Overview
A widespread and rapid transition to a low-carbon energy system by 2050 is essential to keep pace with ambitious policy goals and avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Innovation is necessary to lower costs and improve performance of existing technologies and to develop new clean energy options that address challenges in harder-to-decarbonize sectors. As the deployment of today’s technologies begins to bend the carbon emissions curve, new and improved technologies will be required to unlock additional pathways to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. To achieve this goal, the United States must accelerate the current pace of innovation. In order to do that, innovation is required in the innovation process itself. The focus of this workshop was to examine means by which the U.S. federal government can rise to this unprecedented challenge.
The federal government is a primary sponsor of basic and applied science in the United States. The by-product of such scientific discovery is technology innovation. The opportunity for transitioning technology lies at the intersection of public discovery with private interest. To examine challenges and highlight successful strategies for the federal government’s engagement in clean energy innovation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual workshop series “Enhancing Federal Clean Energy Innovation” on July 27 to August 7, 2020, sponsored by Gates Ventures. Based on the statement of task (Appendix A), a workshop agenda (Appendix B) was developed by a volunteer planning committee (Appendix C) to feature timely, action-orientated assessments of how to strengthen development and
penetration of new clean energy technologies. More than 840 participants (Appendix D) registered for the 8-day workshop series. This document summarizes the presentations and discussions that occurred over the course of the workshop.1
THE ENERGY INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Throughout this workshop, participants discussed the innovation process as an ecosystem composed of interrelated steps ranging from research and development (R&D) to demonstration, manufacturing, and commercialization and deployment. In his opening remarks, Paul Dabbar, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), described the U.S.’ ability to effectively perform early-stage R&D, particularly through the resources and expertise embedded in the National Laboratory Complex. Despite these capabilities, Dabbar said that transitioning technologies out of laboratories into the marketplace represents a significant challenge.
The United States robustly funds the beginning of the innovation cycle, but technologies face substantial barriers at the point of scale-up and market adoption. To guide technologies over these transitions, several participants stressed the importance of an approach that considers each step in tandem with the rest of the process. George Crabtree, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), emphasized the importance of developing a single holistic framework with interactive and coordinated components.
Promising technologies are prone to fall into multiple “valleys of death” and often cannot attract the necessary investment or user pull to escape. Many discussions focused on strategies to aid emerging technologies over these hurdles. Arati Prabhakar, Actuate, observed that DOE must “professionalize” demonstrations, deployment, and experimentation in the same way it has successfully professionalized early-stage R&D. Some participants advocated for targeted investments along the entire path to commercialization, the strengthening of public-private partnerships, or the creation of entirely new entities devoted to late-stage innovation.
A SYSTEMS APPROACH
The innovation ecosystem is enabled by not only the federal government but also the interaction of industry, manufacturing, supply chains, markets, and finance. Throughout this workshop, participants considered
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1 In addition to the summary of the workshop provided here, materials related to the workshop, including speaker presentations and archived webcasts of presentation and discussion sessions, can be accessed at www.nas.edu/innovationworkshop.
the role of the private sector within the innovation ecosystem. Several participants stressed the importance of early and consistent engagement with industry to ensure end-use applications for new technologies. John C. Wall, Cummins (retired), said that early links with industry are important to align the right technology with the right application. For example, collaboration between ANL and Exelon ensured that the “labs were not a hammer looking for a nail,” said Christopher D. Gould, Exelon. Paula Gant, Gas Technology Institute (GTI), stressed the role of consortia as a proving ground for technology.
Just as big and small firms play a role in the ecosystem, a few participants pointed out the necessity of big and small technologies. Ellen Williams, University of Maryland, noted that for every big technology required to combat the climate crisis, it will take hundreds of smaller technologies to enable its cost-effective performance. Varun Sivaram, Columbia University, called for sectoral road maps with ambitious goals to drive this process.
Several participants pointed to positive examples of collaboration. Walter G. Copan, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), described several NIST activities that leverage the insights, expertise, and feedback from industry to lead collaborative efforts in bridging the research and commercial enterprise. Willy C. Shih, Harvard Business School, referenced collaborative partnerships between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX to launch payloads into orbit, and Richard Carlin, Office of Naval Research (ONR), described how a proven Hacking for Defense (H4D) model guides activities in which ONR serves as the customer and sponsor for university projects.
REGIONAL STRATEGIES
Distinct capabilities and resources in different parts of the country and across the globe create opportunities for advancement of regional strategies. Over the course of the workshop, several participants highlighted opportunities to leverage local comparative advantages. Catherine Woteki, Iowa State University, and John Melo, Amyris, described the role of regionalization in sourcing biomass for biofuels and biobased products. As a case study in using regional leverage, Richard Kauffman, New York State Energy Development and Research Authority (NYSERDA), described New York State’s innovative approach to the development of offshore wind energy, which focused on aggregating demand across states and taking on soft costs such as permitting that normally fall on developers. David Turk, International Energy Agency (IEA), said that we need a range of innovation solutions that fit in a variety of geographies and cultural contexts.
JOBS
Ernest J. Moniz, Energy Futures Initiative (EFI), described how pre-COVID-19 energy sector job growth was double that of the whole economy, indicating the immense potential for job creation in the clean energy transition. Many participants discussed the opportunity for the United States to recapture manufacturing jobs by engaging in what Sivaram described as innovation-driven competition as opposed to commodity-driven competition. Jay F. Whitacre, Carnegie Mellon University, noted that promising U.S. start-ups will continue to be acquired by foreign firms if the U.S. government does not increase support for technology scale-up.
GOVERNMENT PROCESSES
Given that the federal government is a key innovator, convener, and funder for energy technology, several participants advocated that some of the government’s basic processes be reconsidered to ensure that innovation is not hindered. John Deutch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among others, described how the federal acquisition system can impede government-industry collaboration on projects, and its personnel system makes it similarly difficult for laboratory personnel to spend time in industry and vice versa. Regulation is another critical process: Adele Morris, Brookings Institution, referred to “regulatory seesaw,” which dramatically increases risk in clean energy investments. Louis Schick, Clean Energy Ventures, and Deepak Divan, Georgia Institute of Technology, described how the many different regulatory environments of the electricity industry slow the scaling and investment in emerging technologies. In a different vein, Morris pointed to the potential for federal procurement to help drive clean energy innovation by incorporating a shadow price for carbon.
MODELS TO GUIDE INNOVATION
Participants considered which successful models exist to guide the process of enhancing federal clean energy innovation. “We have got to talk more about the examples that are actually working,” said David Victor, University of California, San Diego.
Cherry Murray, Arizona State University, provided an insider’s look at what made Bell Laboratories such a powerful “idea factory,” and Jeffrey Marqusee, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), made a case for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as a demand-led innovation system that DOE should both learn from and leverage. Robin Millican, Gates Ventures, highlighted the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) comparative strengths, including its politically insulated leadership and funding
processes. Norman Augustine, Lockheed Martin (retired), pointed to the potential value of an In-Q-Tel for energy, and Arun Majumdar, Stanford University, highlighted SEMATECH, a model for government-industry partnership in critical energy sectors.