A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The EERE Network News is also available on the Web at: www.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm

March 18, 2009

News and Events

• DOE to Invest $8 Billion in Weatherization and State Energy Grants
• Appropriations Act Provides Nearly $2 Billion in New Funding for EERE
• Interior Department Pursues Renewable Energy on Land and at Sea
• USDA Funds Energy Audits for Farms, Ranches, and Rural Small Businesses
• Space Shuttle Delivers Final Set of Solar Wings to the ISS

Energy Connections

• Climate Congress Reports Worsening Findings on Climate Change

News and Events

DOE to Invest $8 Billion in Weatherization and State Energy Grants

DOE announced last week that it will invest nearly $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy efficiency efforts as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funds will be divided between the Weatherization Assistance Program, which will receive nearly $5 billion, and the State Energy Program, which will receive nearly $3 billion. This will help families save hundreds of dollars every year on their energy bills, while creating approximately 87,000 jobs. To jump-start the job creation and weatherization work, DOE is initially releasing $780 million and will release more as the states demonstrate that they are using the funding effectively.

The State Energy Program funding will be used to provide rebates to consumers for home energy audits or other energy-saving improvements; to develop renewable energy and alternative fuel projects; to promote Energy Star products; to upgrade the energy efficiency of state and local government buildings; and other innovative state efforts to help families save money on their energy bills. The weatherization funding will improve the energy efficiency of the homes of low-income families by adding more insulation, sealing leaks, or modernizing heating and air conditioning equipment, at a cost of up to $6,500 per home. The energy efficiency upgrades will be available for families making up to 200% of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, this translates to about $44,000 per year in the lower 48 states, $55,140 per year in Alaska, and $50,720 per year in Hawaii. See the DOE press release, the Weatherization Assistance Program Web site, and the State Energy Program Web site.

DOE also announced specific funding levels for each of the states. DOE will award a total of roughly $127.3 million to Alabama, $46.3 million to Alaska, $112.4 million to Arizona, $87.5 million to Arkansas, $412 million to California, $128.7 million to Colorado, $102.8 million to Connecticut, $38 million to Delaware, $302 million to Florida, $207.2 million to Georgia, $30 million to Hawaii, $59 million to Idaho, $344 million to Illinois, $200.4 million to Indiana, $121.3 million to Iowa, $94.7 million to Kansas, $123.4 million to Kentucky, $122.3 million to Louisiana, $69.2 million to Maine, $113.2 million to Maryland, $177 million to Massachusetts, $325.4 million to Michigan, $186.1 million to Minnesota, $89.8 million to Mississippi, $185.5 million to Missouri, $52.3 million to Montana, $72.5 million to Nebraska, $72 million to Nevada, $49 million to New Hampshire, $192.4 million to New Jersey, $58.6 million to New Mexico, $517.8 million to New York, $208 million to North Carolina, $49.8 million to North Dakota, $362.8 million to Ohio, $107.6 million to Oklahoma, $80.7 million to Oregon, $352.4 million to Pennsylvania, $44 million to Rhode Island, $109.4 million to South Carolina, $48.2 million to South Dakota, $161.6 million to Tennessee, $545.7 million to Texas, $73.2 million to Utah, $38.8 million to Vermont, $164.1 million to Virginia, $120.5 million to Washington, $70.3 million to West Virginia, $197 million to Wisconsin, $35.1 million to Wyoming, and $86 million to Puerto Rico.

Appropriations Act Provides Nearly $2 Billion in New Funding for EERE

President Barack Obama signed an omnibus appropriation act into law last week, providing $1.93 billion for DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) for fiscal year (FY) 2009, which runs through the end of September. The funding represents a 13.5% increase above FY 2008 funding, which was $1.72 billion. Although FY 2009 started in October 2008, DOE and many other federal agencies have been operating under a continuing resolution, awaiting congressional action on the appropriations act. The continuing resolution held spending levels equal to those set by the FY 2008 budget, but that all changed in February, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided a one-time injection of $16.8 billion into the EERE budget. Combining that economic stimulus funding with the FY 2009 budget yields a total budget of $18.73 billion for EERE, an 11-fold increase above FY 2008 funding levels. See the president's press release on the appropriations act, and see the article from this newsletter on the economic stimulus funding.

Of the $1.93 billion in new funding for EERE, the act provides nearly $169 million for hydrogen technology, including $3 million for fuel processors and $5 million for manufacturing activities; $217 million for biomass energy; $175 million for solar energy, including $30 million for concentrating solar power; $55 million for wind energy; $44 million for geothermal energy; $40 million for "water power," which includes both conventional hydropower and tidal and marine technologies; $273 million for vehicle technologies, including $25 million for the Clean Cities program; $140 million for building technologies, including $33 million for the Commercial Buildings Initiative and $25 million for solid-state lighting; $90 million for industrial technologies, including $7.5 million for energy-saving technologies for the steel, glass, and metal-casting industries and $25 million to support distributed energy, combined heat and power, and advanced reciprocating engines; and $22 million for the Federal Energy Management Program. Given the separate funding injection from the economic stimulus act, these funding levels are difficult to analyze, but they represent clear funding gains for nearly all of these technology programs, including a doubling in funding for geothermal energy and a four-fold increase in water power funding relative to FY 2008.

EERE's grant programs, international programs, infrastructure development activities, and other supporting activities also received funding increases under the appropriations act. The Weatherization Assistance Program received $200 million, while the State Energy Program received $50 million, adding to the $8 billion directed through these programs by the economic stimulus act. The International Renewable Energy Program gained $5 million in funding, while $6 million will go toward tribal energy activities. For facilities and infrastructure, the act provides $76 million, most of which will go to DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, including $41 million to complete construction of the Energy Systems Integration Facility. It also provides $5 million for the Renewable Energy Production Incentive and nearly $146 million for DOE program support and direction. The act also specifies that nearly $229 million in funds will go toward congressionally-directed projects, also known as earmarks, an increase of nearly 23% above the funding earmarks specified in FY 2008. President Obama has proposed new earmark reforms for the FY 2010 budget. See the full appropriations act, a summary of the appropriations for energy and water (PDF 44 KB), pages 33-34 of the energy and water section of the appropriations act (PDF 2.8 MB), pages 58-67 of the accompanying explanatory statement for the appropriations (PDF 18.4 MB), and for background, page 65 of the EERE budget request for FY 2009 (PDF 438 KB), which includes prior-year funding levels. Download Adobe Reader.

Interior Department Pursues Renewable Energy on Land and at Sea

The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced new initiatives and agreements aimed at accelerating the development of renewable energy on public lands and on the outer continental shelf (OCS). Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a Secretarial Order that declares renewable energy development as a top priority for the department. The order also establishes a task force that will identify specific zones on public lands and on the OCS where the Interior Department can facilitate the development of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energy, as well as small hydropower or incremental hydropower additions to existing structures. The task force will work with the department's bureaus and offices to identify and resolve any obstacles to renewable energy permitting, siting, development, and production in those renewable energy zones. The task force will also identify electric transmission needs and will prioritize the permitting and environmental reviews needed for new transmission lines.

The Interior Department manages one fifth of land in the United States, plus more than 1.7 billion acres on the OCS, including lands with some of the highest renewable energy potential in the nation. That includes 140 million acres of public land in western states and Alaska that have geothermal resource potential. The department's Bureau of Land Management has also identified about 29 million acres of public land with solar energy potential in the Southwest and about 21 million acres in 11 western states with wind energy potential. In addition, there is significant wind and wave energy potential offshore. DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has identified more than 1,000 gigawatts of potential wind energy development off the Atlantic coast and more than 900 gigawatts of wind energy off the Pacific Coast. See the Interior Department press release and Secretarial Order (PDF 68 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

To help take advantage of those offshore renewable energy resources, the Interior Department has also agreed to work cooperatively with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to facilitate the permitting of renewable energy projects on the OCS. A joint statement issued yesterday by the two agencies notes that the Interior Department has broad authority for the permitting and development of renewable energy resources on the OCS, particularly for wind energy projects. However, FERC is responsible for overseeing the development of hydropower resources in the United States, including wave, tidal, and ocean current projects. The joint statement gives FERC the primary responsibility for managing the licensing of such "hydrokinetic" projects in offshore waters. The statement resolves a turf battle that arose over a wave energy resource off the coast of California, and it allows the Pacific Gas & Electric Company to retain a preliminary permit that was issued by FERC. See the Interior Department press release and the article from this newsletter on the jurisdictional dispute.

USDA Funds Energy Audits for Farms, Ranches, and Rural Small Businesses

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it will now provide grants to support energy audits at farms, ranches, and rural small businesses through its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The energy audit funds, which were authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill, will be awarded to governments and organizations that can conduct the audits, including state, tribal, and local governments; land grant colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning; and electric cooperatives and public power companies. Governments and organizations seeking the funds must apply by June 9. The farmers, ranchers, and businessmen receiving the audits must pay one-quarter of the cost. In addition to energy audits, the REAP grants can support programs that provide information about energy efficiency and renewable energy to farms, ranches, and rural small businesses, and they can also fund technical support efforts for the development of small hydropower projects. Grants of up to $100,000 are available. See the USDA press release, the grant program Web page, and the Federal Register notice.

Space Shuttle Delivers Final Set of Solar Wings to the ISS

The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Earth on Sunday to deliver the fourth and final set of solar "wings" to power the International Space Station (ISS). The mission will involve adding a final truss, called S6, to the starboard side of the ISS and then unfurling the solar arrays, which are folded and packed into the truss like an accordion. The four new solar arrays will extend in pairs from each side of the truss, forming solar "wings," each 115 feet long. The new solar wings will increase the solar capacity of the ISS to 264 kilowatts, allowing it to produce 84-120 kilowatts of usable power, or about enough power for more than 40 average U.S. homes. But since most of that power goes toward day-to-day operational needs and life support aboard the ISS, the new set of solar wings will actually double the amount of power available for scientific research. The 31,000-pound truss segment, solar wings, and accompanying batteries were built by Boeing and delivered to Kennedy Space Center back in 2002, but problems with the space shuttle program repeatedly delayed its launch. See the Mission Overview, press release, and press kit (PDF 5.2 MB) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as the Boeing press release. Download Adobe Reader.

As of Tuesday night, the latest schedule from NASA TV shows the ISS crew and shuttle crews spending most of today removing the S6 truss from its berth in the shuttle and repositioning the station's robotic arm. The first spacewalk begins at 1:13 p.m. EDT (15:18 GMT) on Thursday, for the installation of the truss and its electrical wiring connections. A heat radiator will be deployed at 6:43 p.m. EDT (22:43 GMT), with the space walk ending about an hour later. The actual solar array deployment starts early in the morning on Sunday, March 22, beginning at 3:33 a.m. EDT (7:33 GMT), and deploying each array about halfway over the course of two hours. After a rest to let the arrays warm up in the sunlight, the deployment will resume at 10:18 a.m. EDT (14:18 GMT), continuing until the arrays are fully deployed. However, the schedule might be moved up by two days, so be sure to check the Shuttle Mission TV Schedule for updates. Past missions have had some trouble with binding of the solar arrays as they unfurl, but NASA believes that it has learned how to avoid the problems. For details about the mission timeline, see the mission fact sheet (PDF 784 KB).

Energy Connections

Climate Congress Reports Worsening Findings on Climate Change

It has been less than two years since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its latest compilation of climate science, called the Fourth Assessment Report, but climate scientists are already finding the document to be out of date. In light of upcoming negotiations on a new global climate treaty, an international scientific congress on climate change was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, last week, and the findings are almost universally gloomy. For instance, the IPCC report projected a sea level rise of 18-59 centimeters by 2100 based on thermal expansion of the ocean, while admitting that dynamic processes affecting the polar ice sheets were still too poorly understood to account for in the report. Scientists have since gained an improved understanding of those processes and now warn that sea levels could rise by as much as a meter by the end of the century, while sea level rises of less than 50 centimeters are looking "increasingly unlikely." See the press release on sea level rise from the climate congress.

While the projection of sea level rise is perhaps most disturbing, other climate trends, such as the rate of ocean acidification and the frequency of extreme climate events, are following the worst-case scenarios of the IPCC report, according to the climate congress. Meanwhile, mounting evidence demonstrates that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. The findings suggest that global temperature rises of 2°C or more above pre-industrial levels would result in impacts that contemporary societies would have a difficult time coping with. The climate congress also noted that strong emission goals for 2020 are essential, as weaker goals will make it much harder to meet the 2050 emissions targets needed to keep the global temperature rise below 2°C. That finding echoes the results of a recent report from McKinsey & Company. See the press release on key messages from the climate congress, and for background, see the articles from this newsletter on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and the McKinsey & Company report.

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