Government Grants for Alternative Energy
In his State of the Union Address for 2007,
President George W. Bush called for a 22% increase in federal grants for
research and development of alternative energy. However, in a speech he
gave soon after, he said to those assembled, I recognize that there has
been some interesting mixed signals when it comes to funding.
Where the mixed signals were coming from concerned the fact that at the
same time the President was calling on more government backing for
alternative energy research and development, the NREL—the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory of Golden, Colorado—was laying off workers
and contractors left and right. Apparently, the Laboratory got the hint,
because soon after the State of the Union Address, everyone was
re-hired. The second speech of the President's was actually given at the
NREL. There is almost unanimous public support for the federal backing
through research grants, tax breaks, and other financial incentives of
research and development of alternative energy sources.
The NREL is the nation's leading component of the National Bioenergy
Center, a “virtual” center that has no central bricks and mortar office.
The NREL's raison d'etre is the advancing of the US Department of
Energy's and the United States' alternative energy objectives. The
laboratory's field researchers and staff scientists, in the words of
Laboratory Director Dan Arvizu, “support critical market objectives to
accelerate research from scientific innovations to market-viable
alternative energy solutions. At the core of this strategic direction
are NREL's research and technology development areas. These areas span
from understanding renewable resources for energy, to the conversion of
these resources to renewable electricity and fuels, and ultimately to
the use of renewable electricity and fuels in homes, commercial
buildings, and vehicles.” The federally-backed Laboratory directly helps
along the United States' objectives for discovering renewable
alternative fuels for powering our economy and our lifestyles.
The NREL is set up to have several areas of expertise in alternative
energy research and development. It spearheads research and development
efforts into renewable sources of electricity; these would include such
things as solar power, wind power, biomass power, and geothermal power.
It also spearheads research and development of renewable fuels for
powering our vehicles such as biomass and biodiesel fuels and hydrogen
fuel cells. Then, it seeks to develop plans for integrated system
engineering; this includes bringing alternative energy into play within
buildings, electrical grids and delivery systems, and transportation
infrastructures. The Laboratory is also set up for strategic development
and analysis of alternative energy objectives through the forces of
economics, market analysis and planning, and alternative energy
investment portfolios structurings.
The NREL is additionally equipped with a Technology Transfer Office.
This Office supports laboratory scientists and engineers in the
practical application of and ability to make a living from their
expertise and the technologies they develop. NREL's research and
development staff and its facilities are recognized for their remarkable
prowess by private industry, which is reflected in the hundreds of
collaborative projects and licensed technologies that the Laboratory now
has with both public and private partners.
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