bush cutting energy efficiency..who would have thunk it

[Guest guest]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0531/p02s01-uspo.html

 

as we trundle deeper into bizarro land

 

 

Bush energy plan whacks conservation

More than a dozen efficiency efforts are set for trims or elimination as the

administration pushes long-term projects.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

 

A few years ago a little-known US Energy Department program helped produce a

design technology for lightweight cars and trucks that in 2004 alone saved the

nation 122 million barrels of oil, or about $9 billion.

Even without that breakthrough, the tiny Industrial Technologies Program

routinely saves the United States $7 worth of energy for each dollar it spends,

proponents say.

 

 

In the Monitor

Thursday, 06/01/06

 

 

 

So, with energy prices spiking and President Bush pushing for more energy

research, the ITP would seem a natural candidate for more funding. In fact, its

budget is set to get chopped by a third from its 2005 level. It's one of more

than a dozen energy-efficiency efforts that the Energy Department plans to trim

or eliminate in a $115 million cost-saving move.

 

The push to solve the nation's energy woes are bumping up against the federal

government's budget problems. To be sure, the Bush administration is anxious to

fund its new Advanced Energy Initiative - long-term research into nuclear, coal,

wind, solar, and hydrogen power. But to accomplish that, it is cutting

lesser-known programs like ITP whose payoffs are far more near-term.

 

" This is the worst time to be cutting these programs, " says William Prindle,

deputy director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a

Washington think tank. " At this point in time, with high energy prices and

pressures, you'd think maybe we'd want to invest in a suite of energy-efficiency

programs that make a dent right away. "

 

If Congress accepts the Energy Department's proposed 2007 budget, it will cut

$152 million - some 16 percent - from this year's budget for energy-efficiency

programs. Adjusting for inflation, it would mean the US government would spend

30 percent less on energy efficiency next year than it did in 2002, the ACEEE

says.

 

Such cuts reflect a shift in priorities toward programs that could offer much

bigger energy breakthroughs, the Energy Department says.

 

" Tough choices had to be made, and we had to realign priorities, " writes

Christina Kielich, a DOE spokeswoman in an e-mail. " Some programs within the

energy- efficiency budget have reached a point to be considered mature

technologies " that require less funding.

 

To others, it's a penny-wise and pound-foolish move, particularly ironic for a

nation hard-pressed to reduce energy bills.

 

" Because of high gas prices and energy prices, I just wouldn't have expected a

program that helps the little guy, small business, to take this kind of hit, "

says Michael Muller, a Rutgers University engineering professor and national

coordinator for the ITP's Industrial Assessment Centers. " They haven't said it

doesn't work. They say it's because of other higher priorities. "

 

One energy-efficiency program on the chopping block is the Heavy Vehicle

Propulsion and Ancillary Subsystems. It helps improve the fuel efficiency of

heavy-duty trucks, one of the nation's biggest oil consumers. That program is

" zeroed out " in the 2007 budget request.

 

The same fate awaits the $4.5 million Building Codes Implementation Grants

program. It helps states adopt more energy-efficient requirements for new

buildings, the nation's largest consumer of electricity and natural gas.

 

The $8 million Clean Cities program has helped clean-fuel technologies, like

buses that run on compressed natural gas, get to market. But it's slated for a

$2.8 million cut.

 

Dr. Muller's Industrial Assessment Centers program annually conducts about 600

energy audits and trains a new crop of about 250 new energy-efficiency

engineers. The $7 million program, which is estimated to save enough power to

supply half a million homes each year, wins plaudits from the small businesses

that have been able to reduce their costs.

 

But budget cuts slated for 2007 would trim the program by a third, slashing the

number of its university-based auditing and training programs from 23 to 16.

Savings: about $2.4 million.

 

" I hope the ITP cuts do get restored, " says Larry Kavanagh, vice president of

manufacturing and technology for the American Iron and Steel Institute, a

Washington trade association. " It saved the auto industry a lot of weight in its

cars - and the country a lot of energy. "

 

These programs are minuscule compared with the big-ticket research programs

envisioned by the White House. Mr. Bush's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, for example,

would cost $1.2 billion over five years.

 

Proponents of the small-scale efficiency programs point out that the ITP, with

1/20th of the budget, has already saved more oil than the hydrogen-fuel program

would save, if successful, by 2025.

 

But others are skeptical of the value of most Department of Energy programs and

especially energy-efficiency programs. They say the latter should be provided by

the private sector, not government.

 

" When energy prices are high, you don't need to subsidize conservation efforts, "

says Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies for the Cato Institute,

a Washington think tank. " These are subsidies that qualify as corporate

welfare. "

 

One of the nation's priorities is improving the security and reliability of the

electric grid. One option for doing that sooner, rather than later, is the

emerging technology of " distributed generation. " Under that approach, the nation

would build more but much smaller power plants so that small businesses and even

individual homes could have them.

 

True, such systems would burn costly natural gas - but at twice the energy

efficiency of today's grid - to produce both heat and electricity for

homeowners. If such systems caught on, they could vastly reduce load demand on

central power stations and slash the need to build new power plants.

 

But that vision of the future may be delayed, since the DOE's " distributed

energy " program has been cut in half and the remainder is being heavily

earmarked by federal lawmakers for specific projects that they favor. The

program is slated to be terminated in 2008, observers say.

 

" Hurricanes, terrorism, and blackouts have given us so many reasons to emphasize

distributed generation, and instead we're putting emphasis on new forms of

centralized power, " says John Jimison, executive director of the US Combined

Heat and Power Association, a Washington advocacy group. " It's too bad it's

getting cut because it was a very modest program. "

 

 

I don't wanna be no war hero

Don't want a movie made about me

I don't wanna be no war hero

Just get away from the madness I see