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U.S.
Senator Member: Finance, Agriculture, Energy, Ethics and Aging Committees |
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For Immediate
Release Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |
CONTACT:Michael Amodeo – 303-249-5286 |
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| Sen. Salazar Examines Opportunities to Expedite Deployment, Commercialization of Clean Energy Technologies
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing, entitled “Financing Clean Energy Technology Deployment,” to examine and address the challenges of deploying and commercializing clean energy technologies. At the hearing, United States Senator Ken Salazar, a member of the Committee, highlighted the need to develop innovative financing tools to accelerate private investment in deployment of clean energy projects, including advanced coal with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and cellulosic biofuels, which will lay the foundation for a new, clean energy economy for the 21st century. The full text of Senator Salazar’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery, is included below: “Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Domenici, thank you for holding this legislative hearing to address the challenges of deploying and commercializing clean energy technologies. “Three weeks ago our committee held an important hearing where we examined the International Energy Agency’s new report on energy technologies. This report highlighted a couple of essential truths: first, that the scale of investment in global deployment of clean energy technologies that will be required in the coming decades is enormous. Second, there are a host of impediments to making these investments a reality. Today I look forward to discussing in depth what role the federal government should take to incentivize financing of the clean, low-carbon energy projects that will not only enhance our environmental and national security, but that will also be the bedrock of America’s 21st century clean energy economy. “We need innovative financing tools to accomplish the early commercial-scale demonstration projects that will prove the viability of carbon capture and sequestration, cellulosic biofuels, geothermal energy, advanced coal technologies, and other capital-intensive technologies. For example, a common refrain from representatives of public utilities and independent power producers who claim to be very interested in CCS is that, while they can see building one of the first of a batch of ten or fifteen CCS plants, they cannot risk building the first of a batch of only one or two CCS plants. In other words, they can’t accept the possibility of being stuck with a so-called ‘white elephant’ – a one-of-a-kind plant. When weighed against a plant’s large sticker-price, the perceived risk is simply too high for investors and financial entities to make a commitment. “So how can we put a halt to this staring match? It’s plain to see that these plants will never become cost effective if we don’t put stakes in the ground and build the first few. Given the enormous potential environmental and economic benefits of CCS, there is a need in this instance for the federal government to mitigate the financial risk of these and other trail-blazing capital-intensive clean energy projects. The approaches that Chairman Bingaman and Ranking Member Domenici have taken with their bills reflect this concern, and I look forward to discussing this legislation. “We must do everything
we can to capture the environmental, economic, and national security
benefits of low-carbon technologies for the long term. Investing in
clean energy projects is one of the surest paths to reducing U.S. carbon
emissions while creating good-paying jobs in these globally-expanding
industries. Establishing a new set of tools to attract investors to
large-scale clean energy projects is something we need to do.”
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