Remarks Prepared for
Dr. Raymond L. Orbach
Under Secretary for Science
U.S. Department of Energy
Morehouse College Executive Leadership Series
April 8, 2008
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Thank you, President Franklin, for inviting me here this afternoon to speak on the 20th Anniversary of Morehouse College’s Frederick E. Mapp Science and Mathematics Symposium and Executive Leadership Series. During those two decades, Morehouse has heard from some of the smartest and most able CEO’s in the country, including Warren Buffett, Ted Turner and Debra Lee. I am honored to be in their company and to carry on the rich tradition here at Morehouse that explores some of the most challenging issues of our age.
If you think back over the past two decades, our country has undergone a remarkable transformation – from a society that was just beginning to hear about the Internet to a society where I would wager that everyone in this room has at least one electronic device on their person that can access the Internet. The way that IT has transformed our society is profound, and it happened in the short span of 20 years.
Unfortunately, some aspects of our society that would have been recognizable to the Baby Boomers of the 1980s are just as familiar to the Millennium Generation of 2008 that is represented by the current student body here at Morehouse College. The primary thing I think we would all agree upon is that we as a nation have not solved our energy challenge. We still import too much oil from overseas, we continue to have discussions about the relationship between energy use and the environmental consequences of that usage, and there is a growing recognition that the demand for energy is outstripping our ability to produce it in ways that are environmentally acceptable.
I am here today to discuss how I believe we can take advantage of the opportunities that lie before us for breakthroughs in basic science to make significant impacts in our efforts to meet our nation’s future needs for abundant and environmentally benign energy. If we are successful, 20 years from now, the guest lecturer who comes before you might have a different story to tell about our nation’s energy future.
I am also here to issue a challenge to students and faculty of Morehouse College. But, first, let me describe the challenge I believe we face and how I think we might be able to overcome it.
Everyone here understands the challenge—availability of sufficient environmentally friendly energy sources to meet the needs of a rapidly growing and developing world population. Not too many years ago, we seemed to be living in a world where energy was inexpensive, readily available, and seemingly limitless in supply. That world, if it every really existed, is now clearly a thing of the past. Today our dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil poses a growing risk to our economy, our national security, and the environment.
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This, of course, this is a global problem. Global energy consumption is set to double by the end of the century. Some say it will triple. And if we attempt to supply that energy with fossil fuels, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere will be enormous. We must find a way to meet the increasing demand for energy without adding catastrophically to greenhouse gases.
Today’s energy technologies and infrastructure are firmly rooted in 20th Century technologies, based on 19th Century discoveries. The invention of the internal combustion engine in the 1870’s has forever changed the kinds of energy that we use for transportation. The related technologies created the fuel mix that we use today, and the infrastructure that is in place right now. Our current technologies cannot meet the energy challenges we now face, and incremental changes in technology will not suffice. We need disruptive technologies that will come from transformational discoveries through basic science research.
The technologies of the 21st Century, and beyond, will be rooted in our ability to direct and control matter down to the molecular, atomic, and quantum levels. In turn, the ability to control the building blocks of the biological and non-biological materials that make up the world around us can create opportunities for a broad spectrum of critical technologies.
In 2002, the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences held the first in a series of 12 “Basic Research Needs” workshops that assessed basic research needs for energy technologies. These workshops brought together national and international scientific and technical experts from academia, industry, and government to identify the scientific roadblocks and determine priority basic research areas that, if pursued, would have the greatest potential for fundamental breakthroughs leading to revolutionary advances in energy technologies. The workshops focused on solar energy utilization, the hydrogen economy, superconductivity, solid state lighting, advanced energy systems, combustion of 21st century transportation fuels, geosciences, electrical energy storage, catalysis for energy applications, and materials under extreme environments.
They were completed over a period of five years. Out of the workshops came several recurring themes: new materials design, development, and fabrication, especially materials that perform well under extreme conditions; control of photon, electron, spin, phonon, and ion transport in materials; science at the nanoscale; designer catalysts; structure-function relationships; bio-materials and bio-interfaces; and so on.
Underlying all of these research themes were five Grand Science Challenges identified in a recent report by the DOE Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, titled Directing Matter and Energy for Science and the Imagination. These grand challenges speak to understanding how Nature works:
- Controlling materials processes at the level of quantum behavior of electrons
- Atom- and energy-efficient synthesis of new forms of matter with tailored properties
- Emergent properties from complex correlations of atomic and electronic constituents
- Man-made nanoscale objects with capabilities rivaling those of living things; and
- Controlling matter very far from equilibrium.
These five Grand Science Challenges cover opportunities that will directly affect energy availability. They all rely on understanding how Nature works at its most fundamental level. Only through basic research can we open up opportunities for breakthroughs in each of these crucial areas, and begin to bridge what is imaginable and what is now possible. Let me give you two examples from areas where we are poised to pursue transformational changes.
First, solar energy.
You have all probably heard this bit of trivia—that more energy from sunlight strikes the Earth in one hour than all of the energy consumed on the planet in a year. Yet, despite its abundance, sunlight today provides less that 0.1% of the world’s primary energy. We need to be able to take greater advantage of this abundant source of carbon-neutral energy. The three routes for using solar energy—conversion to electricity, fuels, or thermal heat—exploit the functional steps of capture, conversion, and storage. They also exploit many of the same electronic and molecular mechanisms. The challenge: reducing the costs and increasing the capacity of conversion of sunlight into electricity or fuels that can be stored or transported.
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Silicon-based single crystal solar cells have reached efficiencies of 18%. Triple-junction cells with Fresnel lens concentrator technology are approaching efficiencies of 40%. Imagine if we could develop solar photovoltaics that exceed thermodynamic efficiency limits. Imagine if we could borrow Nature’s design for capturing sunlight—photosynthesis—and directly convert it to chemical fuels.
The DOE Office of Science is pursing basic research in solar utilization to try to reach these goals: new concepts for capturing energy from sunlight without thermalization of carriers, such as multiple-exciton generation from a single photon. And “plastic” solar cells from molecular, polymeric, or nanoparticle-based structures that can provide flexible, inexpensive, conformal electricity systems. And understanding defect formation in photovoltaic materials and self-repair mechanisms in photosynthesis, for developing defect tolerance and active self-repair in solar energy conversion devices enabling extended device operation.
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We are delving into artificial photosynthesis. This includes the design and development of light-harvesting, photoconversion, and catalytic modules—bioinspired molecular assemblies—capable of self-ordering and self-assembling into integrated functional units that can lead to an efficient artificial photosynthetic system for solar fuels. The photosynthetic reaction center of plants are remarkably efficient, but we still have a lot to learn about their detailed reaction mechanisms. We are also just beginning to discover the number and variety of light-harvesting molecules in Nature.
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The second area where we believe that fundamental scientific breakthroughs can change the energy equation is biofuels. The development of biofuels—especially lignocellulose biofuels—represents a major scientific opportunity that can strengthen U.S. energy security while protecting the global environment. Imagine a sustainable, carbon-neutral biofuels economy capable of meeting over 30% of U.S. transportation fuel needs without competing with fuel, feed, and export demands.
The capability to tap into the energy contained in plant fiber or cellulose would give us the means to produce biofuels on a scale sufficient to create such a nationwide biofuels economy. Unfortunately, our current means of converting cellulose, or plant fiber, to fuel is not efficient, nor cost effective. It’s a tough problem. Plant fiber has evolved over the millennia to be extremely resistant to breakdown by biological or natural forces. The plant cell walls contain a substance called lignin, which is tightly woven with the cellulose—and gives it its incredible strength—“flexible concrete”. The enzymes currently available to us cannot easily penetrate to get at the cellulose and break it up into sugars or other metabolites that can be used to produce fuels, called recalcitrance.
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However, Nature has solved this problem. Termites, for example, are frighteningly efficient at converting cellulose and hemicellulose to fuel. They eat wood, at an alarming rate, and convert the interior cellulose into energy. Using a systems biology approach, and developing the understanding of the principles underlying the structure and functional design of living systems, the basic research supported by the DOE Office of Science is focused on developing the capabilities to model, predict, and engineer optimized enzymes, microorganisms, and plants for bioenergy and environmental applications. A series of workshops led by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research identified the basic research needs for such an approach.
The emerging tools of systems biology are being used to help overcome current obstacles to bioprocessing cellulosic feedstocks to ethanol and other biofuels—research tools such as metagenomics, synthetic biology, high-throughput screening, advanced imaging, and high-end computational modeling.
In 2007, we launched three new DOE Bioenergy Research Centers, funded at $25 million per year each for five years, to pursue these research directions. We believe that these Centers can crack Nature’s code for cost-effective biofuel conversion.
As you can imagine, the research that is needed to capture solar energy, develop cost-effective biofuels, and transform how we produce and use energy is at the furthest edge of our current scientific capabilities. These truly are multi-disciplinary, decadal challenges that will test our generation of scientists and engineers as no generation has been tested before.
Earlier today I met with some of you and I learned about some of the research programs here at Morehouse, Clark Atlanta and Spelman. We discussed various research projects, for example joint research between Professors Willie Rockword and J. Brooks Howard of Morehouse, Peter Chen of Spelman, and David Veazie of Clark Atlanta that potentially will be conducted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the area of Nanowire Light Emitting Diodes. This is an excellent example of the type of leading edge research that students and faculty at your three colleges could participate in that has great application in the home and in industry.
So my challenge to you is the following: I would like to invite all of you to join us in this exciting pursuit of science. In my view, you could have no greater calling, and make no greater impact on the lives of your future families and our nation, than by contributing your talents and skills to solve the scientific grand challenges that will help create a world where energy is cheap, plentiful and does not have environmental consequences.
This is a challenge that is high on the national agenda and one that President Bush has made a top priority for us as a country. I look forward to your joining this exciting research enterprise.
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Again, President Franklin – thank you for giving me this opportunity today. I would be delighted to answer any questions that you might have.
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