Background

The energy challenges faced by the United States and the rest of the world—in particular the climate change challenge—can be lessened by promoting increased use of the most cost-effective energy supply and energy-end-use technologies currently available, but actually surmounting those challenges in an affordable way will require development and deployment of energy technologies superior to those available today. The gap between current efforts in energy-technology innovation and the significant advancements in both basic and applied research that will be required to produce transformational technologies and, thereby, meet the climate mitigation challenge is large. Unfortunately, both private and public investments in research, development, demonstration, and early deployment of advanced energy technologies have been falling far short of what is likely to be needed to make these technologies available in the timeframes and on the scales required.

Significant initiatives are underway aimed at shaping future climate policy and legislation in both Houses of Congress, the Executive branch, and many State governments. But while the need for new technologies to address climate change and enable deep reductions in future emissions is widely recognized, recent policy efforts have focused primarily on regulatory approaches, such as an emission trading program. By and large, the scientifically-enabled technology elements of these proposals are crudely designed, despite the fact that these proposals include billions of dollars in new funding for climate-related technologies.

The R&D colloquium sponsored by NCEP and Harvard University in July 2007 pointed to the need for further exploration of institutions and mechanisms needed to effectively carry out research on climate mitigation technology. The unprecedented scale-up in Federal resources expected to be made available for technology suggests that an expansion of the existing Federal R&D apparatus will be necessary. While ample capacity seems to exist for performing R&D at national labs and research universities, it is unclear whether the current institutional arrangements for administering R&D will be adequate to ensure the most efficient use of new funding.

Building upon its July colloquium, NCEP is examining several issues related to the institutions and mechanisms surrounding government-sponsored RD&D and technology deployment incentives, such as whether a new R&D management structure is needed; how best to promote collaboration across various institutions; whether a dedicated revenue source be established; and what are the best mechanisms for demonstration and deployment of new technologies. As part of this work NCEP and the Harris School are sponsoring a colloquium to explore a range of issues related to climate change R&D, including R&D management structures, collaborative models for pursuing R&D, funding, and designing the climate change R&D portfolio.

The colloquium will explore ways in which the university community and the national laboratories can expand and enhance the human resources and institutional capabilities necessary to effectively utilize the substantially increased levels of R&D funding—a potential scale-up in Federal research resources that has no precedent beyond the Manhattan Project. Anecdotal evidence suggests that neither the university community nor the national laboratories currently have the capability to prudently manage the expansion of research activity envisioned as part of a policy approach on climate change. Consequently, it seems essential for public and private research communities to collaborate in providing leadership for the effective use of these expanded resources, in preference to what is otherwise expected to be a political allocation of R&D funds.