[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 9, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8146-S8149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CLEAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his 
wise comments. As usual, he is right on the mark. I want to talk about 
the same subject, which is on the mind of almost every Tennessean I saw 
in the last 5 weeks, and I am sure it is on the

[[Page S8147]]

minds of most Americans. During this work period, all during August and 
part of September, in Tennessee, I did what I imagine most of us from 
the Senate did. In my case, I visited a producer in Knoxville who 
delivers tomatoes and vegetables to schools and restaurants. He was 
talking about the triple whammy that high energy prices cause when they 
have to pay extra for fuel to bring them to Knoxville, and pay extra to 
deliver them; and then the farmer, in the first place, had to pay extra 
to grow them because of energy costs. For the trucking company in 
Jackson, TN, and the food banks in Nashville and Memphis, it is all the 
same story about how high energy prices are hurting people and 
affecting the lives of Tennesseans.
  I wasn't surprised to find that Tennesseans and most Americans know 
there is no silver bullet and they know we cannot solve this problem 
tomorrow. But they expect us to start today, not tomorrow, to deal with 
the problem. That is why last May I went to Oak Ridge, TN, to say what 
I thought we ought to do about high energy prices. I proposed a new 
Manhattan project for clean energy independence. I said, to begin with, 
we should do the things we know how to do, and that is to drill 
offshore environmentally for oil and gas that we know we have and that 
we can use to increase our supply and reduce the price at home. That is 
in the case of transportation, primarily.
  In the case of electricity, we should pursue much more aggressively 
the technology we invented, which is nuclear power. It is only 20 
percent of our electricity, but if you care about global warming and 
clean air, it is 70 percent of our clean electricity. My proposal was 
that we borrow a page from history, from World War II, when President 
Roosevelt created a secret plan to build a bomb before Germany did, 
because if Germany got the bomb, it would have blackmailed the United 
States and the world. We succeeded due to that Presidential leadership, 
by the congressional leadership, and by drafting companies, literally, 
into the Manhattan project, by recruiting the best scientists in the 
world, by stating a clear objective and using American know-how to do 
it. I suggested we should do that same thing--maybe seven mini-
Manhattan projects with seven grand challenges:
  No. 1. We should make electric cars and trucks commonplace. That is 
getting to be a little more accepted. I talked to the head of the 
Austin, TX, utility district. He said they have a million cars in his 
district--and light trucks--that he guesses maybe 10 percent of them 
could be run by electricity instead of gasoline within 5 years, and 
maybe half of them within 15 to 20 years. That is 120 million vehicles 
if that percentage applied to the whole country. I asked how many more 
powerplants would you have to build so half of your cars and light 
trucks could be run on electricity instead of gasoline. ``Zero'' is the 
answer, because if you plug in at night, his utilities, and the 
Tennessee Valley Authority, and most utilities have plenty of excess 
electricity unused at night that they can sell to us at cheaper rates 
to plug our cars and trucks into. So that is one way to use less gas 
and oil--by using more electric cars. So over 5 years we should make 
that commonplace.
  A second grand challenge that I offered was to make carbon capture--
the capturing of carbon out of coal plants--a reality within 5 years. 
We talk a lot about this, taking carbon out of coal plants' pollution--
that produces about half of our electricity--and make it a reality. We 
have not done it yet. We do it a few places by putting carbon back down 
into the ground for oil. But over 5 years, if we made a crash program 
out of it, as we did with the Manhattan project, we might find a way to 
get rid of that carbon, help global warming, use the powerplants, which 
is homegrown electricity, and it would set an example for China, India, 
and other places that are building dirty coal plants that will affect 
our air as well.
  Third, making solar power cost competitive with fossil fuels. Wind is 
useful in some places, and it has a subsidy. More widespread and 
promising is solar power. Solar thermal powerplants are solving the 
problem we have with wind, which is that we cannot store electricity 
made from it yet. It blows when it wants to. With these solar thermal 
plants, they make steam, which can be put in the ground and use it when 
needed to create electricity.
  Fourth, safely reprocess and store nuclear waste. We should do that.
  Fifth, make advanced biofuels cost competitive with gasoline. There 
is a limit to what we can do with corn to make fuel, but there are 
plenty of crops, such as switchgrass, which, with further research on a 
crash program, we could use less gas and oil.
  Sixth, we should make new buildings green buildings. Over the next 30 
years, we should make new buildings green buildings.
  Finally, participate in the international research for fusion. I know 
that is a long shot. But the United States should participate in trying 
to recreate on Earth the way the Sun creates energy.
  If we had a new Manhattan project for clean energy independence that 
began by doing what we already know how to do--drill offshore, create 
more nuclear power, and do the seven things I mentioned--that would be 
the kind of policy we should adopt and people would respect us for. But 
what happened? We didn't take it up. When we left in August, despite 
the fact that, according to surveys by Dave Winston, 81 percent of the 
American people agree with the idea of a new Manhattan project for 
clean energy independence, we were still arguing about whether we ought 
to be discussing high gasoline prices.
  Unfortunately, the Democratic leader didn't want to allow us to bring 
up legislation that we wanted to bring up, which would find more 
American energy. Apparently, that has changed a little bit, and I am 
glad to see that. We may have some choices this month.
  The question is: What can we do in the next 3 weeks? We are having an 
energy summit on Friday. That is good. The Democratic and Republican 
leader and the Democratic and Republican head of the Energy Committee 
will organize it. It would have been better if we had it in June or 
July. But that is good. Apparently, we will have legislation to 
consider, perhaps from the House, and perhaps Senator Bingaman will 
have legislation. And there is the legislation that the group called 
the Gang of 10, 16, or 20, a group working in a bipartisan way to solve 
the problem, is working on. We Republicans offered the Gas Price 
Reduction Act, which includes drilling offshore, encouraging electric 
cars, dealing with speculation and oil shale in the Western States. 
That would be a start.
  As the Senator from Texas said, we have to deal with the question in 
the appropriations process that has restricted all these years our 
ability to drill offshore. You see, we stick it in the appropriations 
bill every year and say you cannot drill offshore. So we are going to 
have to deal with that by the end of the month. The responsible way to 
do that is to bring it up and vote on it. Let everybody stand up and 
say whether they think it is a good idea to give every single American 
State the opportunity to drill for oil and gas at least 50 miles 
offshore, and for that State to keep 37.5 percent of the proceeds. If I 
were the Governor of a State with a coastline, which I am not, I would 
be doing that quickly and using those revenues for higher education, 
keeping taxes down, and improving the environment.
  At the very least, we should make certain in these next 3 weeks that 
we do job one, which is, to me, making sure that we drill offshore to 
produce American energy. That would keep $50 billion or $60 billion 
more at home and send a signal that the third largest producer of oil 
in the world is willing to produce, and it would at least get us 
started down the road to finding more American oil and using less 
foreign oil.
  I ask unanimous consent that my remarks in Oak Ridge in May about a 
new Manhattan project for energy independence be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S8148]]

 United States Senator Lamar Alexander, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 
                             May 9th, 2008

         A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy Independence


             Seven grand challenges for the next five years

     Plug-in electric cars and trucks, carbon capture, solar 
         power, nuclear waste, advanced biofuels, green buildings, 
         fusion


                                History

       In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Sen. Kenneth 
     McKellar, the Tennessean who chaired the Appropriations 
     Committee, to hide $2 billion in the appropriations bill for 
     a secret project to win World War II.
       Sen. McKellar replied, ``Mr. President, I have just one 
     question: where in Tennessee do you want me to hide it?''
       That place in Tennessee turned out to be Oak Ridge, one of 
     three secret cities that became the principal sites for the 
     Manhattan Project.
       The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to 
     split the atom and build a bomb before Germany could. Nearly 
     200,000 people worked secretly in 30 different sites in three 
     countries. President Roosevelt's $2 billion appropriation 
     would be $24 billion today.
       According to New York Times science reporter William 
     Laurence, ``Into [the bomb's] design went millions of man-
     hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated 
     intellectual effort in history.''


                    The goal: victory over blackmail

       I am in Oak Ridge today to propose that the United States 
     launch a new Manhattan project: a 5-year project to put 
     America firmly on the path to clean energy independence.
       Instead of ending a war, the goal will be clean energy 
     independence--so that we can deal with rising gasoline 
     prices, electricity prices, clean air, climate change and 
     national security--for our country first, and--because other 
     countries have the same urgent needs and therefore will adopt 
     our ideas--for the rest of the world.
       By independence I do not mean that the United States would 
     never buy oil from Mexico or Canada or Saudi Arabia. By 
     independence I do mean that the United States could never be 
     held hostage by any country for our energy supplies.
       In 1942, many were afraid that the first country to build 
     an atomic bomb could blackmail the rest of the world. Today, 
     countries that supply oil and natural gas can blackmail the 
     rest of the world.


                             Not a new idea

       A new Manhattan Project is not a new idea--but it is a good 
     idea and fits the goal of clean energy independence.
       The Apollo Program to send men to the moon in the 1960s was 
     a kind of Manhattan Project. Presidential candidates John 
     McCain and Barack Obama have called for a Manhattan Project 
     for new energy sources. So have former House Speaker Newt 
     Gingrich, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, 
     Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri--
     among others.
       And, throughout the two years of discussion that led to the 
     passage in 2007 of the America COMPETES Act, several 
     participants suggested that focusing on energy independence 
     would force the kind of investments in the physical sciences 
     and research that the United States needs to maintain its 
     competitiveness.


                      A new overwhelming challenge

       The overwhelming challenge in 1942 was the prospect that 
     Germany would build the bomb and win the war before America 
     did.
       The overwhelming challenge today, according to National 
     Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone, in his address 
     last week to the Academy's annual meeting, is to discover 
     ways to satisfy the human demand for and use of energy in an 
     environmentally satisfactory and affordable way so that we 
     are not overly dependent on overseas sources.
       Cicerone estimates that this year Americans will pay $500 
     billion overseas for oil--that's $1,600 for each one of us--
     some of it to nations that are hostile or even trying to kill 
     us by bankrolling terrorists. Sending $500 billion abroad 
     weakens our dollar. It is half our trade deficit. It is 
     forcing gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon and crushing 
     family budgets.
       Then there are the environmental consequences. If worldwide 
     energy usage continues to grow as it has, humans will inject 
     as much CO2 into the air from fossil fuel burning 
     between 2000 and 2030 as they did between 1850 and 2000. 
     There is plenty of coal to help achieve our energy 
     independence, but there is no commercial way (yet) to capture 
     and store the carbon from so much coal burning--and we have 
     not finished the job of controlling sulfur, nitrogen, and 
     mercury emissions.


                 The Manhattan Project model fits today

       In addition to the need to meet an overwhelming challenge, 
     other characteristics of the original Manhattan Project are 
     suited to this new challenge:
       It needs to proceed as fast as possible along several 
     tracks to reach the goal. According to Don Gillespie, a young 
     engineer at Los Alamos during World War II, the ``entire 
     project was being conducted using a shotgun approach, trying 
     all possible approaches simultaneously, without regard to 
     cost, to speed toward a conclusion.''
       It needs presidential focus and bipartisan support in 
     Congress.
       It needs the kind of centralized, gruff leadership that 
     Gen. Leslie R. Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers gave the 
     first Manhattan Project.
       It needs to ``break the mold.'' To borrow the words of Dr. 
     J. Robert Oppenheimer in a speech to Los Alamos scientists in 
     November of 1945, the challenge of clean energy independence 
     is ``too revolutionary to consider in the framework of old 
     ideas.''
       Most important, in the words of George Cowan as reported in 
     the excellent book edited by Cynthia C. Kelly, ``. . . The 
     Manhattan Project model starts with a small, diverse group of 
     great minds.''
       I said to the National Academies when we first asked for 
     their help on the America COMPETES Act in 2005, ``In 
     Washington, D.C., most ideas fail for lack of the idea.''


                  The America COMPETES model fits, too

       There are some lessons, too, from America COMPETES.
       Remember how it happened. Just three years ago--in May 
     2005--a bipartisan group of us asked the National Academies 
     to tell Congress in priority order the 10 most important 
     steps we could take to help America keep its brainpower 
     advantage.
       By October, the Academies had assembled a ``small diverse 
     group of great minds'' chaired by Norm Augustine which 
     presented to Congress and to the President 20 specific 
     recommendations in a report called ``Rising Above the 
     Gathering Storm.'' We considered proposals by other 
     competitiveness commissions.
       Then, in January 2006, President Bush outlined his American 
     Competitiveness Initiative to double over 10 years basic 
     research budgets for the physical sciences and engineering. 
     The Republican and Democratic Senate leaders and 68 other 
     senators sponsored the legislation. It became law by August 
     2007, with strong support from Speaker Pelosi and the 
     President.


                Not elected to take a vacation this year

       Combining the model of the Manhattan Project with the 
     process of the America COMPETES Act has already begun. The 
     National Academies have underway an ``America's Energy 
     Future'' project that will be completed in 2010. Ralph 
     Cicerone has welcomed sitting down with a bipartisan group to 
     discuss what concrete proposals we might offer earlier than 
     that to the new president and the new Congress. Energy 
     Secretary Sam Bodman and Ray Orbach, the Energy Department's 
     Under Secretary for Science, have said the same.
       The presidential candidates seem ready. There is bipartisan 
     interest in Congress. Congressman Bart Gordon, Democratic 
     Chairman of the Science Committee in the House of 
     Representatives--and one of the original four signers of the 
     2005 request to the National Academies that led to the 
     America COMPETES Act--is here today to offer his ideas. 
     Congressman Zach Wamp, a senior member of the House 
     Appropriations Committee who played a key role in the America 
     COMPETES Act, is co-host for this meeting.
       I have talked with Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, 
     the chairman and senior Republican on the Energy Committee 
     who played such a critical role in America COMPETES, and to 
     Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who likely will succeed Sen. Domenici as 
     the senior Republican on the Energy Committee.
       Some say a presidential election year is no time for 
     bipartisan action. I can't think of a better time. Voters 
     expect presidential candidates and candidates for Congress to 
     come up with solutions for $4 gasoline, clean air and climate 
     change, and the national security implications of our 
     dependence on foreign oil. The people didn't elect us to take 
     a vacation this year just because there is a presidential 
     election.


                           So how to proceed?

       A few grand challenges--Sen. Bingaman's first reaction to 
     the idea of a new Manhattan Project was that instead we need 
     several mini-Manhattan Projects. He suggested as an example 
     the ``14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st 
     Century'' laid out by former MIT President Chuck Vest, the 
     president of the National Institute of Engineering--three of 
     which involve energy. I agree with Sen. Bingaman and Chuck 
     Vest.
       Congress doesn't do ``comprehensive'' well, as was 
     demonstrated by the collapse of the comprehensive immigration 
     bill. Step-by-step solutions or different tracks toward one 
     goal are easier to digest and have fewer surprises. And, of 
     course, the original Manhattan Project itself proceeded along 
     several tracks toward one goal.
       Here are my criteria for choosing several grand challenges:
       Grand consequences, too--The United States uses 25 percent 
     of all the energy in the world. Interesting solutions for 
     small problems producing small results should be a part of 
     some other project.
       Real scientific breakthroughs--This is not about drilling 
     offshore for oil or natural gas in an environmentally clean 
     way or building a new generation of nuclear power plants, 
     both of which we already know how to do--and, in my opinion, 
     should be doing.
       Five years--Grand challenges should put the United States 
     within five years firmly on a path to clean energy 
     independence so that goal can be achieved within a 
     generation.
       Family Budget--Solutions need to fit the family budget, and 
     costs of different solutions need to be compared.
       Consensus--The Augustine panel that drafted the ``Gathering 
     Storm'' report wisely

[[Page S8149]]

     avoided some germane topics, such as excessive litigation, 
     upon which they could not agree, figuring that Congress might 
     not be able to agree either.


                         Seven grand challenges

       Plug-in electric cars and trucks, carbon capture, solar 
     power, nuclear waste, advanced biofuels, green buildings, and 
     fusion.
       Here is where I invite your help. Rather than having 
     members of Congress proclaim these challenges, or asking 
     scientists alone to suggest them, I believe there needs to be 
     preliminary discussion--including about whether the criteria 
     are correct. Then, Congress can pose to scientists questions 
     about the steps to take to achieve the grand challenges.
       To begin the discussion, I suggest asking what steps 
     Congress and the Federal government should take during the 
     next five years toward these seven grand challenges so that 
     the United States would be firmly on the path toward clean 
     energy independence within a generation:
       1. Make plug-in hybrid vehicles commonplace. In the 1960s, 
     H. Ross Perot noticed that when banks in Texas locked their 
     doors at 5 p.m., they also turned off their new computers. 
     Perot bought the idle nighttime bank computer capacity and 
     made a deal with states to manage Medicare and Medicaid data. 
     Banks made money, states saved money, and Perot made a 
     billion dollars.
       Idle nighttime bank computer capacity in the 1960s reminds 
     me of idle nighttime power plant capacity in 2008. This is 
     why:
       The Tennessee Valley Authority has 7,000-8,000 megawatts--
     the equivalent of seven or eight nuclear power plants or 15 
     coal plants--of unused electric capacity most nights.
       Beginning in 2010 Nissan, Toyota, General Motors and Ford 
     will sell electric cars that can be plugged into wall 
     sockets. FedEx is already using hybrid delivery trucks.
       TVA could offer ``smart meters'' that would allow its 8.7 
     million customers to plug in their vehicles to ``fill up'' at 
     night for only a few dollars, in exchange for the customer 
     paying more for electricity between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. when 
     the grid is busy.
       Sixty percent of Americans drive less than 30 miles each 
     day. Those Americans could drive a plug-in electric car or 
     truck without using a drop of gasoline. By some estimates, 
     there is so much idle electric capacity in power plants at 
     night that over time we could replace three-fourths of our 
     light vehicles with plug-ins. That could reduce our overseas 
     oil bill from $500 billion to $250 billion--and do it all 
     without building one new power plant.
       In other words, we have the plug. The cars are coming. All 
     we need is the cord.
       Too good to be true? Haven't U.S. presidents back to Nixon 
     promised revolutionary vehicles? Yes, but times have changed. 
     Batteries are better. Gas is $4. We are angry about sending 
     so many dollars overseas, worried about climate change and 
     clean air. And, consumers have already bought one million 
     hybrid vehicles and are waiting in line to buy more--even 
     without the plug-in. Down the road is the prospect of a 
     hydrogen fuel-cell hybrid vehicle, with two engines--neither 
     of which uses a drop of gasoline. Oak Ridge is evaluating 
     these opportunities.
       Still, there are obstacles. Expensive batteries make the 
     additional cost per electric car $8,000-$11,000. Smart 
     metering is not widespread. There will be increased pollution 
     from the operation of coal plants at night. We know how to 
     get rid of those sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury pollutants 
     (and should do it), but haven't yet found a way to get rid of 
     the carbon produced by widespread use in coal burning power 
     plants. Which brings us to the second grand challenge:
       2. Make carbon capture and storage a reality for coal-
     burning power plants. This was one of the National Institute 
     of Engineering's grand challenges. And there may be solutions 
     other than underground storage, such as using algae to 
     capture carbon. Interestingly, the Natural Resources Defense 
     Council argues that, after conservation, coal with carbon 
     capture is the best option for clean energy independence 
     because it provides for the growing power needs of the U.S. 
     and will be easily adopted by other countries.
       3. Make solar power cost competitive with power from fossil 
     fuels. This is a second of the National Institute's grand 
     challenges. Solar power, despite 50 years of trying, produces 
     one one-hundredth of one percent of America's electricity. 
     The cost of putting solar panels on homes averages $25,000-
     $30,000 and the electricity produced, for the most part, 
     can't be stored. Now, there is new photovoltaic research as 
     well as promising solar thermal power plants, which capture 
     the sunlight using mirrors, turn heat into steam, and store 
     it underground until the customer needs it.
       4. Safely reprocess and store nuclear waste. Nuclear plants 
     produce 20 percent of America's electricity, but 70 percent 
     of America's clean electricity--that is, electricity that 
     does not pollute the air with mercury, nitrogen, sulfur, or 
     carbon. The most important breakthrough needed during the 
     next five years to build more nuclear power plants is solving 
     the problem of what to do with nuclear waste. A political 
     stalemate has stopped nuclear waste from going to Yucca 
     Mountain in Nevada, and $15 billion collected from ratepayers 
     for that purpose is sitting in a bank. Recycling waste could 
     reduce its mass by 90 percent, creating less stuff to store 
     temporarily while long-term storage is resolved.
       5. Make advanced biofuels cost-competitive with gasoline. 
     The backlash toward ethanol made from corn because of its 
     effect on food prices is a reminder to beware of the great 
     law of unintended consequences when issuing grand challenges. 
     Ethanol from cellulosic materials shows great promise, but 
     there are a limited number of cars capable of using 
     alternative fuels and of places for drivers to buy it. 
     Turning coal into liquid fuel is an established technology, 
     but expensive and a producer of much carbon.
       6. Make new buildings green buildings. Japan believes it 
     may miss its 2012 Kyoto goals for greenhouse gas reductions 
     primarily because of energy wasted by inefficient buildings. 
     Many of the technologies needed to do this are known. 
     Figuring out how to accelerate their use in a decentralized 
     society is most of this grand challenge.
       7. Provide energy from fusion. The idea of recreating on 
     Earth the way the sun creates energy and using it for 
     commercial power is the third grand challenge suggested by 
     the National Institute of Engineering. The promise of 
     sustaining a controlled fusion reaction for commercial power 
     generation is so fantastic that the five-year goal should be 
     to do everything possible to reach the long-term goal. The 
     failure of Congress to approve the President's budget request 
     for U.S. participation in the International Thermonuclear 
     Experimental Reactor--the ITER Project--is embarrassing.


                          Anything is possible

       This country of ours is a remarkable place.
       Even during an economic slowdown, we will produce this year 
     about 30 percent of all the wealth in the world for the 5 
     percent of us who live in the United States.
       Despite ``the gathering storm'' of concern about American 
     competitiveness, no other country approaches our brainpower 
     advantage--the collection of research universities, national 
     laboratories and private-sector companies we have.
       And this is still the only country where people say with a 
     straight face that anything is possible--and really believe 
     it.
       These are precisely the ingredients that America needs 
     during the next five years to place ourselves firmly on a 
     path to clean energy independence within a generation--and in 
     doing so, to make our jobs more secure, to help balance the 
     family budget, to make our air cleaner and our planet safer 
     and healthier--and to lead the world to do the same.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, is there 10 minutes remaining on our side?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 9 minutes 20 seconds.

                          ____________________