Best and the Brightest

The Abu Dhabi government has proposed a project similar to ARPA-E, hoping to make itself a hub for alternative-energy research. It has allocated $15 billion. Your allocation is $15 million . Are we taking this seriously enough?
Well, the $15 million is what you might call stopgap funding to get up and going. The authorization has a $300 million initial funding followed by $1 billion a year. We set that on the recommendation of experts that have seen these kinds of startups before.

You ' re a Democrat, so maybe this isn ' t a fair question, but which presidential candidate would better support alternative-energy research?
Well, they both have better plans than the current one. We win in that regard. Senator Obama seems to put the biggest emphasis on alternative-energy research, but I think Senator McCain also understands the need. Being from Arizona, he has seen firsthand the benefits of solar energy there. This legislation has bipartisan support, and because of that I think you're going to see it's acceptable to either candidate. This is not a partisan issue.

The European Union has much stronger requirements in terms of its use of alternative energy. Are we losing the race?
Currently we are. But I don't think we're so far behind we can't catch up. The next step is really an international collaboration. If you look at carbon capture and sequestration, it's going to be very expensive [to develop it]. If we pool our resources and our minds, then we can work together to make this breakthrough, which would benefit all of us. And then we need to make it available to China and India and other countries that are large coal users.

You ' ve said we ' re on " the cusp of another Sputnik moment. " Do you think the American government will respond the way it responded then, by making massive investments in science and technology?
I would like to see us do that. We're looking at a multibillion-dollar bailout [for financial firms], we're looking at a large national deficit—but I certainly think that we can invest $1 billion a year. A few years ago we gave tax incentives to the oil companies, back when the price of oil was $50 a barrel. Since the price has doubled, those incentives are no longer needed. We can take the approximately $20 billion over 10 years in tax breaks [for oil companies] and shift them into alternative-energy research. That way we're not adding to the deficit, but rather we're shifting the incentives.

What happens if we don ' t commit ourselves to finding new types of energy?
I helped write a bipartisan letter to the National Academies three years ago, asking them to do a report on the competitiveness of America in the 21st century. Their bottom line was that my 7-year-old daughter and her generation are going to inherit a national standard of living that's less than their parents unless we make some changes. Part of the reason for that is [the lack of] energy independence—this is a very important area and we can't have incremental change. We need to make a major, out-of-the-box breakthrough.

© 2008