UCI prof, other Nobelists urge Obama to raise green tech funding

The Orange County Register

July 18th, 2009

By Ben Young Landis

Renowned UC Irvine chemist F. Sherwood Rowland joined 33 other Nobel Prize winners in sending a letter to President Obama this week, urging him to fulfill his promise of $150 billion in clean energy technology funding.

UCI's Rowland (left) received the Nobel Prize in 1995. Photo by Eric Roxfelt/AP.

Nobel laureates from USC, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, Stanford and other U.S. universities signed the letter, which criticizes the recently passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454). Rowland and his Nobel colleagues say that the Act does not provide the stable, annual funding that Obama promised earlier this year.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one promising technology which Obama supports. It re-routes carbon emissions from coal power plants and locks up that pollution securely underground. But Rowland say so far, Congress has not come anywhere close to support the long term effort needed to refine CCS.

“The President needs to remember his campaign statements and impress them upon Congress,” Rowland said Friday.

Under the act, payments from a “cap and trade” pollution allowance exchange will help fund the development of clean energy infrastructure and technology. Companies that can afford to pay for pollution credits will essentially help fund private and public research towards cheaper, more efficient clean energy technology.

But the Nobel scientists say that the act only provides 1/15th of the green tech budget promised by the president. Earlier this year, President Obama proposed to invest $150 billion over 10 years in energy efficiency and carbon reduction research.

In a press statement, physicist Burton Richter and the lead Nobel signee said that with sound research investments, rapid progress can be expected in technologies that will make buildings, vehicles, and industrial processes much more efficient and affordable than any available today.

“Congress so far has failed to act,” the statement said. “The climate legislation will not be nearly as effective if it does not provide for strong and stable funding of research.”

The letter was written in partnership with the Federation of American Scientists, a science policy organization founded by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project.