Speaker

Matthew Rogers Special Assistant to the Secretary Department of Energy

On Friday of CERAWeek 2010 IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin opened the session "Energy Innovation and the Fiscal Stimulus: A Conversation with Matthew Rogers, Senior Advisor to the Secretary, US Department of Energy" with comments about his guest and the Department of Energy's (DOE) Recovery Act, which was enacted in February. Dr. Yergin called the Act the "largest energy program in the world" and the DOE "the closest thing we have to a Ministry of Science," funding more scientific research than any other organization in the world. The Act has allocated $36.7 billion for new research on energy innovation.

Dr. Yergin asked Secretary Rogers how the stimulus program is working and what it aims to accomplish. Mr. Rogers replied that the Recovery Act focuses on near-term job creation through tax breaks and transfer payments and on laying the foundation for a clean energy future. The Act has unleashed a "river of ideas" from applicants, from which the DOE chooses 20 percent for funding. Competition among these 20 percent produces the most promising innovation.

This program presents an operations challenge, he said. Because it uses public money, the DOE is committed to accountability and transparency in its selection and oversight processes. It seeks top-notch reviewers from major US colleges, universities, and industrial societies to ensure the highest-quality decision-making process. Projects that might seem "crazy" to some are proved viable by the underlying math and could be recognized for their excellent potential by the right reviewer.

The DOE is also committed to reducing the timeline from appropriation to selection--so far from the traditional 24-30 months to 150 days currently--as part of an overall effort to "keep the flow moving" while maintaining very high standards on selection and oversight of projects. The DOE also maintains a closer partnership with industry than previously. "To grow the economy, we have to accelerate the rate of innovation in energy," he said.

In the transportation sector the DOE aims to aid deployment of the best competitive cars possible. The competition between biofuels, natural gas, hydrogen, batteries, and the internal combustion engine can push the transportation industry to a higher performance level and lead to solutions that incorporate a combination of fuels. The Obama Administration, he said, is committed to science as a core value, with the government and private sector playing complementary roles. It emphasizes winning today while laying the foundation for the future.

The DOE now operates at five times its previous pace, he said, and will continue to improve; and managerial tools and presidential oversight have been crucial. He added that all expectations about waste, fraud, and abuse arising from the Act have not come true owing to good oversight. He added that in a decade we will see a set of inflection points that show strong improvements in fuel efficiency, the smart grid, and in technologies that many assumed were static. The key is federal partnerships with companies, laboratories, and academic institutions. He concluded that "the combination of R&D and manufacturing" (innovation and deployment) "is the nexus of long-standing job creation."