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[I think the first thing we should talk about is something that you hear about]
[every day in this country, and that is the phrase "energy independence."]
[You can't open a newspaper, you can't turn on the TV without hearing that phrase]
[from politicians, energy companies, activist groups.]
[[Anne Thompson - NBC News Environmental Correspondent]]
[My question is, will we ever--can America truly be energy independent--]
[have a country that does not need to import foreign oil?]
[Dr. Moniz, I'd like to start with you.]
[The real issue is decreasing oil dependence.]
[If we decrease oil dependence, we maintain diversity of supply,]
[frankly, we accomplish the goals that we are trying to achieve most economically]
[because it's inconsistent to talk about free markets]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative]]
[and energy independence as long as we are oil dependent.]
[Mr. Immelt, do you see us ever being truly energy independent?]
[Or are we talking about energy security?]
[I don't think we'll be energy independent in our lifetime]
[as a technical matter [Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric]]
[just because of the transitions that have to take place]
[and the fact that hydrocarbons just dominate where we are today.]
[But I think what we have today is almost the worst of all worlds, Anne,]
[People have a lot of things to be afraid about today.]
[And people are afraid because they have lost control.]
[It's why the "drill, baby, drill" gets such resonance]
[because at least it's got the notion of doing something.]
[And so in a vacuum, the notion of doing something--anything--has great resonance,]
[even if economically it doesn't mean one gosh darned thing.]
[Take most builds, probably 20%--build out the grid fast,]
[launch a couple big best base load technologies, drive conservation.]
[If you had that, then people wouldn't be so consumed with energy independence]
[and things like that, which I think are just oblique and hard to do.]
[And right now we just have a vacuum, and that makes people horribly afraid.]
[If we have an energy policy--a national energy policy--]
[do we run the danger of endorsing a specific technology,]
[much in the way that we did with ethanol]
[in that ethanol in this country is produced by corn rather than sugarcane]
[or other things that could do it.]
[Are we going to get ourselves into a trap that way?]
[[Immelt] Don't pick solar, don't pick biofuels, don't pick wind--let freedom reign.]
[I don't think about--being president is too hard.]
[If I were king for one day--that's much easier, by the way--]
[you'd just build out the grid; you'd have some kind of eminent domain.]
[You'd build out the grid effectively, which you'd have to do.]
[I think what Ernie is smarter about than I am is, what's the future of nuclear]
[and coal with sequestration?]
[Right now for all the dialogue about nuclear,]
[basically this much is going on in this country right now in nuclear power.]
[So we're talking about it and all this other stuff,]
[but there's nothing happening. So we have to make something happen.]
[What I'd say, Anne, is really, I wouldn't specify, other than some broad boundaries,]
[and I think once you do that and put a price for carbon,]
[then the entrepreneurial, intellectual capital in this country ]
[will do things that we've never seen before.]
[And I think that's motivating and inspiring.]
[Do we need an Apollo type program to spur that kind of innovation]
[I think you absolutely need leadership to enunciate a national energy policy.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado]]
[There are people who are talking about a Manhattan type project and Apollo type project.]
[The problem with that is that you could get to a place where you're picking]
[winners and losers in technology.]
[We Western governors are actually trying to write ]
[a politically agnostic energy policy for the next president.]
[And one of the basic things is it's got to be a massive infusion of capital]
[for research and development that has to be technology neutral]
[because I think we don't know.]
[We don't know what the future is, so it's very much what Jeff was saying,]
[but we think there are great possibilities around carbon sequestration]
[and actually coal gasification.]
[Jeff's involved in a project in Wyoming that's really the first time above 5,000 feet]
[It could mean a big difference for the United States certainly.]
[It could mean very significant things for China.]
[China is consuming coal and really building out coal plants in a very significant way.]
[So I would just hate for us to think that an Apollo type project ]
[has to be only about coal or only about nuclear, quite frankly,]
[because I think we have to think about it in terms of the market allowing itself]
[to sort of regulate what we do going forward]
[and allow the infusion of research and development to incentivize us going forward]
[in a way that gives us a leadership place in the world.]
[Majora, from an inner city perspective, does it matter ]
[if the country has an energy policy or not?]
[Or are the problems completely different?]
[It's not just related to an inner city. [Majora Carter - Founder, Sustainable South Bronx]]
[It's more like how are we going to impact the folks that did the least ]
[to cause the problems that we are experiencing yet pay the biggest cost]
[with their lives, with their incomes and everything.]
[So in the absence of a decent energy policy, ]
[those are the folks that are going to pay the most.]
[And so what we want to do is really stop and think about]
[what are the ways--I absolutely think you folks are right,]
[that there's not going to be one cookie cutter approach; ]
[it's not going to be nuclear or da, da, da.]
[You've got to lay the groundwork for lots of things to flourish.]
[But I really do believe that one of the things we're seriously going to have to think about]
[is how do we build a national grid that is not owned by anybody except our government]
[that allows us to really take full advantage of the resources that this country has]
[in terms of what the energy economy could be.]
[It's not quite low-hanging fruit because it would require an enormous amount,]
[but it would, I think, create the kind of opportunities that would allow]
[the places where there are potential for different kinds of renewable energy]
[And that's not something that's really on the radar]
[other than the fact that we have to really pay serious attention]
[to the fact that why that's not being thought of right now.]
[And it's often because what comes between states]
[where there's great, great renewable energy potential]
[and where the actual markets are for all the energy]
[are often oil and coal states.]
[And so they don't want those kind of transmission lines to run through them.]
[And if that's the case, then we need the kind of leadership]
[that's going to say, "Look, we have got to start there]
[because that's going to be an enormously powerful thing to do,"]
[so that hopefully we won't have to go to the kind of things ]
[that we know are going to impact poor communities ]
[in a way that they will not affect people that have the funds to adapt easily to them.]
[How much would it cost to improve the grid,]
[to turn it into a smart grid?]
[[Moniz] Scale is probably a hundred billion dollars.]
[For example, today there is a line to be built between Norway and the Netherlands]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative]]
[to do exactly the issue of balancing out Netherlands' wind and Norway's hydro.]
[So these technologies can be implemented if we have the will.]
[[Ritter] One other thing about a smart grid,]
[in Colorado, Xcel Energy--is our major utility; ]
[it has 60% of the customers in all of Colorado--]
[they're putting in place a demonstration project]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] as the first fully integrated smart grid]
[So they will put basically a computer into everybody's home]
[and every business in Boulder, Colorado, and you will know where the source is]
[for the energy you're using, whether you're off peak, on peak.]
[If you have smart appliances, you can wire it into those appliances]
[to shut them down, bring them up.]
[You can find out the cost of the energy as you're using it,]
[what things you can do to reduce your cost as you're using it.]
[So I've got to think that there are people in this auditorium who will live that way.]
[[Carter] Okay. If we look at what this country spends--]
[the gross domestic product just for health care is 17% of our GDP--]
[[Majora Carter - Founder, Sustainable South Bronx]]
[how much of that is actually caused by environmentally related burdens]
[that are caused specifically by emissions from greenhouse gases,]
[if we add up the public health expense, poverty that we have to pay for]
[in one way or another, that kind of cost looks like chump change]
[when it comes to what we could actually be saving.]
[So the kind of leadership that's going to look at that number]
[not as an impediment but as an investment in our future]
[is the kind of leader that we're going to need and that we should demand.]
[[Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric] If you want to have 20% renewable energy]
[in this country, which I personally would start with that--]
[I think that ought to be pillar number one--]
[you can't do that without building new transmission lines.]
[And people don't want those in their backyard.]
[You've got dozens of state public utility commissions,]
[you've got governors that don't want it,]
[and that's where the next president has got to stand up and say,]
["Hey, we're going. Here's what we're going to do."]
["This is aspirationally what we need to have happen."]
[And that's where the leadership has to come.]
[The second point I'd make on cost is all my colleagues say,]
["Keep your mouth shut about global warming."]
["If we do all this stuff, everybody is going to pay more. Just be quiet about it."]
[And guess what? We're already paying more. Has anybody checked recently?]
[In other words, the cost of inaction is what we feel every day.]
[The notion that we're going to pay more is already a state of fact.]
[So now the question is, how do you get control of our destiny?]
[That's what the opportunity is.]
[If we had a truly national grid, would that help solve some of the basic problems]
[with renewable energy, because there's no ability to store solar and to store wind power]
[and turn them into base load energy as they exist today. Correct?]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] If you map the wind in Wyoming, Colorado,]
[and New Mexico, you actually get very near base load ]
[if you put them all on the same transmission.]
[And so we're looking at what we call a high plains transmission authority,]
[base load meaning you can get it 24/7. >>[Thompson] Right. On demand.]
[[Ritter] So that's the deal. If you're just doing a little bit of wind,]
[one wind farm in one place, you don't get base load.]
[But if you put all of that on a single transmission line, ]
[you get kind of close to base load.]
[So we have to think about how the grid can help us use renewables to get to a place]
[where you have either close to base load,]
[and then if you have backup of natural gas--it's a cleaner hydrocarbon--]
[you're certainly in a much better position than we are today with 1% of solar]
[and 2% wind provided for the national energy picture.]
[[Moniz] I would just add again this point I made earlier about the regionality ]
[of energy in the United States.]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative] Very crudely, Northwest--hydro,]
[Southwest--sun, Middle--wind, Southeast--bio,]
[parts of the Midwest and Northeast--coal and big sequestration opportunities.]
[So in fact, if we learn how to have those in sync ]
[and a grid that connects them is essential, we could in fact go a long, long way.]
[On storage on solar there is--very impressive--a lot of things happening.]
[In particular, we tend to think about photovoltaics, ]
[but there's a lot of progress in solar thermal systems]
[and particularly in incorporating longer term storage into them]
[that can in fact level the supply.]
[If you want to lead an entity as big as the United States,]
[you need an energy policy that has no caveats.]
[It says, "We're going to do 20% renewable energy."]
["We're going to build out a national grid."]
[It's not like, "We're going to build out a national grid except if these seven things happen."]
[So you have to have great unbelievable clarity--]
[one, two, three, four, five, no caveats.]
[I just think that's what's really critical.]
[And let the rest of us--let the CEOs, let the other people figure out where they fit.]
[I have to say through the efforts we've had I've gotten to know a lot of NGOs.]
[I spent the first 20 years of my career avoiding NGOs at all costs.]
[I just thought there was nothing good that would ever happen.]
[We're not so bad. >>[Immelt] But Majora, I think if you're going to solve something]
[this big, we've got to work together.]
[I lead a big company. I know how to lead.]
[I'm looking for somebody to actually lead me.]
[Give me one, two, three, four, five, let me figure it out.]
[I can invest risk capital, I can do all the things on my own.]
[What we have today is--we say we don't have an energy policy.]
[In the last three years, 49 coal plants have been canceled.]
[Guess what? That's an energy policy.]
[But we have the worst of all worlds right now because we have no policy]
[yet we have a subterranean policy that happens behind the scenes.]
[[Thompson] And speaking of coal,]
[a phrase that we hear a lot on the campaign trail this year]
[is the phrase, "clean coal."]
[Ernie--is there anything--does clean coal exist today?]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative] To the extent of remarkable cleanup]
[in new plants for conventional pollutants.]
[Now, of course, the word "clean coal" has now been appropriated]
[to also include carbon dioxide.]
[Clearly we know how to capture carbon dioxide--]
[conventional coal plants or in one of Jeff's new gasification plants--]
[but we have no structure, no legal basis, no regulatory structure,]
[no demonstration of actually managing the carbon dioxide after you've captured it.]
[So we need to do two things.]
[We need to get new technology to lower the cost of carbon capture--it's expensive.]
[Secondly--and for this there is no, in my view, credible excuse]
[for not having moved in this country on serious, large-scale appropriate demonstrations]
[[Thompson] But haven't we seen in this country exactly what we're talking about]
[when it comes to cost as being an impediment,]
[because the government pulled out of the FutureGen plant]
[because it went from a billion dollars to $1.8 billion?]
[To do something, you actually have to do something. [laughter]]
[In other words, coal gasification is 25-year-old technology--25-year-old technology.]
[China is moving at warp speed.]
[Most of this technology is going to be developed in China.]
[Most of the science is going to be developed in China.]
[We're doing a plant in Indiana and we're doing one in Wyoming.]
[But other than that, we're just not doing anything about it.]
[That's okay if that's what our policy is.]
[But if we actually think we have a policy on clean coal,]
[we're not actually executing on it, right?]
[[Moniz] We're going through motions, making believe we're doing it.]
[[Immelt] But the Chinese are moving.]
[So I think that's good because we'll take cost down,]
[and maybe there will be things we learn in China that we can bring back over here.]
[That's okay too, Anne, but I'm fuel agnostic fundamentally.]
[We try to be ready no matter where the world goes.]
[But we just aren't doing anything about any of this stuff.]
[[Thompson] Let's take a look at what our audience today--what they think]
[about some of the issues that we've been talking about.]
[The first is, "Is it feasible for the United States to become independent of foreign oil?"]
[And here's what the results say:]
[They say we're not optimistic.]
[Thirty-nine percent of you think we could become independent of foreign oil in 25 years.]
[Twenty-seven percent say it's 10 years. ]
[Twenty-four percent of you think it's not possible at all.]
["What's the best way to convince Americans to reduce their energy consumption?"]
[Here are your options: Taxes, free market, education, none of the above, all of the above.]
[Twenty-four percent of you said all of the above.]
[Twenty-two percent of you thought taxes are a good idea.]
[Free market 20%, education 19%, and none of the above got 14%.]
[One of the things that strikes me when I hear the conversations]
[about how we go forward in this country,]
[nobody talks about conservation.]
[It seems to be a dirty word in this country. [applause]]
[And so my question to you is, how do you sell the idea of conservation]
[to a society that has always believed bigger is better]
[and, "Don't you tell me what to do." Majora?]
[[Majora Carter - Founder, Sustainable South Bronx] Just helping people understand]
[their self-interest tied up to it, not only in a decreased energy bill]
[but also just think about buildings, especially in urban areas.]
[We lose about 50% to 80% of the energy]
[simply because of our inefficiently designed buildings.]
[Those buildings are not going to become efficient suddenly overnight.]
[A little green fairy is not going to come down and make it better. [laughter]]
[People are going to have to do some of that work.]
[Part of the new green energy economy is helping to make people a part of that.]
[A green job is any job that has a net benefit to the environment.]
[And these things are not going to happen without people doing it.]
[We're experiencing a huge economic boom allegedly--well, not after last week. [laughter]]
[But people are getting poorer.]
[The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, even when it was supposedly great.]
[And so getting people involved on that level, like helping to make them a great part]
[of the environmental change that we need to see,]
[those jobs are there in conservation.]
[We do have to create the mechanisms to make sure that they can exist,]
[but they're there, and we've got to help people understand]
[that they are a part of the solution.]
[And when they start to feel that way, inspiring, amazing things happen.]
[We have not been given real opportunities lately to be the America that I know we can be.]
["Americans aren't going to do this, they won't sacrifice, blah, blah, blah."]
[That's just nonsense. It really, really is.]
[People want to feel a part of something bigger, and this is an easy way]
[to get them to feel that that is what we can lead America and the rest of the world with]
[once again in a powerful way.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] We have in Colorado a scarcity of water.]
[We say out there, "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting," because it's scarce.]
[We went through a drought period.]
[The biggest water user for residential use in Colorado is called the Denver Water Board.]
[They said to their customers, "We have to conserve."]
["We're going to put in conservation principles."]
["Nobody is going to jail for not doing it."]
[They put in conservation principles that reduced water usage by 20%.]
[And then the rains returned, they lifted the drought restrictions for watering,]
[and usage stayed down because people found out they didn't need that other 20%.]
[They could go without maybe the greenest lawn ]
[or pay attention to the amount of time they had for showers or baths or things like that.]
[But they reduced 20%. They cut out a fifth of their water usage.]
[And they believe we can do that going forward and keep it that way]
[The same is really true. You have to think of it in terms of scarcity]
[or a commodity where we are utilizing it and it has an impact.]
[I really do think it is partly leadership, partly our need to educate ]
[and to talk about the implication of treating electrical usage]
[as something that has a scarcity and has a consequence if we don't monitor it.]
[But I think, like Majora does, if we really did that, ]
[we could make a case to the people of this country that we have an impact,]
[that we can bring that down, and we can keep it down ]
[if we really have the right kind of leadership in place.]
[We went on this trip to the Arctic.]
[I came back, and my sleep patterns were disturbed.]
[I woke up at 2:00 in the morning, and my wife said, "What's wrong?"]
[And I said, "My children are not thinking about climate change right now."]
["They're out clubbing." [laughter]]
[Did you hear Jeff say go to the National Academy of Sciences and look at the report?]
[Look at the report on climate change.]
[I sat down with each of my kids and said, "This is your problem and it's my problem,]
[but you're going to be the one paying the bill if I don't act now,]
[and you need to understand you're a part of the solution as well."]
[And that's what I think it is is that we all agree we're part of the solution]
[and then we tackle it that way as a society.]
[How do you get people to use less without a crisis?]
[[Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric] If oil was $20 a barrel,]
[I think the auditorium might be half full right now and people might be sleeping.]
[This has caught everybody's attention.]
[I think what's good for people that are advocates of global warming]
[is that there's a natural 90% overlap between fuel efficiency]
[and reduction of global warming.]
[So now is the time to strike. If you believe in global warming, now is the time to go.]
[Our aircraft engines have better fuel burn than the competition,]
[our gas turbines have better fuel burn than the competition,]
[our locomotives have better gas burn than the competition.]
[We philosophically design all our products to help conservation, and we are sold out.]
[We are a net exporter. It creates great American jobs.]
[And so I think this focus on using technology to drive fuel efficiency,]
[therefore conservation, is what it's all about.]
[The automotive industry fought CAFE for 25 years in this country.]
[From the early '80s until today, fuel efficiency standards were fought tooth and nail,]
[and we never philosophically fight that stuff.]
[We think high standards are good standards because they make us more competitive.]
[[Majora Carter - Founder, Sustainable South Bronx] It's not like this is the first time]
[America's gone through a crisis, guys.]
[We've been able to accomplish amazing, great things.]
[And I think we need to call upon all the resources that we have,]
[in particular the American people, and expect them to rise to the challenge]
[and also to the occasion of how do we lead again.]
[We're not expecting that of each other, and I think that that's really unbelievably sad,]
[especially when people want to be a part of something bigger. ]
[I'm sorry. I just had to say that. [applause]]
[[Thompson] And yet if I talk to Mike Jackson, who is the CEO of AutoNation,]
[he says, "You tell me the price of gas, and I'll tell you the kind of cars we can sell."]
[When gas was $1.50 a gallon, that's why we have all the SUVs in this country.]
[People bought Hummers. Who needs a Hummer? I mean, think about it, really.]
[People didn't want to buy small, fuel efficient cars]
[until gas got to $4.00 a gallon.]
[So why is it that we have to wait until there's a crisis? Why aren't we more proactive?]
[And how do we convince ourselves to be more proactive without always waiting for a crisis?]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative] Part of it goes back to ]
[the leadership issue, and it could start with the next president, but it's also with Congress.]
[The fact is, it is not generally recognized that the efficiency ]
[of our internal combustion engines for autos has continuously improved.]
[We've had an enormous improvement in efficiency over the last 20 years.]
[We have not had an improvement in the utilization of fuel]
[because we did not have the standards in which the standards ]
[kept up with the technology.]
[So instead, all those efficiency gains were traded away for higher performance--]
[575 horsepower--with a more efficient engine than fuel economy.]
[So we need to basically decide what are the public goods,]
[not be crazy about it but fundamentally put them into things like efficiency standards]
[that keep up with technology, and it would have an enormous impact.]
[[Immelt] Technology is a good thing,]
[and you can make your own choices about how fast you implement it.]
[But if you implement it fast, that's the future.]
[[Ritter] I'll give you Jimmy Carter's answer--President Jimmy Carter.]
[In 1979 he had the country headed to a fuel efficiency standard of 27.5 miles]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] by the end of his second term.]
[What he would say is that President Reagan in his first year]
[wiped out what he had as the fuel efficiency goals.]
[So in 1981 they were wiped out, and we didn't move as a country.]
[And part of it was the cheap price of fuel, ]
[and part of it was just a different sort of ideology or a different philosophy]
[between Carter and Reagan about the kinds of market controls]
[you could put in place to get you to the place you thought you needed to go.]
[And we lacked for the last 25 years a vision in this country]
[about where we were going to wind up tomorrow.]
[Like this year we just didn't have it.]
[Other countries did a little better in automobiles, right?]
[Japan probably did a much better job in thinking about this than we did,]
[and it's why the Toyota Prius is such a popular car.]
[And you can turn in an SUV in Colorado and get a Prius,]
[but you get nothing for the SUV because the automakers were not inspired]
[by a government policy to think that way.]
[I'm a person who thinks--Jeff and I have talked a little bit about this before--]
[government policy can be a catalyst, but you need a vision about where you're going.]
[And the problem is that we lost ground in the last two and a half decades]
[over some really serious issues that we're facing now]
[and people just didn't believe were imminent or were coming to us.]
[[Thompson] But in selling your vision, you call your economy the new energy economy.]
[You don't call it a green economy. Why?]
[In Colorado there's a specific reason because there was a pejorative context to "green."]
[If you were an environmentalist, there are a lot of people on the political spectrum]
[that were centrists, and they thought of you as a tree hugger.]
[And so this is about opportunity.]
[And really, we get to the same place.]
[We have really environmentally friendly policies,]
[but it's about building an economy and creating jobs.]
[We're taking and building wind farms in agricultural areas that have been distressed.]
[Farmers are getting $5,000 a turbine to put this on their land,]
[and so it's this great income for them, and we don't need to fight the fight]
[about whether or not it's going to be an environmental mandate.]
[It's going to be about opportunity, and we've been able to do that]
[and do that without fighting some of the old 1980s wars.]
[[Thompson] We have three more panelists who are going to join us,]
[and two of them come to us from the university right here.]
[The first is Frank Incropera, who is the former dean of Notre Dame's]
[College of Engineering. Frank, if you would come up. [applause]]
[And he is followed by Lourdes Long. She is a senior here at Notre Dame,]
[and she is head of Green ND. [applause]]
[And finally, we have Sister Anne Veronica Horner Hoe, who is a Holy Cross sister.]
[And she gets the award for coming from the farthest away.]
[She comes to us from Sao Paulo, Brazil. [applause]]
[Frank, I know you want to talk more about nuclear energy ]
[and its role as we move forward.]
[I'd like to throw out two things, [Frank P. Incropera - Faculty, Notre Dame]]
[one having to do with nuclear energy and the other having to do with coal.]
[I don't think we can get to where we want to be in the year 2050]
[without extensive use of both of those fuels.]
[In the case of nuclear energy, if we hope to make substantive contributions]
[to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions,]
[I think we have to use nuclear energy more than we're using it now.]
[But of course, there's the issue of wastes, and related to that issue]
[there are some aspects that I'd like your thoughts on.]
[Should this nation consider fuel reprocessing]
[and going back to a closed fuel cycle?]
[What do we do about storing the waste?]
[Do we continue to do it on site,]
[or do we rely or ask for some leadership at the national level]
[to make sure that we have a central repository]
[where we can store many of these wastes?]
[And then there's the issue of proliferation.]
[But before you address that issue, I'd like to talk about coal.]
[To me, it's not a matter of whether the United States, China, and India]
[They're enormous, they're relatively inexpensive.]
[To me the issue is how they're used.]
[And I'd like to contrast what's happening in Washington today]
[with what will happen in Europe next week.]
[Next week I believe the European Commission will approve two articles]
[that will allocate about 10 billion euros to the development]
[of between 9 and 11 scaled demonstration facilities for capturing and sequestering]
[One of those facilities will also be the world's first]
[ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant intended to get to efficiency of 50%.]
[They're going to move forward with this. They're going to develop the technology.]
[Their companies will create value added jobs to ultimately deploy that technology globally.]
[In Congress right now, we're still jockeying with a plethora of climate change bills,]
[most of which emphasize cap and trade policies.]
[And my fear is that there will be cost containment measures in these bills,]
[and what I see is something like $10 per ton of carbon dioxide]
[when I think Ernie will tell us that it's going to take at least $60 per ton of carbon dioxide]
[to capture and sequester the carbon.]
[So I see coming out of Congress a measure that will have no contribution]
[whatsoever, no incentives to really deploy these kinds of technologies.]
[And from my point of view, coal will then be used in not the way it should be used]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative] Starting with the nuclear question]
[and the reprocessing, there's a lot of buzz today about resuming reprocessing.]
[To do so with existing technology would be purely foolish.]
[Indeed the current technology--a plutonium technology--]
[has actually essentially no significant impact on improving waste management.]
[However, there are certainly concepts for new technology with closed fuel cycles]
[that could very well dramatically improve waste management,]
[and these need to be pursued aggressively.]
[Unfortunately, they are not being pursued in any reasonable way either.]
[What we should be doing on a technical basis is engineering,]
[let's call it century long managed storage, as part of any future--]
[It also gives us the time to look for those new technologies,]
[and 50-75 years from now we can decide what is the right pathway.]
[That's a long discussion, Frank, we can have later.]
[On coal, first of all I would corroborate that I do say $60 is kind of a number]
[for what it would take to levelize, right now, a new coal plant with capture]
[as opposed to just building an old plant and paying the tax.]
[The reality is if we have a new cap and trade system with a cap on cost--]
[you're absolutely right--it may not provide a strong technology-changing signal,]
[but it will give a signal, and I think it will have beneficial effects.]
[But, the reality is we'll have to layer on top of it a whole bunch of additional policies--]
[renewable portfolio standards.]
[In principle we don't even want that, in the sense that if we had a real cap on carbon,]
[that would just be the economic outcome.]
[Let's face it, it's a messy system--politics--and we're going to have]
[multiple kinds of regulations and costs, and we just hope we can muddle through]
[[Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric] If you believe in things like electric vehicles,]
[the demand that electric vehicles would place on the system,]
[you can't get there without really big investments in nuclear and coal.]
[And I would break them down in two ways and maybe be very pragmatic about it.]
[We're never going to get clean energy legislation]
[that includes some price for carbon without a future for coal.]
[The coal states won't allow it. They're very powerful in this country.]
[And so if you want to see something really happen, ]
[we better find a future for coal or else it just won't happen.]
[So I think coal has its own resonance because of where we are.]
[Again, if you just studied data, right, if you just looked at this purely logically, ]
[nuclear power has probably been the most effective fuel source in this country.]
[There's a 2003 study by MIT--I would urge everybody to read it--on nuclear power.]
[It's kind of the definitive bible. Ernie was one of the guys that did it.]
[It's very clear intellectually, but emotionally the will doesn't exist.]
[The government is going to have to put $100 billion into nuclear and clean coal]
[to get it really launched in this country.]
[A utility in the US might have a $30 billion market cap,]
[one nuclear project $6 billion.]
[No CEO in his or her right mind would ever make that step ]
[without some kind of government guarantee.]
[So I think that's where we are. We're stuck right now.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] This issue of storage, ]
[France, I think, has some 80% of their power from nuclear.]
[And so as governor, I asked the question, "Where does France store their spent rods?"]
[And they store them right on site. >>[Immelt] They reprocess.]
[They're very good. They've probably advanced that reasonably far.]
[The French system, if they just stay where they are now technically,]
[they have gained nothing real about nuclear waste management.]
[For example, the statement is made that by putting this stuff into glass]
[the volume has been reduced by an order of magnitude.]
[The only merit in that statement is that it's true.]
[It's, however, irrelevant [laughter]]
[because the issue isn't volume, it's heat and radioactivity.]
[And that hasn't changed at all.]
[[Ritter] But they still have this waste storage issue.]
[The ambassador from Slovenia came to see me.]
[They have a nuclear plant. They went to Russia to say, "Can we store in Russia?"]
["Can we store in Siberia?" The Russians said no.]
[We have Yucca Mountain. It's in Nevada.]
[It is intended as a waste storage site for nuclear.]
[It has no spent rod stored in it--in Yucca Mountain--]
[because Nevada resists that.]
[And so there is some resistance in this country, state to state to state,]
[about building out nuclear without figuring out the storage question,]
[and it becomes this really important political question.]
[[Immelt] We need leadership though, Bill. I think the next president has to say]
[The next president is going to have to be the project manager ]
[of the first nuclear power plant. >>[Ritter] I really believe that.]
[[Immelt] And there can't be caveats.]
[If you stand up--if you watch the debates and one of the candidates stands up and says,]
["Look, I'm for nuclear power, except these 17 things have to happen,"]
[he's not for nuclear power. >>[Ritter] Right.]
[[Immelt] That's code for, "I don't want to do it."]
[Not one, "Except this," or two, "If we do that."]
[That's how clear we have to be or else we're not going to do it.]
[[Ritter] I think that I really agree about nuclear. It has to be like that.]
[[Immelt] You would have to manage it as a governor]
[or when you become Secretary of Energy or something like that. [applause]]
[[Thompson] Lourdes? >>[Long] Governor Ritter, you briefly mentioned natural gas.]
[[Lourdes Long - Student, Notre Dame] We've seen a massive expansion]
[of our natural gas capacity and electric power sector,]
[mostly due to environmental standards but also due to incremental demand.]
[In the absence of CCS with coal or significant renewable development,]
[will we see continued build of natural gas?]
[What will that mean for our energy security?]
[For Colorado, I'll just give you an example about the build out of natural gas.]
[Ten years ago we had a thousand new wells permitted--in 1999.]
[This year we'll permit something over 7,000 wells.]
[So an increase--that's oil and gas--but largely the increase is natural gas.]
[I call it a transition fuel,]
[to a place where--if we're going to get to a place of reducing greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050--]
[that's the goal a lot of people talk about--natural gas can play a role in that]
[because we have abundant resources and, quite frankly, ]
[it's a cleaner burning hydrocarbon.]
[If you look at California's new clean energy mandate,]
[natural gas fits within that new clean energy mandate.]
[So those of us with natural gas resources look at California]
[as a place where we may someday export.]
[And so it is a fuel that will play a role because it is cleaner--it's a cleaner hydrocarbon.]
[But I think if you get past 2050 and you're looking at reducing by 80% percent,]
[I think there will be a technology by that time that could replace natural gas altogether.]
[There are a lot of new, unconventional natural gas resources--]
[[Frank P. Incropera - Faculty, Notre Dame] shale gas--and so the buzz in Congress today]
[is, "Let's develop these resources."]
[So what you do is expand the infrastructure.]
[Jeff sells a lot more combined cycle systems--that's great for GE--]
[but you build up demand, you build up the infrastructure,]
[and you come to a point where domestic supplies can't meet demand,]
[and maybe in 10 or 15 years you're in the same position with natural gas]
[that you are with oil today--relying extensively on LNG imports.]
[So I would be a little more cautious in how we move down that path.]
[[Thompson] Ernie, one question I have about natural gas is that, ]
[like many other energy sources, you have to use a lot of another natural resource]
[[Anne Thompson - NBC News Environmental Correspondent]]
[to get the natural gas that's in the shales underneath this country.]
[I mean, when they're digging natural gas wells in Pennsylvania]
[to get the natural gas that's in the Marcellus Shale,]
[it takes a million gallons of water to go in and drill down and then drill across]
[and use the water to bring that out.]
[So in a state like Colorado where you don't have a lot of water]
[or even in a state like New York or Pennsylvania ]
[where you are blessed with a lot of water, you're still using this resource,]
[and not just using the resource, but you're mixing it with sand ]
[and some chemicals that are toxic.]
[So it has problems of its own, doesn't it?]
[[Immelt] I think, Anne, we're not smart enough as we sit here today]
[[Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric] to pick the right one.]
[All that's happening today in this country are gas and wind.]
[In other words, the only thing new utility COs are putting in today is gas and wind,]
[which is going to drive exactly the problems Frank talked about.]
[Natural gas prices are going to go up, steel prices on wind terminals has gone up,]
[so we've kind of de facto gone to two technologies,]
[where I think we ought to be going after 12 technologies plus conservation,]
[plus price for carbon, things like that.]
[[Sister Anne Veronica Horner Hoe, C.S.C. - Sisters of the Holy Cross]]
[Yes. We have been talking about China and India.]
[Even though I was born in Shanghai, I would like to ask a question]
[from the Brazilian perspective.]
[Brazil has developed a clean and renewable transportation fuel--ethanol,]
[which is made from sugarcane--and substituted it for petroleum.]
[Relative to corn-based ethanol, it requires far less energy to produce,]
[is much less expensive to produce, and reduces life cycle greenhouse gas emission]
[In light of these advantages of sugarcane-based ethanol,]
[should the US remove its barriers to importing Brazilian ethanol?]
[[Thompson] And for those of you who may not know,]
[there is a $0.54 a gallon tariff on imported ethanol in this country.]
[[Immelt] Sister, you're obviously not running for president [laughter]]
[in the United States, or else...]
[[Carter] I love it. The farm lobby would really put a big bull's-eye on that head.]
[But that's really the case right now.]
[Developing opportunities for trade when it's actually something that could be helpful]
[to us would be an enormously brilliant thing for us as a country to do,]
[considering now we know that ethanol from corn costs way more]
[in terms of the energy that it costs to produce it than you're ever going to reap back,]
[not to mention the fact that we're spending so much on corn subsidies in particular,]
[and it's also fueling our obesity epidemic as well, by the way.]
[So we're not really getting too much out of that, are we?]
[So it's really interesting, I think the idea of trade is something that we need to bring up]
[in terms of the global context,]
[like what would make the best use of all of our resources,]
[One of the things that I did when I visited Brazil this year]
[is actually took a plane out on the Amazon to actually see one of these factories at work.]
[And it was brilliantly done, brilliantly conceived, very economical.]
[Again, if logic prevailed, we should be importing sugar from Brazil]
[or importing ethanol from Brazil.]
[We shouldn't be doing corn-based ethanol.]
[It would be more economical, and they've done a great job with it,]
[and we can learn a lot from how they've done it.]
[[Moniz] Without getting into a long discussion,]
[I think with both your question, Sister Anne, and Anne's last question about water,]
[there are enormous systems issues that we have not come to grips with.]
[So if I extrapolate to a world that tries to displace a large fraction of its fuel]
[by biofuels, be it Brazilian ethanol or other--preferably cellulosic in the future--]
[still we have not confronted, as I mentioned briefly, the energy, food, water,]
[These are hard problems. We do not know how we scale them up.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] The interesting thing about corn ethanol--]
[and I'll just speak from the perspective of Colorado--]
[it at least got Coloradans to a place where they were thinking differently]
[about how to power vehicles, right?]
[And corn ethanol, I think, has a lot of downsides to it.]
[You mentioned some of them just based upon the kind of fuel economy that's involved.]
[particularly in the United States.]
[So there's a reason to back off of that.]
[There's a reason to look for a different technology.]
[In Colorado right now, we're researching and have pretty advanced research]
[on the use of algae as a biofuel in our collaboratory]
[as part of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.]
[Will it be cellulosic? Will it be algae? I don't know.]
[But we needed to get to a place where we changed people's thinking about it.]
[And corn ethanol played that role.]
[Now we need to look at this and say, "Hey, this has a negative effect ]
[on inflationary pressures, on world food prices. Where do we go to next?"]
[Research and development has to be the driver.]
[That's part of it, and we have to be nimble about our policy]
[so that some lobby--the corn lobby--can't insist we stay with corn ethanol]
[even when we know it has these other negative downsides]
[once it's done its job in transitioning the way we think.]
[I have two questions that I want to end with.]
[[Anne Thompson - NBC News Environmental Correspondent] First is,]
[we live in a country that has less than 5% of the world's population.]
[We use almost a quarter of the world's energy.]
[Is there a moral standard of how much energy use is appropriate,]
[especially when there are more than a billion people around this world]
[that don't have access to energy as we enjoy in this country? Majora?]
[[Majora Carter - Founder, Sustainable South Bronx] Wow. That's the big thought question.]
[I think folks have said it in different ways on the panel earlier.]
[But the assumption is that things are going to have to stay exactly the same,]
[that the amount that we consume is going to stay the same,]
[how we consume it is going to stay the same, and that's just not true.]
[You've got technology, you've got innovation,]
[you've got some of the best minds in this world thinking about that.]
[I truly believe that research and development]
[is going to be an enormous push in that direction,]
[but it's also going to come back to people who really believe ]
[that there is something that we can each contribute to the betterment of this world.]
[We just have to start believing that that is our responsibility]
[and it's not a sacrifice to do it; it's actually a gift to give out to the rest of the world.]
[[Thompson] Governor Ritter, do you see energy use in a moral perspective?]
[You were a missionary in Africa. You saw how tough it was.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] Having no sense about your carbon footprint]
[has a moral dimension to it because of what I believe about climate change]
[and the peril of us not acting.]
[I don't know how many people here have an iPod at home right now plugged in.]
[It's fully charged but it's plugged in. ]
[How many people have a computer that they walked away from?]
[It gets turned on, they didn't turn it off, they just walked away from it and came here.]
[They thought they had to get here quickly and so they didn't turn it off or unplug it.]
[It's phones, it's iPods, it's BlackBerrys, it's all this technology we have,]
[quite frankly, that is creating a great demand on the system]
[That's just a little starting place.]
[But it would make a difference for all of us to begin thinking that way.]
[I hope my children follow me around and turn out lights that I leave on]
[instead of me doing it for them.]
[That's what I think, is that you begin to be very sensitive]
[and have an attitude of little things, and that will ultimately, I think, cause us]
[to have a culture that thinks differently about it.]
[And yes, it has a moral dimension because of the carbon footprint.]
[[Jeff Immelt - CEO, General Electric] The question is, is our standard of living]
[going to go down? That's the question.]
[And that, I think, is built up in the intelligence and the innovation]
[and the will that we have to be an active participant ]
[in taking our own carbon footprint down, finding technologies that we export]
[to China and India and the rest of the world.]
[But look, there's a car you can buy in India that you can buy for two thousand bucks.]
[There's going to be 500 million new drivers.]
[So I think, Anne, this is less a question about how good we're going to be]
[in our beneficence to the world and whether we have the will to fight]
[for our standard of living, and we better get off our butt and do it.]
[[applause] [Thompson] Ernie?]
[[Ernest Moniz - Director, MIT Energy Initiative] I would make two comments.]
[One is that I would not assign a moral standard to energy use.]
[I would assign it to things like carbon emissions.]
[But if we can get zero carbon or whatever other collateral issues there are]
[that diminish the public good, then that is a moral issue.]
[Secondly, when we come to the issue of China, India,]
[hopefully Africa, other developing parts of the world,]
[the real trick is not only do we have a challenge of developing these ]
[alternative technologies, but we have got to make them, on their own,]
[economically competitive if they are going to be adopted in those countries.]
[Frankly, as Europe has demonstrated and we may demonstrate soon,]
[and they have the aspirations that Jeff just referred to.]
[So that to me is a real moral imperative on the technology side.]
[It's not just getting super-duper nice gizmos.]
[It is getting them to be competitive.]
[[Immelt] I'm sorry, the reason why oil is $100 a barrel today]
[has nothing to do with the United States--nothing--zero.]
[The incremental consumer today is in China.]
[But we're the biggest consumers of oil. How can it not have anything to do with us?]
[The journey from $25 to $150--if you just plot the US consumption on that--]
[But if you plot this unbelievable exponential growth that's going on in the emerging world,]
[that really is $80 of the price.]
[You ask a great question, and you make a great point.]
[I'm not trying to denigrate the point, but just to say the emerging world is a technical reality.]
[This is going to happen one way or the other.]
[The question is, does it reduce our standard of living?]
[[Frank P. Incropera - Faculty, Notre Dame] I think there is a moral issue]
[associated with the use of energy,]
[particularly since in the United States 85% of the energy that we use ]
[is derived from fossil fuels, and globally that's a little more than 80%.]
[These are non-renewable resources, and they are very vital resources.]
[So there is at least a generational ethics issue]
[because in this country I think we use these resources recklessly,]
[and I think the greater the extent to which we use them,]
[the less that's going to be available for future generations.]
[You look at energy intensity figures--energy use per GDP--]
[and we come out very poorly relative to other OECD countries.]
[And, you look at these countries, whether it's Ireland, Switzerland,]
[Germany, France, and their energy intensity is better than a half of ours.]
[And, their standard of living is very high.]
[And, you look at the rate of energy consumption per person,]
[and we're almost a 12 kilowatt society.]
[Switzerland is close to 5, and they have aspirations ]
[to be a 2 kilowatt per person society.]
[They're not going to get there, but it's part of the national consciousness]
[to do things to make progress towards getting there.]
[So I want to get back to what Governor Ritter said.]
[I think we need to pay more attention to how we use energy in this country. ]
[[Incropera] That's the difference between being at Notre Dame ]
[and coming from Boston College. [laughter]]
[I said there is a moral dimension to using energy the way we are currently using energy.]
[But it's not because of the energy per se; it's because of the collateral issues.]
[And also with Jeff, I agree with you on the--]
[well--the oil price is not entirely driven by China, but that's a major part of it.]
[But that just says again--that reinforces the point--that unless we have a technology]
[that lets them do what they want to do, which has things like low carbon footprints]
[and essentially matches performance and economics,]
[it's going to be a long time until we see a major, major impact.]
[[Bill Ritter, Jr. - Governor of Colorado] The interesting thing is we don't even talk about]
[the rest of the emerging world.]
[Africa could catch hold here.]
[There's a great deal of excitement, but there's also peril.]
[And it really speaks to the need for the United States ]
[to produce a national energy policy that's futuristic]
[that looks at reducing carbon emissions and doesn't do it on the back of the world's poor.]
[[Immelt] Let's weave this into the next president's energy policy.]
[I wouldn't make one of the points on the next president's energy policy.]
[Let's be more generous to the rest of the world.]
[What I would say is, "Let's go create some jobs."]
["Here's what we're going to do, guys. We're going to create jobs."]
[Because if we can reduce this, we can use technology,]
[that's where we're going to create jobs. That's a winner.]
[[Ritter] Somebody said this before.]
[The world is waiting for the United States to lead the way. >>[Immelt] Totally right.]
[[Ritter] And so it is not about us putting in place a way for us to be good ]
[to the rest of the world; it's about creating a leadership role]
[and having people look at us and say, "You're right."]
[We inspire innovation, we inspire creativity,]
[but we have to have an infusion of cash and we have to have leadership to do it,]
[and we'll have this positive residual benefit around the world if we do it.]
[[Thompson] Our audience has been so wonderful to sit here and listen to us all]
[this afternoon, so before we leave, I would like each of you]
[to give them one thing that they can do in their lives when they go home tonight]
[or over the next couple of days that will help put them and this country]
[on a path to cleaner energy. ]
[Majora, what's the one thing you want people to do?]
[Support green jobs and funding for the training, placement,]
[and development of new green industries in this country,]
[starting from horticultural infrastructure and going all the way up to clean tech.]
[That is going to be the way that America is going to lead]
[and really create those kind of jobs that are going to show ]
[that we can support people as well as the environment]
[and lead the way for the rest of the world.]
[I'm a big fan of technology and innovation.]
[I just think the power of the human spirit and mind]
[The last couple weeks has been shocking to see.]
[It has been carnage when you turn on the TV.]
[Can you imagine where this country would be if we put the same emphasis]
[over the last 25 years on technical innovation that we put on financial innovation?]
[It would be in a very different place.]
[I think the one good thing that can come out of the situation that we're seeing today]
[is a renewal not just in our universities but in our society]
[that values engineering, that values science,]
[that values problem solving, that values the things that can do this because this is solvable.]
[I've made a career of looking at tough business problems. This one can be solved.]
[So I just leave you with that. >>[Thompson] Ernie?]
[I would first of all address my comments, I guess, to the students.]
[I'll just note that at MIT also we have an energy club ]
[which just shows such incredible dedication to wanting to apply their talents]
[to solving these energy, environmental, and equity problems.]
[Lourdes was at, and a group from Notre Dame was at, MIT this year,]
[and I know that the similar spirit is here, and we see it in the audience.]
[I think the main message is carry on. You've got the right message.]
[It's your world, and you have got to help get the values ]
[in terms of how we handle energy, environment, equity ]
[integrated into our society more firmly than they are]
[and to integrate them into our political system more than has been apparent]
[I would begin by doing the very--what seem to be--small things]
[and pay attention to your own energy consumption]
[and how you can reduce that.]
[That's how cultures are built or how cultures are changed,]
[and I really do think we have to think differently about how we consume energy.]
[And then I would just say you put pressure on your political leadership]
[to be part of that shift, that shift in how we think about energy usage]
[I think this country is going to be a leader,]
[and I think we're going to inspire innovation and we're going to inspire ]
[a different level of creativity than we have in the past.]
[But, I think that can very much be driven not just from political leadership]
[but also from people throughout the country saying,]
["We need a different culture, and we can start very small,]
[but we're going to put a lot of pressure on decision makers]
[to ensure that they hear us."]
[And, here at Notre Dame we have the best example of how small things can add up to a lot.]
[There is an organization that rates colleges and their sustainability,]
[and they came out with their ratings today, and I am proud to tell you]
[that Notre Dame has made the biggest improvement of any college or university]
[over a two-year period to that goal of sustainability.]
[We have gone from a D- to a B-,]
[so we have more work to do, [applause]]
[but the best part is, for student involvement, you got an A. [cheering and applause]]
[So congratulations. Go, Irish! And thank you very much. Thank you, panel.]
