WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama met Monday with clean energy entrepreneurs and leaders of the research community to discuss his strategy for building a clean energy economy.
The American Reinvestment Recovery Act (ARRA), the stimulus package that was signed into law last month, sets out $59 billion in clean energy investments and tax incentives to promote clean energy, and could create upwards of 300,000 jobs, according to the president.
“It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention,” stated President Obama as he addressed the crowd of business, science, and political leaders gathered at the Eisenhower Building.
“At this moment of necessity, we need you. We need some inventiveness. Your country needs you to create new jobs and lead new industries. Your country needs you to mount a historic effort to end once and for all our dependence on foreign oil.”
Several of the technologies supported by ARRA were on display at the event, along with the leaders of the companies that created them.
Paul Holland, the vice chairman of the board and lead investor for Serious Materials, introduced President Obama and shared the story of Serious Materials, the leading energy-saving building materials company in the U.S.
Serious Materials has four plants in California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, and plans to reopen the old Republic Windows plant in Chicago this spring.
Earlier this month, Serious Materials re-opened a previously shuttered plant in Pennsylvania, and is hiring back over 100 union workers in the next couple of months. Serious Materials’ products exceed current Energy Star standards by up to 400 percent and can reduce heating and cooling energy costs by up to 50 percent. Five percent of U.S. energy use is wasted through inefficient window glass.
Orion Energy’s Apollo Light Pipe was highlighted as an important lighting advancement. It collects and focuses sunlight, bringing natural light indoors without consuming electricity and replacing traditional lighting for large portions of the day. Coca-Cola and Sysco have installed this system, saving enough energy to power over 500 homes for a year.
The Solyndra Solar Panel was also on display. Solyndra is the first recipient of the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee recovery program, announced last week. Their solar panel is a unique cylindrical design that maximizes direct sunlight and absorption.
Tax Incentives
ARRA includes $39 billion in energy investments at the Department of Energy and $20 billion in tax incentives for clean energy.
Other projects slated for funding include the following: The creation of an advanced research agency for energy, modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which developed the Internet Support for Energy Frontier Research Centers, and which could lead to breakthroughs in energy storage, super-efficient engines, and solar cells as cheap as paint; supporting U.S. manufacturing of advanced batteries needed for plug-in hybrids, renewable energy backup, and other applications; $1.2 billion for research infrastructure for the Department of Energy’s national labs.
The president’s 10-year budget also proposes almost $75 billion to make the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit permanent. Studies have shown that a dollar of tax benefit stimulates as much as an additional dollar of private R&D spending in the short run and as much as two dollars in the long run.
Two-thirds of benefits of the credit are attributable to salaries of U.S. workers performing U.S.-based research, and the credit stimulates R&D spending by more than 11,000 small, medium, and large firms.
The credit has been extended 13 times with some extensions lasting just six months, and has also been allowed to lapse for almost a year—undermining its effectiveness because companies can’t count on it.
“We can remain the world’s leading importer of foreign oil, or we can become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” said Obama.
“We can allow climate change to wreck unnatural havoc, or we can create jobs preventing its worst effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can create those jobs right here in America.”
While ARRA has already been passed by Congress, the president’s budget proposal for 2010 has just begun under intense review.
