Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2008

Floor Speech

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (Senate - March 22, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

AMENDMENT NO. 551

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about an amendment that I will be modifying, amendment No. 551, that will increase funding for renewable energy development in this country. This amendment is offset. It is intended to provide funds for three areas of renewables that have the potential, I believe, to do great benefit for this Nation's electrical power generation, all without generating any greenhouse gases or having any negative environmental consequences.

My colleague, Senator Stevens, and I are seeking to raise funding for geothermal power, for ocean energy, and for small hydroelectric development.

I first wish to say I understand this budget resolution does raise funding for renewables and energy efficiency, and I applaud that effort, even though it falls somewhat short of the levels of funding we were hoping for when we passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 a couple years ago.

But I fear the budget shortchanges three areas of great potential energy, and that is, again, the area of geothermal, ocean energy, and small hydroelectric development. By this amendment, I wish to make a clear statement that this Senator wants to see money not just restored but increased for geothermal energy research and development and funding provided for research and development of all forms of ocean energy--current, tidal, wave projects--and also for the small hydroelectric developments, those that do not involve the damming of major river systems but instead use water from lake taps, creeks, or from run-of-river projects to generate the power.

We know that renewable energy is certainly growing in popularity and endorsements, and I very strongly support funneling additional Federal funds for research and development into the areas of wind, solar, biomass, coalbed methane, landfill gas, and all the other types of renewable energy projects we authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

But we largely have not done as well with geothermal funding and certainly have done far less to promote ocean and small hydroenergy developments.

On the geothermal issue, funding in recent years has dipped precipitously. This year, the Department of Energy is proposing no funding for geothermal. Last week, they did agree to effectively make a total of $5 million of new money available to study one possible area of geothermal, and this is in the area of heat mining, but this is just for the remainder of this fiscal year. After that, there is no funding.

This cut in funding, this zeroing out comes as MIT has released a report on the ``Future for Geothermal Energy.'' That report suggests enhanced geothermal system technology could provide 100,000 megawatts of baseload power, all without greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if the Government increases its research commitment to resource characterization and assessment.

The cut in funding also comes just as the Department of Energy has had a major success in proving the ability to convert low-temperature geothermal resources--this is subsurface water that is far below the boiling point, perhaps as low in temperature as 160 degrees--to power generation. This success in using new types of heat exchanges to drive power generation came about and was perfected in Alaska.

We have a location, Chena Hot Springs Resort, outside Fairbanks. The owner, Bernie Karl, has been dogged in his approach to making this happen, to defy the critics and the odds stacked against him to install the first low-temperature generation working process. This project has won accolades and engineering awards in the past year.

Mr. Karl did what everybody said he couldn't do. Some in the Energy Department seem to feel this project perhaps is not representative of anything other than this nice minor energy project in Alaska. But they don't seem to recognize that about 70 percent of the villages in Alaska and in many small towns in the American West all lie above potentially similar low water, shallow ground geothermal resources. They are sitting right on top of the resource. So in a State such as Alaska, where electricity can cost 80 cents per kilowatt hour generated by diesel fuel--this is how most of my villages are getting their fuel now--geothermal power at an operating cost of perhaps one-sixth to one-eighth of that amount is potentially a godsend. But there is no money in the budget to fund anything to support the geothermal energy.

There is also nothing to encourage traditional geothermal assessment and production, which has proven its worth in States from Nevada and California to the Intermountain West.

By specifically adding money to this budget and specifically saying that this addition is intended to provide an additional $50 million to geothermal for this year, it increases greatly the chances that appropriators later this year will not only restore but perhaps boost funding for geothermal energy.

On the ocean energy front, the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that this country has the potential from wave power to generate 2,100 terawatt hours of power, and if we were to capture 15 percent of that power, it would equal all of the hydroelectric generation in this country today.

We know that in a State such as Alaska, where we are surrounded literally on three sides by water, ocean energy is a huge potential source of power. But it is also an enormous source of power along the east coast, if we perfected devices to capture it so we have the economies of scale that make this power truly economic. Look at the west coast with California. We have the potential for so much with ocean energy.

Ocean energy is clean. It has no air emissions, minimal visual impacts, and it could provide plentiful power for everything from freshwater desalination to Hydrogen production. It could help economic development by providing a
cheaper, more plentiful supply of power in so many areas across this country.

So my amendment is intended to provide $50 million of funding for ocean energy research in fiscal year 2008. It would be a powerful statement that Congress supports this form of clean renewable energy.

A final component of the amendment seeks to encourage a $25 million expenditure for small hydro development. Again, this is not damming rivers to produce electricity but tapping non-fish-bearing lakes or diverting water from creeks to fuel smaller hydro units. These projects have little or no environmental impact on wildlife but can produce large amounts of greenhouse-gas-free energy. But the minimal grant and research assistance to continually improve the turbines will be quite beneficial.

In Alaska, we have over 100,000 rivers and large creeks. So we are a location, again, where small hydro can supply a large share of our future electrical needs, as it has done without environmental consequences for about 100 years, especially if we have this additional Federal assistance.

I come to the floor tonight to encourage adoption of an amendment that will help to encourage additional funding for renewable energy for those, I believe, neglected areas of the renewable energy portfolio.

I mentioned the amendment is fully offset. The $125 million total comes from the function 920 portion of the budget, miscellaneous allowances portion of our budget.

I will not belabor this further except to encourage my colleagues to support this amendment as a way of sending a clear signal that we support additional funding for renewable energy and for a wider portfolio of renewable energy projects. We don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, where we limit support to a few technologies so that we in Congress essentially pick the winners and the losers. By adding additional research and development assistance for geothermal, ocean energy, and small hydro, we can increase the possibilities that will allow these renewables to blossom. This comes at a modest impact on the budget, but I believe it could pay a huge benefit for our energy production in the future.

I yield the floor.

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