed before the Copenhagen meeting. That could make it difficult for any major climate-change agreement to come out of that meeting, as other countries look for evidence that the United States is taking the issue seriously.
At MIT, Obama met with researchers developing various clean-energy technologies, including lightweight batteries that can be "grown" using viruses; windows that generate electricity from the sun; more efficient lighting; and offshore wind turbines that generate electricity even when there is no wind. Although he didn't specify how this last technology works, it could be related to MIT research into developing wind turbines that store energy by pumping water, or that generate electricity from ocean waves. Obama also described a new wind-turbine blade testing facility in Massachusetts capable of evaluating blades that are about the length of a football field.
The speech redirected attention toward energy issues that dominated the agenda earlier this year but were upstaged by efforts to develop and pass a health-care reform bill.
The Senate recently took up negotiations for its version of a climate and energy bill; the House passed its version in June. Meanwhile, Congress recently passed a funding bill for the Department of Energy that included large increases for renewable energy and for improving the electricity grid. The bill also funded three of eight proposed Energy Innovation Hubs designed to spur basic research toward applications that would solve various energy problems. The hubs were funded at $22 million for nuclear-energy modeling and simulation, fuel production from sunlight, and energy-efficient building system design.
Obama said that climate-change skeptics are being moved to the margins, but that a "more dangerous" problem is the myth "that there's little or nothing we can do--it's pessimism." Recently, policy analysts including David Victor, director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University, have pointed out that climate-change policy is inherently difficult for governments for a number of reasons. For example, it requires international cooperation between countries with different interests and requires governments to make sacrifices now when the potential benefits are distant. Victor also notes that many political systems, including the one in the United States, are purposely designed not to produce policy unless there is wide agreement.
Obama specifically referred to some of these points, saying that some people believe the political system is broken or that people are unwilling to make tough choices. But he called on the "American spirit" of innovation and exploration to overcome such problems.
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personally I am rather disappointed that the nuclear engineering department at MIT was kind of shunted for this whole thing. The Department head of the only department dedicated to clean energy research and development doesn't get invited to a talk on clean energy???
I'm also rather disappointed that he visited labs doing research into wind, solar, batteries, yet did not visit Alcator C-Mod, an experimental fusion reactor on campus.
The lack of acknowledgment that nuclear power provides 80% of the US's carbon free electricity is rather sad.
On the issue of climate change, whether or not it is man made shouldn't have any influence on the fact that we should be good stewards of the planet. Personally I think that "global warming" has become a stick used to prod other politicians into falling in line with various policies, whether or not it is truly man made.
I'm sorry to say, but the nuclear industry doesn't pay Mr. Obama's campaign bills; the environmentalist movement does. It should be no surprise at all that President Obama will promote industries that are approved of by his political backers. He is, in my opinion, a politician first and a leader second. That could probably be said to some degree about most presidents, representatives and senators, but I think it applies very much to Mr. Obama.
I would add that the administration's cancellation of the Yucca Mountain site for nuclear waste does not indicate a positive view of nuclear energy by the administration.
The site that was arrived at after billions of dollars in research and decades of study, and it would have provided storage for the country's nuclear waste as Congress promised it would in 1982. Instead, the billions in fees charged to the nuclear industry have bought them nothing while the federal government abdicates its responsibility.
It seems to me that whether or not global warming is manmade is kind of irrelevant. As humans we are comfortable with the temperature the way it is so regardless of why temperature is rising we should work very hard to keep it where it is.
Excellent comments re. nuclear power, now widely accepted as safe and economical across the globe, especially in much of Europe. Unfortunately, Obama rarely addresses it because it is still unpopular with the left (ever since "The China Syndrome"). It should be the leading component of a clean energy solution since it is one of the few technologies that makes economical sense now.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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mfhurley
7 Comments
MIT - Prof. Lindzen?
Interesting. A Climate Change article on "MIT" Tech Review, and it does not even MENTION the dissenting views of "MIT's" preeminent atmospheric physicist and Professor of Meteorology, Richard Lindzen. For years he has pointed out errors in alarmist climate models and does NOT believe humans contribute significantly to global warming. Surely he should at least merit a MENTION. Perhaps you could have informed us whether he was present at, or invited to, the speech. Or is MIT TR also participating in the muzzling/blacklisting of any Climate Change dissenters?
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shomas
245 Comments
Re: MIT - Prof. Lindzen?
While I applaud effort to advances science and technology that save money, I wish TR authors would keep politics out of its publications.
The article's author, Kevin Bullis seems quite happy to turn TR into a support Obama forum.
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harrison-matt
1 Comment
Re: MIT - Prof. Lindzen?
Why not support our president? This is no time for sore loosers as much as it is time for energy reform. We need to look into the current possiblities of the application of technology in the ever expanding global energy reform, I am glad to see that our president is supporting our interests in Renewable Energy. Kevin Bullis, luckly is without bias in stating to all that our American President is supporting energy reform. If it fails at the senate, the senate is to blame. So, let me ask you, where do you draw the line of supporting your president on issues that you applaud? Is this not good news?
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