Structuring An Energy Technology Revolution

An argument for a major federal program to stimulate innovation in energy technology and a proposal for a policy approach to implement it. America is addicted to fossil fuels, and the environmental and geopolitical costs are mounting. A public-private program—at an expanded scale—to stimulate innovation in energy policy seems essential. In Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian make the case for just such a program. Their proposal backs measures to stimulate private investment in new technology, within a revamped energy innovation system. It would encourage a broad range of innovations that would give policymakers a variety of technological options over the long implementation period and at the huge scale required, faster than could be accomplished by market forces alone. Even if the nation can't make progress at this time on pricing carbon, a technology strategy remains critical and can go ahead now. Strong leadership and public support will be needed to resist the pressure of entrenched interests against putting new technology pathways into practice in the complex and established energy sector. This book has helped start the process.

America is addicted to fossil fuels, and the environmental and geopolitical costs are mounting. A federal program—on the scale of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program—to stimulate innovation in energy policy seems essential. In this BIT, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian describe a new framework for stimulating innovation through policy and legislation and offer a roadmap for the implementation of new technologies.

There is a new and exciting revolution coming. It will dramatically change our landscape, our environment, our economy, and our lives. It will provide each and every one of us with a truly unique sense of independence. It will mark the end of oil-influenced politics, and the beginning of a bright new millennium - a time in which we all will have our own unlimited sources of nonpolluting energy. However, it will not come without a struggle, as history has already shown. The Coming Energy Revolution provides us with an intriguing and insightful look at the forces behind the free-energy movement. The Coming Energy Revolution introduces us to some of the inventors, both past and present, who have insisted that we are surrounded by a sea of energy that we can tap once we have learned nature's secrets. Conventional science says that space is cold and still, and that what energy does exist cannot be put to useful work. The new-energy innovators say that conventional science is wrong, and that new-energy research is being suppressed by a combination of scientific inertia and corporate self-interest. But the suppression cannot last, as this book shows - there are simply too many inventors who are close to new-energy breakthroughs. The Coming Energy Revolution examines the technologies on which these inventors are working. There are magnets that can redirect the energy of space. There is a gentler form of nuclear energy that can take place on a table top. There is hydrogen, a clean, abundant fuel that can be produced wherever needed. There is a form of hydropower that does not rely on massive dams. And there are other forms of new energy. The Coming Energy Revolution looks at them all, and at thekinds of changes that will be needed to overcome the roadblocks between our old-energy present and our new-energy future.

The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation. —Dr. Kent Hughes, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars This volume contains a remarkable collection of extremely insightful articles on the world’s most successful advanced technology agency. Drafted by the leading US experts on DARPA, it provides a variety of perspectives that in turn benefit from being presented together in a comprehensive volume. It reviews DARPA’s unique role in the U.S. innovation system, as well as the challenges DARPA and its clones face today. As the American model is being considered for adoption by a number of countries worldwide, this book makes a welcome and timely contribution to the policy dialogue on the role played by governments in stimulating technological innovation. — Prof. Charles Wessner, Georgetown University The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’? This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.

This book is a timely contribution to the international dialogue now underway nationally and internationally on how technology cooperation can foster sustainable economic development through the wise production and use of energy. It includes an integrated package of recommendations which will encourage such technology cooperation, developed by a group of over 90 international energy experts from developed and developing countries, as well as intergovernmental organizations. The subjects discussed are: Energy Technology Cooperation; Approaches to Energy Technology Transfer; Privatization Initiatives in Developing Countries; Energy Technology Transfer and Trade; Electric Power for Sustainable World Economic Development; Processes for Transnational Technology Transfer and Technology Cooperation in the Electric Power Industry; Fomenting Industrial Revolution without New Rights of Pollution; Renewable Energy; and Technology Transfer in End-Use Energy Efficiency. The book's concluding chapter provides a comprehensive perspective on the subject of energy efficiency. Co-published with the Atlantic Council of the United States.

Technology and science can enable us to create a richer, healthier, sustainable, and equitable world, but they can also lead to global disaster. After all, human technical, political, economic, business, and ethical decisions determine the impact of scientific discoveries and technological innovations... In this book, Charles Weiss explores the intertwining of science, technology, and world affairs that affects everything from climate change and global health to cybersecurity, biotechnology, and geoengineering. Compact and readable, the book ties together ideas and experiences arising from a broad range of diverse issues, ranging from the structure of the energy economy to the future of work and the freedom of the internet. The Survival Nexus highlights opportunities to mobilize science and technology for a better world through technological innovations that address global health, poverty, and hunger. It alerts the reader to the Earth-in-the balance risks stemming from the decline in the international cooperation that once kept the dangers of pandemics, climate change, and nuclear war in check. It warns of the challenge to democracies from the multi-faceted global information and cyber-wars being waged by authoritarian powers. Central to the global problems it explores are questions of basic ethics: how much are people willing to respect scientific facts, to act today to forestall long-run dangers, and to ensure equitable sharing of the benefits, costs, and risks arising from advances in science and technology. Weiss clearly explains the technical principles underlying these issues, showcasing why scientists, policy makers, and citizens everywhere need to understand how the mix of science and technology with politics, economics, business, ethics, law, communications, psychology, and culture will shape our future. This important nexus underpins issues critical to human survival that are overlooked in the broader context of world affairs.

The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.

Carefully crafted to provide a comprehensive overview of the chemistry of water in the environment, Water Chemistry: Green Science and Technology of Nature's Most Renewable Resource examines water issues within the broad framework of sustainability, an issue of increasing importance as the demands of Earth’s human population threaten to overwhelm the planet’s carrying capacity. Renowned environmental author Stanley Manahan provides more than just basic coverage of the chemistry of water. He relates the science and technology of this amazing substance to areas essential to sustainability science, including environmental and green chemistry, industrial ecology, and green (sustainable) science and technology. The inclusion of a separate chapter that comprehensively covers energy, including renewable and emerging sources, sets this book a part. Manahan explains how the hydrosphere relates to the geosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and anthrosphere. His approach views Planet Earth as consisting of these five mutually interacting spheres. He covers biogeochemical cycles and the essential role of water in these basic cycles of materials. He also defines environmental chemistry and green chemistry, emphasizing water’s role in the practice of each. Manahan highlights the role of the anthrosphere, that part of the environment constructed and operated by humans. He underscores its overwhelming influence on the environment and its pervasive effects on the hydrosphere. He also covers the essential role that water plays in the sustainable operation of the anthrosphere and how it can be maintained in a manner that will enable it to operate in harmony with the environment for generations to come. Written at an intermediate level, this is an appropriate text for the study of current affairs in environmental chemistry. It provides a review and grounding in basic and organic chemistry for those students who need it and also fills a niche for an aquatic chemistry book that relates the hydrosphere to the four other environmental spheres.

The acute energy problems facing China today are characterized by their own histories and realities. Some have come about because of China's energy endowment and stage of development, while others have been created by a combination of domestic and global factors. Some are the results of an accumulation of longstanding contradictions, while others are new challenges posed by the new order. There are no "miracle cures" to solve these problems instantly. What is needed is a tireless enquiry, with goals, planning and procedures, guided by a clear energy strategy. With China's increasing dependence on foreign energy sources, and the global energy situation and greenhouse gas issue exerting an increasingly prohibiting effect on China's energy development, energy diplomacy has become an important component of Chinese diplomatic affairs. Based on a "broad energy outlook", this book studies and analyzes China's energy issues and energy strategies from the perspective of electric power. Discusses a variety of issues, including energy transportation and allocation, end-user consumption, markets, early warning and emergency, technical innovation As a leading player in the power and energy area, China’s strategies attracts global attention Proposes the innovative idea of "Macro Energy Perspective" As a key player in China's energy industrial circle, the author's perspective can help global audiences to understand China's energy strategies better Electric Power and Energy in China is ideal for government energy policy makers, engineers, scientists and enterprise managers to understand China’s strategy in electric power and energy. It is also a good reference for energy economics researchers, consultants and university students.