[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 51 (Monday, March 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1922-S1925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I believe climate change is real. I 
believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases are a major cause of 
climate change, and I believe the Democratic plan for climate change, 
which the Senator from Texas just spoke about--the Green New Deal--is 
so far out in left field that not many are going to take it seriously.
  So as one Republican, I am here today to propose this response to 
climate change, which is that the United States should launch a New 
Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, a 5-year project with 10 grand 
challenges that will use American research and technology to put our 
country and our world firmly on the path for cleaner, cheaper energy.
  Meeting these grand challenges would create breakthroughs in advanced 
nuclear reactors, natural gas, carbon recapture, better batteries, 
greener buildings, electric vehicles, cheaper solar power, and fusion. 
To provide the tools to create these breakthroughs, the Federal 
Government should double its funding for energy research and keep the 
United States No. 1 in advanced computing. This strategy takes 
advantage of the United States' secret weapon--our extraordinary 
capacity for basic research and especially in our 17 National 
Laboratories. It will strengthen our economy. It will raise family 
incomes.
  This strategy also recognizes that when it comes to climate change, 
China, India, and other developing countries are the problem. American 
innovation is the answer. According to the Global Carbon Project, over 
the last 13 years the United States has reduced production of 
greenhouse gases more than any other major country. Let me say that 
again. According to the Global Carbon Project, over the last 13 years 
the United States has reduced production of greenhouse gases more than 
any other major country. But over the last 5 years, China and its 
carbon emissions have risen. The U.S. reduction is largely thanks to 
conservation and switching from coal to natural gas in the production 
of electricity.
  This is the way a California physicist explains it: Our mothers told 
us as children to clean our plates because children in India were 
starving. Now, cleaning our plates was a good thing for us to do, but 
it didn't do much for starving children in India. In the same way, 
reducing carbon emissions in the United States is a good thing to do, 
but it doesn't do much to address climate change because most of the 
increase in greenhouse gases is in developing countries. If we want to 
do something about climate change, we should use American research and 
technology to provide the rest of the world with tools to create low-
cost energy that emits fewer greenhouse gases.
  The purpose of the original Manhattan Project during World War II was 
to find a way to split the atom and build a bomb before Germany could. 
The New York Times described this as the ``most concentrated 
intellectual effort in history.'' Instead of ending a war, the goal of 
the New Manhattan Project will be to minimize the disruption on our 
lives and our economies caused by climate change, to clean the air, and 
to raise family incomes, both in our country and in the rest of the 
world, by creating large amounts of reliable, clean, inexpensive 
energy.
  Can a New Manhattan Project accomplish such bold breakthroughs in 
just 5 years? Well, take a look at the last 5 years. Carbon emissions 
from energy consumption are down by 230 million metric tons. The number 
of electric vehicles has doubled and so has the median driving range 
per charge. The utility scale cost of solar power has been nearly cut 
in half. The number of homes has risen by 4 percent, but household 
energy usage has decreased by 10 percent. We lost and then we reclaimed 
the No. 1 spot in supercomputing. The cost of natural gas has been cut 
in half, and the percent of electricity provided by natural gas has 
increased from 27 percent to 35 percent. And that is all in the last 5 
years.
  I will not spend time in these remarks debunking the Green New Deal 
because so many others have so effectively already done that. 
Basically, the Green New Deal is an assault on cars, cows, and 
combustion. With nuclear power available, its strategy for fighting 
climate change with windmills makes as much sense as going to war in 
sailboats. As a bonus, and as the Senator from Texas outlined, it 
throws in free college, a guaranteed job with a government-set wage, 
and it would take away private health insurance on the job from 170 
million Americans, and no one has any earthly idea what it will cost 
taxpayers.
  You don't have to believe that humans cause climate change to believe 
in the New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, and you don't have to be 
a Republican. Hopefully, the New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy can 
become a bipartisan proposal. Many of its 10 grand challenges have been 
proposed by the National Institute of Engineering and the National 
Academy of Sciences. At different times, Barack Obama, John McCain, 
Newt Gingrich, and Howard Dean have all called for a Manhattan Project 
for new energy sources.
  These are the 10 grand challenges:
  First is advanced nuclear. Ninety-eight nuclear reactors produce 60 
percent of all carbon-free electricity in the United States. There has 
never been a death as a result of an accident at one of these reactors. 
The problem is that in competition with natural gas and coal, these 
reactors cost too much to build and some of them cost too much to 
operate. According to the Energy Information Administration, 11 
reactors may shut down over the next 5 years. Building the Vogtle 
nuclear plant in Georgia--the only two new reactors being built in the 
United States--could cost as much as $27.5 billion. Building two 
natural gas plants to

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create the same amount of electricity would cost less than $2 billion. 
We need to stop talking about advanced reactors and actually build 
something. Within the next 5 years, we need to build one or more 
advanced reactors to demonstrate the capabilities they may bring--lower 
costs, increased safety, and less nuclear waste.
  Natural gas. During the 1980s, American enterprise and technology 
created a new, cheaper way to produce natural gas in the United States. 
This helped our country lead the world in reducing carbon emissions 
because natural gas has about half the carbon emissions as a typical 
coal plant. Continuing to develop new combustion technologies will make 
natural gas-fired electric generation more efficient and further reduce 
carbon emissions.
  Next is carbon capture. This is really the holy grail of clean 
energy. Coal is cheap. There is a lot of it. Already we know how to 
capture sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury from coal plants to clean the 
air. We have seen that happen in Tennessee. If we can figure out a way 
also to capture carbon at a cheaper cost and find large-scale uses for 
its byproduct--for example, CO2 to ethanol--coal could be 
used everywhere in the world. The Natural Resources Defense Council has 
argued that after conservation, coal with carbon capture is the best 
option for clean energy.
  Next is better batteries. The all-electric Nissan Leaf that I bought 
in 2011 had a hard time getting me from the Capitol to Dulles airport 
and back. Its range was about 70 miles. Today, the Nissan Leaf can 
travel 226 miles on one charge. A Tesla Model S can travel 335 miles on 
one charge. The price of lithium-ion batteries should fall another 45 
percent during the next 5 years. Better batteries can also one day 
allow utilities and their customers to store large amounts of 
electricity during nonpeak hours.
  Greener buildings. Despite considerable recent progress, this is 
still the real low-hanging fruit. Residential and commercial buildings 
still consume 39 percent of U.S. energy.
  The next grand challenge is electric vehicles. Ten years ago there 
were no mass-produced electric cars on United States highways. Today 
there are 1 million, and you read in the paper almost every day about a 
major automaker making a large investment to make millions more.
  Cheaper solar. Solar power has grown by 1,500 percent since 2011, but 
it still accounts for only about 2 percent of U.S. electricity. The new 
goal for the Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative is to lower the 
cost of solar another 50 percent to 3 cents per kilowatt hour for 
utility scale solar.
  Then there is fusion. This is the ultimate green energy dream--to 
make electricity on Earth the way the Sun makes it. Instead of 
splitting elements, combine them and make clean, almost limitless 
energy without waste. This is still a dream, but there can be 
meaningful progress in the next 5 years.
  Advanced computing. China, Japan, the United States, and the European 
Union--all want to be first in advanced computing. The stakes are high 
because the winner has an advantage in such things as advanced 
manufacturing, simulating advanced reactors and weapons before they are 
built, finding terrorists, saving billions of Medicaid waste, and 
simulating the electric grid in a natural disaster.
  The United States regained the No. 1 spot last year in advanced 
computing, thanks to sustained funding by Congress during both the 
Obama and Trump administrations, and we need to keep that position.
  The final grand challenge is to double energy research funding. 
Advanced computing is the first tool the New Manhattan Project needs to 
meet its grand challenges. The second tool is money. It would take $6 
billion annually to double funding for the Department of Energy's 
Office of Science and its 17 National Laboratories, which is where most 
of our Nation's basic energy research is done. By comparison, many 
estimate the cost of the Green New Deal in the trillions.
  This is a bold agenda and, hopefully, a bipartisan agenda. It is an 
agenda that can, over the next 5 years, place Americans firmly on the 
path toward dealing with climate change and at the same time produce 
large amounts of reliable, clean energy that lifts family incomes in 
our country and around the world.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a 2012 op-ed in the New 
York Times, entitled ``The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,'' 
authored by Richard Muller, a professor of physics at the University of 
California, Berkeley, and, second, an address I made in Oak Ridge, TN, 
in 2008, which called for a New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy 
Independence, be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, July 28, 2012]

               The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

                         (By Richard A. Muller)

       Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified 
     problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw 
     doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, 
     following an intensive research effort involving a dozen 
     scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that 
     the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm 
     now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the 
     cause.
       My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of 
     careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface 
     Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter 
     Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of 
     the earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees 
     Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of 
     one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. 
     Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this 
     increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.
       These findings are stronger than those of the 
     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations 
     group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on 
     global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded 
     only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be 
     attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the 
     I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 
     could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even 
     a substantial part of the more recent warming could be 
     natural.
       Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical 
     methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert 
     Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature 
     much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised 
     by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our 
     results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior 
     groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available 
     temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from 
     poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations 
     and poor ones) and from human intervention and data 
     adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). 
     In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially 
     troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.
       The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt 
     dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic 
     eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect 
     sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth's 
     surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations 
     attributable to El Nino and other ocean currents such as the 
     Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the ``flattening'' 
     of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, 
     in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the 
     gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We 
     tried fitting the shape to simple math functions 
     (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to 
     rising functions like world population. By far the best match 
     was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured 
     from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.
       Just as important, our record is long enough that we could 
     search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the 
     historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. 
     Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that 
     variations in sunlight could have ended the ``Little Ice 
     Age,'' a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 
     1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of 
     the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. 
     This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we've 
     learned from satellite measurements that solar activity 
     changes the brightness of the sun very little.
       How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon 
     dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we've 
     tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated 
     greenhouse effect--extra warming from trapped heat radiation. 
     These facts don't prove causality and they shouldn't end 
     skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered 
     seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at 
     least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a 
     second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn't change the 
     results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, 
     complex global climate models, the huge computer programs 
     that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and 
     adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the 
     close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature 
     rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.
       It's a scientist's duty to be properly skeptical. I still 
     find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate 
     change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I've

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     analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism 
     about them hasn't changed.
       Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. 
     The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been 
     going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar 
     bears aren't dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan 
     glaciers aren't going to melt by 2035. And it's possible that 
     we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, 
     during the ``Medieval Warm Period'' or ``Medieval Optimum,'' 
     an interval of warm conditions known from historical records 
     and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm 
     spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by 
     cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to ``global'' 
     warming is weaker than tenuous.
       The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five 
     scientific papers now online at BerkeleyEarth.org. That site 
     also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, 
     with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, 
     but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four 
     of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the 
     scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the 
     analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with 
     the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the 
     heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions 
     implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.
       What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions 
     increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect 
     the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one 
     and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if 
     the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid 
     economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the 
     last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds 
     one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could 
     take place in less than 20 years.
       Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in 
     principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this 
     analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been 
     answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help 
     settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its 
     human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across 
     the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and 
     should be done.
                                  ____


         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

                             May 9th, 2008

     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 needs.
       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

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     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 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:
       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 electric cars and trucks 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. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.