I want to mention that Secretary Johanns and I happen to be friends.  That may not seem like a remarkable thing here in St. Louis, but it’s actually not that common in Washington DC.   That is why the great Missourian Harry Truman once observed, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”   In fact, I have a dog, but I also have Mike.

It’s good to be here in St. Louis for what I believe should be a very significant conference on renewable energy.  Let me also thank everyone in both our Departments who worked so hard to put this event together; as well as our hosts here in this great city.

Part of the reason for this conference is to take advantage of the tremendous strides being made in the development of solar and wind power technology, and find ways to more quickly commercialize and integrate these technologies into our national economy.

In the year since the Energy Policy Act became law, the equivalent of at least half a million more homes can now be powered with emissions-free, affordable wind power, offsetting almost 7 billion pounds of CO2 emissions.  The President has said that wind could potentially account for up to 20 percent of our nation’s generating capacity by harnessing the power of rural America, and we are working with industry on the technology, transmission, and economic hurdles to make that happen.

At the same time, the solar energy industry has also been growing at a record annual rate of more than 35% worldwide in recent years, with no letup in sight.  This is also an industry in which the U.S. thanks in large measure to contributions from our National Laboratories, has consistently been a leader in technology innovation.  We are rapidly moving closer to the day when building integrated solar generation and efficiency technologies permanently changes the way we power our homes and offices with little or no net energy consumption.

Both of these sources for generating electricity are important components of President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative and both are discovering some of their greatest new growth potential on the prairies of America’s heartland.   Thomas Jefferson said that “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.”  Now, as an engineer, I am not sure I agree with that entirely.  But it is certainly true that our agricultural community is increasingly important for our nation’s energy security.
 
In addition to clean, renewable sources for electricity, American farmers also contribute to powering our transportation sector through home-grown biofuels.  We are very excited about the technology that is emerging in this field; and we are working hard to reach the day when American consumers throughout the country have the opportunity to choose cost-competitive biofuels to run their cars and trucks. 
All of us will play a role in reaching this goal. Government, the scientific community, industry, investors, and many others will need to be involved in each step.  And that is why this conference was designed to bring together people from all these fields to stimulate discussions, create networks, and generate ideas that will have truly far-reaching consequences.

Now, Mike has given us a great overview of just how much energy potential there is in America’s farming communities.  And of course, his Department plays a very critical role there.

Once we’ve grown the raw material the “biomass” as we call it, the next challenge is to convert it efficiently to useable fuel, which is where the Energy Department’s resources in basic and applied science and technology come into play.

There are other steps, of course.  We need to make the whole process cost-competitive build up and adapt the infrastructure and meet the distribution challenge.  All this will principally be the job of the private sector; although the government can act as a catalyst.

For instance, we know that there are inherent obstacles to getting the most promising clean energy technologies properly funded so that they can be commercialized.  That is why the Energy Policy Act the President signed last summer created a new Loan Guarantee Office in our Department, which is designed to reduce what’s called the “first-mover” risks for potential investors and lenders.  We are also aiding in the area of downstream distribution.  Just a few days ago I announced more than $8 million in funding to expand the infrastructure for the distribution of biofuels such as E85.

But let me come back to the conversion phase, which is a scientific and technological challenge that the Energy Department is very focused on.  We are approaching this in two ways.  On the one hand, there are a variety of incremental engineering steps we are taking to make the technology we’ve already mastered more efficient, and more cost-effective.  For example, in February I announced $160 million in cost-shared funding over three years to construct up to three biorefineries in the United States.  The goal of these grants is to demonstrate that operating commercial biorefineries can be profitable once initial construction costs are repaid.

Then there is the fundamental, high-risk research we are sponsoring.  This can lead to transformational changes and new technologies, the people in our Science Office call them “disruptive” technologies that provide clean, reliable, economic biofuels.  What we want to do, basically, is build on the biotech revolution, and direct this enormous volume of learning and experience toward energy applications.  Our principal method for doing this will be through two new bioenergy research centers we are funding.

The Energy Department is putting up $250 million over five years $25 million a year for each center, to pursue inter-disciplinary, high-risk/high-return research in basic science that, we hope, will crack the technological barriers to developing wide-scale and cost-effective biofuels.  We are encouraging universities, national laboratories, nonprofit agencies, private investors, and industry to apply singly or join together as consortia to compete for this funding.  The idea is get the very best people together in hi-tech areas of the country and put them to work on the energy problem.   Dr. Ray Orbach, our Undersecretary for Science, will discuss this in more detail tomorrow.

I think this has the potential to be the best thing we do during my tenure as Energy Secretary.  The reason I am so optimistic is that the American biotech industry really is the most advanced and most competitive in the world, thanks in no small part to the generous research funding and technology sharing at the National Institutes of Health.

In addition, the Department of Energy has been doing a lot of work over the years that is turning out to be immensely helpful.  Our efforts in genomics, most people don’t know that our Department started the Human Genome Project, along with our research in rapid DNA sequencing at the Joint Genome Institute, as well as the Advanced Light Source technology we have at our national labs, are all coming together.  So we see a new kind of convergence that is making energy from biomass more promising than at any time before.

We are particularly excited about developing “cellulosic ethanol” which, as I am sure many of you know, is a fuel made from plant waste, switchgrass, wood chips and other inedible agricultural products.

The challenge is find cost-effective ways of breaking down the tough cell walls so that the material can be converted to energy.  One of the most promising ways of doing this is through microbes.  The trick is to find the right microbe to interact with the right biomass source.  We need to match the bug to the plant by re-engineering both.  Our goal, as the President announced in his State of the Union Address, is to make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive by 2012.

I want to be very clear, however, that our efforts are not confined exclusively to cellulosic ethanol.  We are also sponsoring promising research on other biofuels from biomass, including biodiesel, biofuels for aviation, and biologically produced or inspired hydrogen and other fuels from sunlight.  For instance, we think that the advanced biological research we are funding might also be directed to solar power, outperforming nature’s own photosynthesis.  The goal here which, admittedly is further down the road, is transforming microbes into engines that convert sunlight directly into fuels.   My point is that there are lots of extraordinary projects and fresh ideas that show real promise, and we are interested in all of them.

Now I know you have two pretty full days planned, so I think I should stop here and conclude by thanking you all for coming.  As I said, we are very excited to see so many people, from so many different fields, coming together to pursue a common goal: the goal of developing clean, domestic, renewable energy sources that will enhance our national security, power our economy, support our nation’s farmers, and help us maintain a clean environment.

Once again, thank you all for coming and please enjoy the conference.

Location:
St. Louis, Missouri

Media contact(s):
Craig Stevens, (202) 586-4940