I’m pleased to be here today. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I last met with you. At that time, I was new on the job. A lot has happened since I started at the Energy Department – record high gas prices, major energy legislation, record high gas prices, two major hurricanes in the Gulf, record high gas prices, new energy initiatives announced by the President, and record high gas prices. It’s safe to say I didn’t know what I was getting myself into!More later.
But in all seriousness, it has been an exciting and challenging time to be Energy Secretary. And one of the things I enjoy about the job is events like these, is they provide not only a chance for me to share my views with you, but also for me to hear what’s on your minds, representing, as you do, businesses and organizations from across this great nation.
I’ve been living and working in Washington for about five years now. And though this city certainly takes some getting used to, I feel like I’ve had enough time to form some opinions about how things work around here. In my view, there is much to love about this place. At the top of that list I would put the tremendous dedication, energy and enthusiasm of the Federal workforce.
I believe this is particularly true of our Federal science and engineering workforce. What you have – what your tax dollars support – is some of the very best scientists in the world, working extremely hard (for less money than they could make elsewhere) on some of our country’s most vexing problems. We need them today as much as ever to help us confront challenges related to our national security, to our health and well-being, and to our economic competitiveness.
No one understands this better than President Bush. Throughout his administration, the President has argued that in order to maintain this country’s economic preeminence in an increasingly competitive world, we simply must maintain our scientific and technological superiority. He also recognizes that doing so requires a substantial and sustained investment going forward. And so, in his State of the Union Address, President Bush unveiled two new programs that will help this nation maintain its economic and scientific edge.
First, the American Competitiveness Initiative proposes a major increase in federal funding for basic science research, particularly for the physical sciences. And I’m proud to say that the Department of Energy will play a central role.
Our Office of Science is now the largest source of federal funds for basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. But in order to ensure that we remain the world leader in this area, the President has committed to doubling the budget of this Office over the next ten years. This includes an increase of half a billion dollars in the budget request for next year. Among other things, this will allow us to bring on an additional 2,600 researchers in 2007.
The President has made it clear that he believes that advances in science and technology will, among other things, help this country break its reliance on imported energy sources and hydrocarbons. And so, in conjunction with the Competitiveness Initiative, the new Advanced Energy Initiative proposes to significantly increase our national investment in alternative fuel and clean energy technologies in order to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy.
As part of the Advanced Energy Initiative, the President has asked Congress to increase funding for clean energy technologies by 22% in the upcoming fiscal year. With these funds, we at the Energy Department will accelerate our research into technologies that we believe hold the greatest promise to transform the way we power our transportation sector, our homes and our businesses.
The focus here is on technologies that are close to making a splash but need a final push. Over the past decade or so, a tremendous amount of work has been done on possible new energy sources. The Advanced Energy Initiative essentially proposes to pick some winners. This may not be the usual role for government, but we must do it if we are to meet the energy demands of the future. Our goal is to identify the most promising technologies – the ones that could have the greatest impact on the marketplace in the relatively near future – and then really go after them.
The way I think about it, we are looking for technologies that will breakthrough in my lifetime – say in the next 20 years or so. That may seem like a long time. But considering how complicated the science is, how long it can take to bring a technology to market, and how large and complex the problem is, this is really a reasonable – even aggressive – time frame.
Among other things, the Advanced Energy Initiative will accelerate the development of solar photovoltaics, a technology that converts energy from the sun into electricity in a highly efficient manner; improve the efficiency and lower the costs of new wind-power technologies; produce better batteries for use in hybrid automobiles; and develop cheap, practical ethanol made from plant fiber, which some scientists suggest could make ethanol cost-competitive by 2012 and displace up to 30 percent of current fuel use.
All of these initiatives hold great potential for ultra-clean and secure energy options.
Let me also say this: if we are to succeed in significantly reducing our dependence on imported energy, we must expand our use of nuclear power in this country.
The President, as you know, has been a strong supporter of nuclear power as a vital part of the nation’s energy portfolio because of its ability to delivery emissions free power at a reasonable cost.
Any sound nuclear energy policy, however, must take into account the eventual need to replace these plants that already given us longer service than planned. It must also find a solution to the question of how to deal permanently with spent nuclear fuel and other waste.
I am pleased to tell you that today that the Department of Energy is sending to Congress new legislation that will speed the process of opening the Yucca Mountain repository and make it an even more valuable national asset once it is up and running.
The bill we are sending to Congress represents a serious effort on our part to remove a number of legal and regulatory barriers that we believe stand in the way of making timely progress toward completing and opening the Yucca Mountain repository.
I’m also making plans to visit Yucca Mountain very soon to see for myself the mountain and to thank the people at the site for their hard work and dedication.
While we are moving forward with Yucca Mountain we are also pursuing another of the President’s initiatives to make nuclear energy a growing part of our overall energy portfolio again.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, is an effort to develop technological solutions that will help us reduce the volume of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste that we will have to contend with in the future.
GNEP is aimed at developing new technologies for recycling spent nuclear fuel in a way that will increase the energy we extract from it and reduce the proliferation threat it can pose. We have been working on new ways of processing the spent fuel that do not create any separated plutonium. This new technology, called UREX, creates a fuel that we believe can be burned in new advanced reactors, generating energy and reducing the volume of waste that will ultimately require permanent disposal.
But as successful as the new recycling technologies may be—and we are very optimistic about them—the simple fact is this: Yucca Mountain is needed under any fuel cycle scenario. This Administration is committed to the success of the Yucca Mountain Project and we will not waiver from that position.
For our part, at the Department, we are working to build the safest, simplest repository we possibly can, based on sound science and quality work. But we will also need your help in winning support for this legislation that we believe will remove the constraints that have stood in the way of this vitally needed project. With your help, I know that we can clear these hurdles and make the Yucca Mountain repository a reality.
Thank you for having me.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy
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