Some notes from President Clinton's keynote (please note: any grammatical and spelling errors are those of the note taker).
He's really here to say "go get 'em." It's exciting for him to be here, and he thinks now is an important time.
There are some hazards to the innovation project right now. Oil imports have dropped, we have had achievements, and people start to say: we should say that's good enough. Budget constraints could force us to give in to the temptation not to invest more and more in innovation, one of the the government's most important priorities, he thinks.
On the other hand, there are many new discoveries, such as the evidence that investments in energy can lead to an economic boom for our country and the world; and even when the government's role is unclear, the private sector continues to invest. Recent spikes in gas prices remind us of the fragility of 'just the way we used to do' things, plus the inherent costs of fossil fuels on health and the ecosystem.
To try to close the gap between the trendlines and the headlines is important and we are making progress. For example, the belief was that the only way to grow richer was to burn fossil fuels, create greenhouse gas; but no one believes that any more. Prof Muller of Berkeley's Earth Surface Temperature Project testified in front of congress, called by the committee opposed to the idea of climate change,and he admitted he was wrong and that the globe is warming, caused by human activities. It didn't make the evening news. It was a trendline but not a headline. The American people are with you (the audience, ARPA-E) in this enterprise, but they have all they can take. He hopes that there is a citizenship component to raise knowledge and understanding that economic security is not threatened by what the audience and ARPA-E are doing, but it depends on it.
He is a huge fan of Obama's energy strategy, as long as we are moving towards a reduction in emissions along with growth. Many countries have experienced economic growth with lowering or maintaining of emissions, and also have not exacerbated the inequality aspect.
We need a consensus in congress. We need more people knowledgeable about transferring technologies to public use. Military also needs to be involved, because of their capacity to help with change. We need to remove ambivalence over whether natural gas should be embraced, along with a system of high standards for doing the work.
We need more innovation to implement what works now in the low hanging fruit area. For example: financing a buildup of wind with the infrastructure fund. We have excellent wind in Montana, but we need to get the electricity to where the people are. Get corporations to invest in the rest by repatriating corporate taxes, lowering the corporate tax and broadening the base, removing deductions. Tell the corporations: if you want to bring it back you can, but you have to put it in the infrastructure bank. So then we can put the energy where the people are.
We should do more in America and around the world to pick the low hanging fruit in terms of lowering emissions as well, for example: methane gas, black carbon, CFCs. If we could do this on a global basis, it could buy us 20 years while all of you (the audience) come up with great ideas that will make a huge difference. Americans should set an example.
There should not be one open landfill in the US. There are technologies that help farmers reduce methane waste on farms. We should have a systematic way of doing this. Waste to energy, creating steam from methane, one needs need 17-18 years to pay off the investment. This is not rocket science, we just need a systematic solution for the more rapidly dispersed greenhouse gasses. There are working, affordable models that are being implemented around the world.
We need a technological fix to finance efficiency. We all know efficiency is good. Chicago is announcing a number of improvements tomorrow; again, we need a systematic fix. Now there are software programs for bonded contractors to figure out what can be done to improve efficiency, and the organizations that can provide the backing to guarantee the services; this is a huge deal for America's biggest unemployment problem. But there is no national "just say yes" system here. Main thing to know is you get 7-8000 jobs per billion dollars invested. We can get halfway home to an 80% reduction by 2050 by efficiency measures alone. More effort needs to go into "just say yes" systems; return on investment is clear.
The biggest obstacle to going to tax breaks for home efficiency improvements is the fallacy that it erodes the value of the home investment; in fact, the home becomes more valuable, and it does not undermine the mortgage. This meaningless debate has kept congress from doing it nationwide.
Other option is decoupling, and allowing utilities to finance the improvements directly. Twenty states allow it, and there's some evidence that it's becoming more popular. We would have a "just say yes" system that would apply to homes, businesses, and larger buildings, and it would make a big difference. They cut your utility bill and add the financing of the retrofit to your utility bill, and they put the two together so you see that the bill is less than before retrofit.
If you're looking for a way to generate jobs in a hurry while getting on to the technology developments...we are making some progress.
We are really paying a price for postponing the large scale lower hanging things we know we can do while we finance things and find the silver bullets.
He's very optimistic about this. He's gratified by the fact that the President, administration and DOD are on the cutting edge. No matter what has happened with subsidies, we have this incredible venture capital network that continues to believe in it.
Once people know the facts, no one's against it. There are still too few who understand what a huge impact this could be on their future; people need to know, then they can understand and participate.
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