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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Clean energy policy: Talk is good, adoption is better
By Bruce N. Anderson, Special to Mass High Tech
MHT's Galen Moore: Cambridge Innovation Center celebrates 10th anniversary
MHT's Galen Moore: Honoring innovation in New England
Following the Clean Energy Council Fellows
MIT built the world’s first solar house in 1939, followed by several more during the next 15 years. In 1962, Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” as a wakeup alarm to an unaware species. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day called the country to action. Heeding the call, in January 1973 I completed my master’s thesis at MIT on solar energy — nine months before the first oil embargo.
So you can imagine the range of my emotions this fall when I watched a president of the United States, exactly 70 years after MIT started it all, finally give a rousing clean energy speech there on campus.
At last! But not enough!
President Obama said that day, “Countries on every corner of this Earth now recognize that energy supplies are growing scarcer, energy demands are growing larger, and rising energy use imperils the planet we will leave to future generations. … Nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.”
Yes, gratefully, the president emphasized technological innovation as a key to our nation’s potential to win the horse race. Who can’t be inspired by these words: “It’s the legacy of daring men and women who put their talents and their efforts into the pursuit of discovery. And it’s the legacy of a nation that supported those intrepid few willing to take risks on an idea that might fail — but might also change the world.”
But daring, intrepid discovery and innovation are not enough. Far from it. Our nation built the first solar house, developed the first photovoltaic cells, deployed the first wind machines. So why does Germany have the most PV companies and China the remainder, with just a few in the U.S.? Why is it that only one in five wind machines made in this country?
Because innovation is not enough. It’s about adoption.
And our president’s speech mentioned not a word about that.
Success depends first on creating markets for the products being innovated. We can innovate all we want, but if policies aren’t in place to motivate people to switch from dirty to clean energy, it’s not going to happen, no matter how clever the products. That is the difference in Germany and China. Both have been emphasizing adoption — creating markets so that entrepreneurship (and innovation) will chase them.
In Massachusetts we pride ourselves on our innovation economy. Justifiably, we are proud of our legislation to adopt clean energy products, such as the Green Communities Act. But the fact is, it’s far from enough to get the job done. We are relying too much on our innovation heritage and abilities, and not enough on the need to create markets, to establish aggressive mechanisms for our citizens to adopt clean energy, not just here in Massachusetts but across all of New England. It is critical that we create a huge marketplace across the entire Northeast if we expect to have a thriving, globally leading, clean energy industry.
Germany understands this. As a result of an extremely favorable “feed-in tariff,” in which utilities guarantee for many years a favorable payment for solar power fed into the grid, “sunny Germany” (say what?) now does 5 billion euros per year in photovoltaics and employs 50,000 people just in that sector — and has 600,000 clean-energy jobs overall. Why? Because it implemented a feed-in tariff that required utilities to purchase PV power at a favorable rate. Simple.
So what do we in Massachusetts need to do to win? Well, we have a great start at the innovation thing. Now we must pull together a huge and aggressive Northeast-wide clean energy market, involving all six New England states plus, at a minimum, New Jersey and New York. Only then can we expect that clean energy future “made in Massachusetts” can be more than just a pipe dream.
Bruce N. Anderson is CEO of Wilson TurboPower and co-chair of the New England Clean Energy Council
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