In a promising development for aspiring clean energy scientists, engineers, and technicians, the Obama administration’s 2011 budget request includes a proposal for the nation’s first comprehensive federal education initiative focused on the clean energy sector, called RE-ENERGYSE (Regaining our Energy Science and Engineering Edge).

The initiative was originally proposed by President Obama in his April 2009 speech to the National Academy of Sciences, which he said would inspire and train young Americans to “tackle the single most important challenge of their generation — the need to develop cheap, abundant, clean energy and accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.”

If appropriated by Congress, RE-ENERGYSE will be coordinated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Science Foundation (NSF), beginning with an initial investment of $74 million in clean energy-related education at universities, community and technical colleges, and K-12 schools. This will include a new $50 million program within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (see full proposal), a $5 million program in DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (see full proposal), and a $19 million program within NSF (see overview and fact sheet). A summary of each program is included below. DOE’s well-known Solar Decathlon is also proposed to become part of RE-ENERGYSE in FY2011.

This proposal comes after Congress rejected the original RE-ENERGYSE proposal in the administration’s FY2010 budget request, despite support from over 100 universities, professional associations, and student groups. The administration was forced to reduce its request from $115 million to $74 million — an unfortunate reduction, especially given the nation’s lagging position in STEM education and the global clean-tech industry — but the program is a very important step toward a full federal clean energy education initiative. Despite the current budgetary environment, the administration sees RE-ENERGYSE as a significant priority for supporting the nation’s clean energy transition and improving U.S. competitiveness in this sector. As the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy wrote in its proposal:

“In order to make the leap in global energy technology leadership, the U.S. must also make the leap in energy education… This effort will help universities and community colleges develop cutting edge programs, with redesigned and new curricula to produce tens of thousands of other highly skilled U.S. workers who can sustain American excellence in clean energy in industry, trades, academia, the Federal government, and National Laboratories.”

Indeed, universities and colleges have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and reclaiming U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech race. Universities perform 54 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of technological and scientific development. Universities and colleges are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace.

College students have a unique opportunity and an essential role to play in advancing this initiative. RE-ENERGYSE needs a much stronger base of support to pass Congress this year, especially in the current budgetary environment, and as the primary stakeholders in the program, students can be particularly influential in organizing a coalition of supporters and directly voicing their concerns to members of Congress. That’s why Americans for Energy Leadership, Energy Crossroads, Associated Students of Stanford University, Scientists & Engineers for America, Breakthrough Generation, and a growing number of youth-led groups around the country are leading a student mobilization behind RE-ENERGYSE and working to advance larger federal energy education policy to build on this important program. See more at www.leadenergy.org and stay tuned!

Summary of RE-ENERGYSE Programs:

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy summarizes its program as follows: “RE-ENERGYSE will develop leading edge undergraduate and graduate programs; help between 3,000 and 6,000 highly educated scientists, engineers, and other professionals enter the clean energy field by 2016; and approximately 7,000 to 13,000 professionals by 2021. By 2016, efforts will result in the development of approximately 75 community college and other training programs to equip thousands of technically skilled workers for clean energy jobs. By 2016, thousands of U.S. residents and students will be educated about clean energy technologies leading and cost saving benefits [from energy efficiency].”

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy summarizes its program as follows: “This program will provide important educational support to bolster nuclear engineering and science programs at U.S. universities, which supports continued use of nuclear power… RE-ENERGYSE supports university nuclear engineering programs through scholarships and fellowships. These fellowships will complement existing Federal efforts and will help ensure that the next generation of scientists and engineers are available to support existing and future nuclear energy generation capacity and provide necessary innovation… In FY 2011, the RE-ENERGYSE program plans to fund approximately 88 one-year scholarships and 30 three-year fellowships to students enrolled in nuclear energy-related fields of study of disciplines at U.S. universities and two-year colleges.”

National Science Foundation summarizes its program as follows: “In FY 2011, NSF will invest roughly $19.0 million in RE-ENERGYSE through five existing research and education programs that help develop the future STEM workforce. These programs provide fellowships, traineeships, and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as build collaboration between academia and industry. NSF will contribute at least 5 percent of its support for the following programs towards specific, energy-related awards: Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF); Graduate STEM Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12); Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT); Support for community colleges through Advanced Technological Education (ATE); and Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) sites.”

Originally posted at The Real Ewbank.

Australia’s new Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has declared war on the Rudd Government. He has kicked-off his leadership by implementing a polarisation strategy, with the emissions-trading policy forming a central part of the political battlefield. The Opposition’s new strategy provides some insight into the way in which the cap and trade politics might unfold in the United States.

The new Opposition Leader has identified the proposed emissions-trading scheme as a weak point for the Rudd Government. Labor exposed its vulnerability with efforts to keep the public debate centred on climate change ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers’, the best example of which being Rudd’s high-profile speech at the Lowy Institute late last year.

The Rudd Government has created the perception that emissions trading is the only available climate policy option. They have framed opponents of the so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as ‘climate skeptics’ and opposition to the policy as preventing action on climate change. Former Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull bought into this logic—or played along with it—throughout the emissions trading debate and diminished the need for the Government to explain the details of the CPRS to the general public. The result is that while the Government’s emissions trading policy is well known to the electorate, how it functions remains largely unknown—excluding of course the climate campaigners, policy wonks, and politicos closely following the passage of the legislation.

To capitalise on this opportunity, Tony Abbott and his Shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt are working hard to brand the emission trading policy ‘a great big tax’. They are counting on the Government being unable explain what an emissions trading scheme is and how it works in a simple and coherent way.

The Opposition Leader hopes to benefit from the electorate’s ability to understand what a new tax means, and inability to comprehend Labor’s emissions trading scheme. Abbott expects to harness anti-tax sentiment he believes exists in the electorate, but as a safeguard he’s betting that on the off chance Labor can explain the ETS, they won’t be able to do as well as the Coalition’s catchy ‘ETS = tax’ sound bite.

Abbott is also tempting Rudd to defend the financial impact of the ETS by pointing to compensation for low to medium income households. The Coalition will brand this ‘a transfer of wealth’ to rev up its base.

Whether or not Abbott’s strategy will work is yet to be seen, and it’s possible that he is overestimating Australia’s opposition to taxation. He of all people should remember that it was former Prime Minister John Howard who was re-elected in 1998 with a commitment to implement a goods and services tax—‘a great big tax’.

The bottom line is that if Abbott can shift the debate to away from the Labor’s preferred terrain of the ‘climate skeptic/denier’ debate, he’ll cause some concern for Labor who may not be adequately prepared for the attack. If everything goes according to Abbott’s plan, the Coalition might just be able to land a significant political blow in an election year.

In the US context, one can expect the Republicans to follow their conservative cousins in Australia in branding carbon pricing measures ‘taxes.’ They will also follow the Australian Opposition Leader in branding compensation for households as a ‘transfer of wealth.’ While the effectiveness of the ‘transfer of wealth’ argument is limited in Australian politics, the GOP will use it against their political rivals as yet another example of Democrats pursuing ‘big government’ policies. This messaging will be deployed to thwart the Democrats’ cap-and-trade agenda and damage the party in the lead up to the mid-term elections.

Originally published at LeadEnergy

A major report released last week by the National Science Board concludes that U.S. global leadership in science and technology is declining as foreign nations – especially China and other Asian countries – rapidly develop their national innovation systems.

“U.S. dominance has eroded significantly… The data begin to tell a worrisome story,” stated Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal research and development in President Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The Director of the National Science Foundation, Arden Bement, noted that “China is achieving a dramatic amount of synergy by increasing its investment in science and engineering education, in research, and in infrastructure, which is attracting scientists from all over the world.”

The report, “Science and Engineering Trends 2010,” is published every two years by the National Science Board, a 25-member expert council that advises the National Science Foundation, President, and Congress on science and technology policy, education, and research. Koizumi called it a “State of the Union on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

This “state of the union” for science and technology comes amidst growing concern that Asia is out-competing the U.S. in the burgeoning global clean-tech sector. According to the “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant” report I recently co-authored with the Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, China, Japan, and South Korea have already surpassed the U.S. in the production of nearly all clean energy technologies, and these governments are expected to out-invest the U.S. three-to-one in this industry over the next five years. As U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recently said, “The world is passing us by. We are falling behind in the clean energy race.”

“Asia’s rapid ascent as a major world science and technology (S&T) center—beyond Japan—is driven by developments in China and several other Asian economies,” states the introduction to the report. “Governments [in Asia] have implemented a host of policies to boost S&T capabilities as a means to ensuring their economies’ competitive edge… the United States continues to maintain a position of leadership but has experienced a gradual erosion of its position in many specific areas.” According to Jose-Marie Griffiths, a member of the National Science Board, “While the US is the largest R&D performing nation — representing one-third of total world investment — Asia has narrowed the gap due to the sustained annual increases by China.”

Asian Nations Investing Heavily in Research & Development

U.S. investment in R&D as a ratio of total GDP has remained relatively constant since the mid-1980s, at around 2.7%, with the federal share of total R&D consistently declining. In contrast, Asian nations have rapidly expanded their R&D to GDP ratio. Japan and South Korea have outstripped the U.S. with ratios around 3.5%, and China doubled its ratio from 0.6% in 1996 to 1.5% in 2007, even while its GDP grew around 12% annually. China’s investments in R&D grew by over 20% annually between 1996 and 2007, compared to less than 6% annual growth in the United States. Asia’s share of global R&D increased from 24% to 31% over this period, while North America declined from 40% to 35%.

Key R&D graphs (click to enlarge in new window):

Asia Expanding Researchers and High-Tech Education

In terms of total researchers, the U.S. and the E.U. experienced moderate annual growth of about 3% between 1995 and 2006, while growth in the Asian region outside Japan ranged from 7-11%. China averaged nearly 9% growth annually in researchers, far outstripping any other country. Over this period the number of China’s researchers nearly tripled, from just over half a million to more than 1.4 million, boosting its global share from 13% to 25%. The U.S. also has around 1.4 million researchers, which places China at a level playing field in overall numbers (although there are questions about the quality of Chinese researchers).

For science and engineering (S&E) higher education, the report begins by emphasizing its importance as an innovation indicator: “S&E higher education provides the advanced skills needed for a competitive workforce and, particularly in the case of graduate S&E education, the research capability necessary for innovation… Higher education in S&E is important, because it produces an educated S&E workforce and an informed citizenry. It has also been receiving increased attention as an important component of U.S. economic competitiveness.”

Recognizing these trends, foreign governments are taking measure to improve their higher education systems and emphasis on S&E education. “Increasingly, governments around the world have come to regard movement toward a knowledge-based economy as key to economic progress. Realizing that this requires a well-trained workforce, they have invested in upgrading and expanding their higher education systems and broadening participation.”

The U.S. higher education system maintains critical strengths – especially U.S. research universities, which perform 56% of U.S. basic research and educate the majority of future scientists and engineers – but its position continues to decline in terms of S&E graduates. U.S. students earned only 11% of the world’s 4 million S&E first university degrees (equivalent to an undergraduate degree) awarded in 2006, compared to 21% in China and 19% in the European Union. S&E degrees are only about one-third of U.S. bachelor’s degrees, compared to 63% in Japan, 53% in China, and 51% in Singapore. Only about 5% of U.S. bachelor’s degrees are in engineering, compared to 20% total in Asia and around 33% in China.

After a long period of growth, China now produces an equal or greater number of natural science and engineering (NS&E) doctoral degrees compared to the United States, rising four-fold from approximately 5,000 in 1997 to over 20,000 in 2007. “Over time,” the report states, “the United States has fallen from one of the top countries in terms of its ratio of NS&E degrees to the college-age population to near the bottom of the 23 countries for which data are available.”

A large portion of these degrees in the United States are awarded to foreign students. International students received 24% of U.S. S&E master’s degrees, 33% of S&E doctoral degrees, and 4% of S&E bachelor’s degrees in 2007. From 2003 to 2007, the shares of the foreign-born among master’s degree and doctorate holders rose 2 percentage points each. Twenty-five percent of all college-educated U.S. workers in S&E occupations in 2003 were foreign born, as were 40% of doctorate holders in S&E occupations. About half of all foreign-born scientists and engineers are from Asia, and more than a third of U.S.-resident doctorate holders come from China (22%) and India (14%).

Key researcher and education graphs (click to enlarge in new window):

U.S. and Global Energy R&D Remains Small

Despite recent efforts by the Obama administration, energy remains a small R&D priority for the U.S. federal government compared to other areas such as health, space, and defense, continuing a long-term trend since the early 1980s. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act strengthened clean energy R&D, but its funding will expire after 2010. A relatively small portion of U.S. energy R&D goes toward renewable energy sources, and this trend is reflected internationally. Total global investment in energy R&D grew from approximately $8.5 billion in 1997 to $11 billion in 2007, with the portion for renewable energy remaining around 10%. A large and growing portion of U.S. energy experts recommend U.S. federal investment of $15-30 billion per year in energy R&D.

Key energy R&D graphs: (click to enlarge in new window)

Conclusion

The report is alarming, but it is not all bad news for the United States. It presents solid evidence that, at least in the near-term, we remain the world’s innovation leader, from our public and private investments in research and development, to the strength of our higher education institutions, to our production of patents, knowledge-intensive services, and high-technology manufacturing. For the clean-tech industry in particular, this suggests that stronger public policies to leverage U.S. innovation capacities – including $15-30 billion per year in federal clean energy R&D, a national energy education initiative, investments in enabling energy infrastructure, and other policies to drive innovation – could lead to rapid improvements in U.S. competitiveness.

However, the overall trend is clear: Asian nations are quickly ascending as science and technology leaders, and our position will continue to decline without significant efforts to maintain and strengthen the U.S. innovation system, with major implications for our economic competitiveness, national security, and international leadership. This article provided an overview of key “innovation input” indicators, including R&D, higher education, and researchers. For a more comprehensive list of indicators – including outputs such as patents and research articles – see the full report here.

Cross-posted from LeadEnergy

Yet again, Thomas Friedman nails the clean energy race and fails on the policy strategy. His op-ed today, “Who’s Sleeping Now?” (similar to our recent report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant“) claims that carbon pricing is the solution to secure U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech industry:

“We are either going to put in place a price on carbon and the right regulatory incentives to ensure that America is China’s main competitor/partner in the E.T. revolution, or we are going to gradually cede this industry to Beijing and the good jobs and energy security that would go with it… It is clear that if we, America, care about our energy security, economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation.”

By calling for the passage of the American Clean Energy & Security Act (ACESA) — without mentioning a single area for improvement — Friedman implies it is strong enough to compete with Asia and drive the U.S. transition to clean energy, when in fact the bill would (1) establish a very modest price on carbon due to numerous cost-containment mechanisms like international offsets; (2) invest an order of magnitude less in clean energy technology development than a large and ever-growing number of experts say is necessary — including dozens of Nobel Laureates, America’s top research universities, Google, Brookings Institution, Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, military veterans, and others; and (3) establish a renewable electricity standard that would not ensure any increase in U.S. renewable energy deployment beyond already conservative business-as-usual projections (see here for comprehensive analysis of ACESA).

That may be acceptable to Thomas Friedman, but it is no way for the United States to lead the clean energy industry. For more on this ongoing debate, see my recent response to Friedman, “Earth to Thomas Friedman: Winning the ‘Earth Race’ Requires Federal Investment.”

The editorial board of The Stanford Daily published a very good editorial today on energy and climate policy, discussing the need to focus on federal investments in clean energy technology to win the clean energy race and confront climate change:

“If the American people will not make economic sacrifices to hedge against global warming, they must be convinced that they will not have to, or better yet, that actions will reap benefits… [the climate bill] could be converted to a major economic boost through one change to the proposed policies: robust federal investment. President Obama’s original request for $15 billion in annual investment for clean-energy development, recommended by a group of 34 Nobel Laureate scientists, has been considerably weakened. It must be reinstated. Yes, the federal budget is strained, but these investments are vital for American competitiveness and would pay back many times over…

Renewable energy also holds massive potential for economic growth. With a global population that will hit nine billion by 2050 and standards of living rising around the world, demand for energy will skyrocket past its current supply, global warming or not.

If the United States does not rise up to fill this market, other countries will. China plans to invest $660 billion in clean energy over the next 10 years and is already beginning to dominate the industry. American inaction would mean continued reliance on imported energy, millions of lost jobs and another blow to a frail economic foundation. Federal investment in research and development, as Fareed Zakaria notes in Newsweek, has brought us the Internet, lasers, MRIs and DNA sequencing. It can bring us renewable energy, too.

…if the political will for this cap-and-trade ‘sacrifice’ does not exist in the United States, then energy investment should garner bipartisan support, improve the economy and make a significant impact on the climate problem. Thomas Friedman, Zakaria and commentators around the country have started trumpeting this idea, originally popularized by the Breakthrough Institute think tank: Going green can pay. And only when the American people believe this will solutions follow.”

The Cleantech Group just released a ranking of the top 10 clean-tech universities in the United States for 2010, with MIT, Berkeley, UT Austin, Stanford, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor occupying the top five slots.

Universities and colleges have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and reclaiming U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech race. Universities perform 54 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of the technological innovation we need to spark the clean energy revolution. Universities and college are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace. Indeed, it’s common knowledge that universities like Stanford played a defining role in the information technology revolution, birthing companies like Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems.

However, as President Obama reminded us in a speech today at the White House, “despite the importance of education in these subjects, we have to admit we are right now being outpaced by our competitors… To continue to cede our leadership in education is to cede our position in the world.” As we found in our recent report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” Asian nations like China, South Korea, and Japan are launching massive government investment projects to dominate the clean-tech sector, which promises to be one of the largest new growth sectors of the next few decades.

In order to catch up, American students should work with their university and college administrators to secure greater educational resources related to clean energy technology and policy, including better curriculum, professors, classroom and laboratory resources, career development opportunities, support for student entrepreneurship, and research. Every significant institution of higher education in the country should have an energy-related institute that incubates cutting-edge education, research, and innovation. Students are flocking to schools with the best clean-tech programs, and university administrations are increasingly paying attention.

And at the federal level, the United States will need a national clean-tech education strategy on par with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, similar to the National Energy Education Act we proposed back in 2008. The Obama administration’s RE-ENERGYSE proposal was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it was rejected by Congress last year. Will the administration and Congress work together on a new proposal in 2010 on the scale we need to win the clean energy race? Stay tuned.

Here’s the full university ranking, cross-posted from Cleantech Group:

Top 10 cleantech universities in the U.S. for 2010
January 4, 2010 by Shawn Lesser

Where will the cutting edge companies that transform the industries of cleantech going to come from? Odds are that it will be from one of the top cleantech universities.

While many dotcom companies were started by students out of their dorm rooms or basements, don’t look for a similar trend in the cleantech world. You need a lot more than a desktop and a good Internet-based idea. You need specialized resources that you usually can find at a university.

Venture capital firms now have to keep tabs on chemical and engineering labs at some of the best U.S. universities as potential sources of new companies.

A few months ago, I ranked the best U.S. states for cleantech, as well as the top 10 cleantech countries (see The top 10 U.S. states for cleantech in 2009 and The top 10 cleantech countries of 2009).

In my latest rankings, I sought to identify the 10 U.S. academic institutions best suited to take advantage of this trend. I looked whether there exists—and to what degree—a pipeline of collaboration of businesses, universities, state initiatives, investors and research dollars. The mix has to be just right to accomplish the end goal of a commercially viable product.

Here are the top 10 cleantech universities in 2010, in my estimation:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT is a true cleantech spinoff machine. The Cambridge, Mass.-based institution is also home to the MIT Clean Energy Prize, the premier student clean energy innovation and venture creation competition in the country. The annual $200,000 prize is awarded to the top student energy venture in the country. In 2009, 113 teams entered from 40 universities around the country. MIT Clean Energy Prize has helped launch several energy ventures, including FloDesign, FastCap Systems, Levant Power, Husk Insulation, and Covalent Solar. Another reason for the top ranking has been the establishment of the MIT Energy Initiative in September 2006, as an institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today’s energy systems. Notable cleantech spinouts include: A123 Systems, FastCap Systems, Levant Power, Trophos Energy, Promethean Power, 1366 Technologies, Sun Catalytix, and Agrivida.
2. University of California at Berkeley One of UC Berkeley’s goals is to connect students and the business community to the high-level research done at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and on-campus labs. Berkeley is home to several partnerships with big players in the industry. The most important ones are the Energy and Biosciences Institute—a partnership of UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab, and the University of Illinois, funded by BP with $500 million over ten years (see BP funds biofuel research with $500M)—and the Bio Energy Institute, which is a partnership of three national labs and three research universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy with $125 million over five years. Finally, the proximity to Silicon Valley and the East Bay Cleantech Corridor gives students the opportunity to get in touch with the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and consulting companies that are driving the growth of the new energy sector. Notable cleantech spinoffs: Amyris Biotechnologies, Adura Technologies, Seeo, Aurora Biofuels, and Progressive Cooling Solutions.
3. The University of Texas in Austin The University of Texas at Austin is a historical leader in energy innovation, R&D and teaching. With abundant oil and gas on its own lands, and deep connections to the energy industry, UT has directly profited from its energy leadership and its graduates have populated the highest executive ranks of the world’s energy companies (CEO of ExxonMobil, CEO of ConocoPhillips, President of Shell are just a few examples). The good news is that UT is using its leadership of the conventional energy industry as a launching pad for continued leadership in the cleantech revolution. Those same oil and gas companies are investing aggressively into cleantech and they turn to UT for the expertise and people to make those innovations work. The inventor of the lithium-ion battery, John Goodenough, is a professor of mechanical engineering at UT. The university also is a leader in algae based biofuels. UT is a part of a multimillion dollar DARPA-sponsored project to produce jet fuels from algae. UT Austin was also awarded $35 million in research on carbon sequestration by the Department of Energy. Notable cleantech spinouts include: ActaCell, Advanced Hydro, Graphene Energy, Organic Fuels, and Inspired Solar.
4. Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. Stanford University is on the cutting edge of clean technology. Stanford has developed an ambitious, long-range, $250 million initiative to sharply reduce the university’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The university also has established a $100 million research institute, the Precourt Institute for Energy, to focus on energy issues (see Stanford launches $100M energy research institute). More than $30 million in yearly funding is now spent on energy research at the university. Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) is the entrepreneurship center at Stanford’s School of Engineering. STVP is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly research on technology-based firms that, in turn, provides new insights for students, scholars and business leaders. Notable cleantech spinouts: Amprius, Nanostellar, Rolith, D.light Design, Driptech, and Veranda Solar.
5. University of Michigan in Ann Arbor With research expenditures of over $1 billion and an innovation pipeline unparalleled among the nation’s public universities, the University of Michigan can rightly take its place among the leading Cleantech universities in the U.S. Student engagement in Cleantech Entrepreneurship is at a all-time high, driven by the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Business School, the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering, and the student organization MPowered. The student-led Wolverine Venture Fund and the Frankel Commercialization Fund managed by the Zell Lurie Institute made recent investments in Environmental Operating Systems, and Accio Energy. The Universities TechArb program is poised to leverage a rich entrepreneurial ecosystem to stake out a leadership position in the emerging green economy. Notable cleantech spinouts include: T/J Technologies (acquired), Sensicore (acquired), Sakti3, and Flexsys Wind Energy.
6. University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado at Boulder is viewed as being at the forefront of the sustainability and cleantech revolution. The university was recently recognized by Sierra Magazine as the No. 1 sustainable campus in the United States. CU Boulder has created a new joint energy institute with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The new institute, The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), partners leading researchers from CU-Boulder and NREL on cross discipline research across multiple areas. Currently there are 19 major corporations that sit on the RASEI leadership council including such companies as Xcel Energy, ConocoPhilips, Toyota, SAIC, Good Energies, Wells Fargo and Vestas. In addition, dozens of companies are involved in collaborative research with the university and its partners across several major cleantech initiatives. With more than $350 million of annual research funding, the University of Colorado at Boulder leads the Rocky Mountain region in world class research. Notable cleantech spinouts: Ion Engineering and OPX Biotechnologies.
7. University of Wisconsin at Madison University of Wisconsin has been a leader in cleantech research for decades. The Solar Energy Lab, founded in 1954, is the oldest of its kind. More recently, the university has become a focal point for research in bio-energy and is home to one of three Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Centers and the only one based at an academic institution (see Not everyone applauds new U.S. biofuel research centers). In 2009, the College of Engineering entered into a long-term partnership with Vestas. In May, the University of Wisconsin snagged 10 of 71 funding awards from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced nuclear research, totaling more than $5 million. To coordinate the energy-related research and education, a group of professors came together in 2006 to create the Energy Institute. Focused on sustainability opportunities through “real world” design and engineering practices. Notable cleantech spinouts include: Virent Energy Systems and AquaMost.
8. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY With world-class research in the physical sciences, engineering and nanotechnology fields, Cornell is a natural spawning ground for cleantech. And Cornell is leading New York state’s task force to promote high-tech development through industry-higher education partnerships. Cornell’s campuswide Center for a Sustainable Future is unique in fostering innovative multi-disciplinary research into new energy sources, environmental and biodiversity initiatives, and economic development projects for global implementation of these programs. Notable cleantech spinouts include: Novomer and iFyber.
9. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga. Georgia Tech is one of the nation’s top research universities with over $500 million of sponsored research activity currently. The Advanced Technology Development Center is a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Commercialization Services helps move innovations out of Georgia Tech laboratories and into the marketplace by assessing the commercial potential of research results and assisting in the development of new companies through the VentureLab program. VentureLab is currently advising a number of cleantech startup companies (see Cleantech industry in the U.S. South emerging from stealth). Notable cleantech spinouts: Suniva, RideCell, and CoolClouds.
10. Washington State University, Pullman, Wash. With legacy expertise in agriculture, power and applied engineering, WSU’s Clean Technology program is rapidly growing in the cleantech-centric Pacific Northwest. Plant science is the engine behind the opening last year of the Bioproducts Science and Engineering Laboratory, Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and the recently funded Washington State Algae Alliance. One of the main objectives is the commercialization of aviation biofuels with partner Boeing Commercial Airlines. Notable cleantech spinouts: GoNano, Ajuga Biosciences, BioGasol, Schweitzer Engineering Labs, and Integrated Engineering Solutions.

Shawn Lesser is the president and founder of Atlanta-based Sustainable World Capital, which is focused on fund-raising for private equity cleantech/sustainable funds, as well as private cleantech companies. For information, visit his Web site.

Cross-posted from Americans for Energy Leadership

President Obama gave a speech today on the “Educate to Innovate” Campaign and the Science Teaching and Mentoring Awards, emphasizing the importance of STEM education for maintaining American leadership and successfully competing with the rapidly growing economies of Asia. As we found in our recent report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” Asian nations like China, South Korea, and Japan are launching massive government investment projects to dominate the clean-tech sector, which promises to be one of the largest new growth sectors of the next few decades.

In order to catch up, the United States will need a national clean-tech education strategy on par with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, as my colleague and I wrote back in 2008. The Obama administration’s RE-ENERGYSE proposal was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it was rejected by Congress last year. Will the administration and Congress work together on a new proposal in 2010 on the scale we need to win the clean energy race? Stay tuned.

Here are some of Obama’s remarks:

“Whether it’s improving our health or harnessing clean energy, protecting our security or succeeding in the global economy, our future depends on reaffirming America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. And that leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today, especially in math, science, technology, and engineering.

But despite the importance of education in these subjects, we have to admit we are right now being outpaced by our competitors. One assessment shows American 15-year-olds now ranked 21st in science and 25th in math when compared to their peers around the world. Think about that — 21st and 25th. That’s not acceptable. And year after year the gap between the number of teachers we have and the number of teachers we need in these areas is widening. The shortfall is projected to climb past a quarter of a million teachers in the next five years — and that gap is most pronounced in predominately poor and minority schools.

And meanwhile, other nations are stepping up — a fact that was plain to see when I visited Asia at the end of last year. The President of South Korea and I were having lunch, and I asked him, what’s the biggest education challenge that you have? He told me his biggest challenge in education wasn’t budget holes, it wasn’t crumbling schools — it was that the parents were too demanding. (Laughter.) He’s had to import thousands of foreign teachers because parents insisted on English language training in elementary school. The mayor of Shanghai, China — a city of over 20 million people — told me that even in such a large city, they had no problem recruiting teachers in whatever subject, but particularly math and science, because teaching is revered and the pay scales are comparable to professions like doctors.

So make no mistake: Our future is on the line. The nation that out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow. To continue to cede our leadership in education is to cede our position in the world. That’s not acceptable to me and I know it’s not acceptable to any of you. And that’s why my administration has set a clear goal: to move from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math education over the next decade.”

Nathan Wyeth, editor at NextBillion, follows up last week’s discussion on sustainable global development with thoughtful consideration of how to best structure and channel adaptation aid. You can read an excerpt from his second post on the Copenhagen Climate Summit below (emphasis added):

“Copenhagen Climate Summit: Shaping Adaptation Finance”

Accordingly, adaptation has entered the lexicon of the negotiations, but is contemplated now through an aid and public spending lens.  It is likely that billions of dollars, hopefully additive to existing public aid flows, will be earmarked for adaptation.  There is in-depth if speculative discussion of where this money will come from, such as fees on international shipping and air travel, but much less has gone into how this money should be spent.  Little if anything is clear about who will administer this money, how it will be purposed and distributed, to whom it will be distributed, what the specific goals might be, and how success will be evaluated.

The United Nations’ agencies are not well situated to manage this and besides it being politically problematic, many might not be inclined to trust the U.N. to do the job well. The World Bank has overseen the Global Environment Fund created in the early 90’s but developing nations in particular are somewhere between skeptical of and staunchly opposed to a similar approach now.  But no matter how this money flows, the overall approach and expectations for adaptation funding and finance will guide it no matter what form it takes.

Some adaptation to climate change must involve public infrastructure spending, addressing flood protection, major water infrastructure, country-level food security, and so forth. This is where an aid approach makes sense.  But at the ground level the question of climate adaptation for the poor, particularly the rural poor, is not exotic and disconnected from existing development through enterprise.

Adapation is really a question of increasingly resiliency in the face of climate change, and resiliency can largely mean economic stability and prosperity. It is a matter of preparing for income shocks as a result of shocks to agricultural productivity and natural resource availability.  And so the tools used by microfinance institutions and businesses with technology for the poor start to come into play in a big way – to grow income, provide credit and insurance, create access to information (of markets, weather forecasts, etc.) and increase productivity with efficient inputs of natural resources.  These approaches not only help the base of the pyramid adapt to climate change but reduce their vulnerability in the first place.

The danger is that if funding is used on a siloed, project-by-project basis, adaptation finance might prepare communities for specific climate impacts – like the spread of malarial mosquitoes – but leave them otherwise as vulnerable as before to income and natural resource shocks.

On one hand, approaches to development acrosss the board must respond to the reality that the fundamental backdrop of a region’s climate will no longer be the same or even predictable.  For example, the seeds and techniques that would make up a new ‘green revolution’ in agriculture in Africa must be able to withstand changes in growing seasons and scarcer water or they will be created for a landscape that will no longer exist.

And on the other hand, it is an unfortunate opportunity to have, but influencing the shape of adaptation funding coming out of the Copenhagen summit could hugely impact the growth of approaches like microinsurance products, agricultural technology for the poor, water efficiency and quality products.  It is a debate that the businesses and investors behind these approaches should be joining in order for the funding to be used effectively to bolster the position of the poor.  Before the money gets appropriated, now is time to shape how it will be spent.

Some food for thought here: friend-of-Breakthrough Generation, Nathan Wyeth, pens a very thoughtful column on the Copenhagen climate summit focused on the key challenges of fueling sustainable global development and expanded energy-access to the billions of energy poor worldwide, via the new WRI-affiliated blog, NextBillion.net:

Excerpts below with emphasis added:

Copenhagen Climate Summit: The Missing Billions

…

But although they are often discussed here as the first and worst victims of climate change, the base of the pyramid is, at first glance, invisible in the negotiations in the shape of solutions to climate change. Except in the context of avoiding tropical deforestation, carbon finance relevant to the base of the pyramid is at best a niche conversation. If intensive energy use and land development equal carbon emissions, the base of the pyramid would by definition not appear to be terribly relevant.

This means I have less to blog about except for maybe some side events, but plenty to say. I would argue that there’s is a huge amount wrong with the orientation of these negotiations and the fact that the base of the pyramid is absent gets to the heart of the issue. In a vicious cycle, the weakening of the negotiations will lead to failure in their intended impact, simply hurting the poor even more.

The G77 bloc is angling to increase the $10 billion in annual aid that developed nations are promising to provide in funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation. But it seems likely that there will be plenty of double-counting of that aid money and it’s not enough to begin with to address either mitigation (i.e. low-carbon development) or adaptation. And it’s unclear what this will go towards, who will manage it, what it will truly be intended to do.

As they have in previous years, the negotiations pit the world’s wealthiest 1 billion people against the 3-4 billion who have gained a some level of prosperity and are rising quickly. Who will cut back on carbon – those who already emit a lot, or those who are emitting some and want to emit more in the future? With the negotiations set up like this, it quickly becomes a zero-sum game. Since the UN process relies on the commitment of the nations that constitute it, as a zero-sum game it becomes useless as a force to raise the bar towards clean and sustainable development.

Left out of this picture are the 2-3 billion people who are essentially not using modern energy – at best a little bit of electricity from an unreliable grid, a little bit of kerosene for lighting, diesel to operate machinery or transport, and maybe charcoal or LPG for cooking. But likely using firewood or other biomass for cooking and as likely as not having no access to electricity at all.

These are the people this blog concerns itself with. It seems counterintuitive that those who use the least energy currently are critical to an international agreement on reshaping our energy industries and ending deforestation as quickly as possible. But I believe they actually lie at the heart of any global deal to address climate change.

Where does this third of humanity actually show up in the negotiations?

They are the anonymous presence assumed to be within the growth curves in projected energy demand in Asia and Africa. They imbue these growth curves with moral force because basic services, health care, education and more must reach these billions in the decades that are in question in the negotiations.

These growth curves of energy demand in Asia, and to a lesser extent Africa, are the mountains that the negotiators must climb to reach an agreement. It is assumed that this demand will be met with fossil energy unless otherwise subsidized, by the West or at the expense of the poor. And these curves are steep.

They would probably be insurmountable except for a few things.

The biggest thing that the developed nations could do to flip this zero-sum mentality and unstick climate negotiations would be to act like they truly cared about access to energy in the developing world – particularly for those whose lack of access is most severe.

Most of the growth in energy demand in Asia and Africa will come from industry but the moral imperative of that growth comes from the people who are in energy poverty and need to get out of it. Yet this is a relatively small amount of energy demand – it is not the first kilowatt of electricity demand by households at the base of the pyramid that is going to push us beyond the safe levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

The truth is that it is quite likely that even with no climate treaty at all limiting carbon-intensive development, very few of the 1.6 billion people who are off the grid right now would get on the grid any time soon. From India to South Africa, electricity grids are going into blackouts straining to provide power to industrial customers, let alone people without access to electricity. When oil prices rise, try as they might by cutting other services and going into debt, developing country governments will not be able to subsidize fuels indefinitely. There is no imminent or clear path, under current patterns of fossil fuel and power sector development, for those living in energy poverty to smoothly emerge from this.

If the Copenhagen summit prioritized access to electricity and efficient, low-carbon cooking and heating to the 2-3 billion people it is currently ignoring, it would be a very different summit. Both developed and developing countries would be united in confronting the dual moral imperatives of addressing climate and development, rather than appearing to pit one against the other.

And the reality is that providing modern energy to these 2-3 billion people could be done with clean energy about as quickly as could be done with dirty energy – over the next 20 years – for about the same price or perhaps a minor subsidy from developed countries. Solar lighting and similar renewables are now basically at price parity with kerosene and diesel generators, and the variety of price-competitive renewables, such as small wind turbines, will only increase in coming years. The businesses that Next Billion covers regularly are demonstrating that these technologies can be commercially deployed. With greater investment and prioritization by the global community, they could start replicating, franchising and scaling dramatically.

This would not only be a development success, but a climate success, because three billion people cooking and heating with fuelwood and biomass is a significant contributor to climate change. There could be a billion households that don’t need to transition off of fossil fuels because their first electricity comes from solar.

Addressing the pockets – gaping holes really – of the deepest energy poverty would not only shave down the projected energy demand from fossil fuels. It would make negotiating between the wealthiest 1 billion and the 3-4 middle billion a more surmountable task. Not easy – but much more straightforward, dealing with a set of maybe fifteen major industrial economies that need to be brought into parity on carbon in the coming decades. In doing so they will create the utility-scale clean energy technology that can be deployed globally.

One of the key insights behind market-oriented development at the base of the pyramid is recognizing that there is a not a “First World” with one set of economic rules and a “Third World” with a different set. An extrapolation of this is seeing the world in terms of economic gradations rather than borders – there are “Third World” economic conditions in the poorest parts of the U.S. and “First World” conditions in Rio, Mumbai, and Shanghai. Seeing the gradation of needs that exist between the wealthy, the emerging middle classes, and the global poor in these climate negotiations would help move them beyond the impasse they have currently reached.

One might argue that global treaty negotiations should be explicitly focused on shared support for sustainable global development, rather than on emissions cuts.

Global energy demand will rise fast in the coming decades as billions of global citizens climb out of energy poverty. That’s a good thing, a force of improved lives, greater health, opportunity and security. The challenge for the global community then is two-fold: 1) extending access to affordable energy to as many of the world’s energy poor as possible – including many of the nearly three billion more expected to be added to the global population by mid-century; and 2) ensuring that such access to affordable energy is provided by sustainable sources.

The International Energy Agency made all that quite clear in their World Energy Outlook last year.

Clean AND cheap energy sources are needed to power sustainable global development and open access to energy for billions of global citizens. Developing and deploying the technologies and tools needed to fuel sustainable development at a global scale is the task of the 21st century. It’s time the international community focused squarely on that task, for without solutions to this key challenge, no effort to stabilize the climate will succeed.