To confront the climate crisis, the US should launch a National Energy Innovation Mission

America has successfully launched national innovation missions time and again. These missions have delivered life-saving drugs, sparked the computer and internet revolutions, and put humans on the moon. Most recently, the US government has poured billions of dollars into a national innovation campaign to help pharmaceutical companies develop vaccines and therapeutics for covid-19. Yet the United States has not launched such a mission to counter the gravest threat of our time: climate change. Although a few clean-energy technologies, such as wind and solar power, have reached cost competitiveness with fossil fuels, many more urgently need advances if the world is to achieve net-zero carbon emissions—a herculean feat known as “deep decarbonization.” Now is the time for the United States to launch a National Energy Innovation Mission to speed such energy transitions around the world—and build competitive, job-creating industries at home. Today, we and our coauthors published “ Energizing America ,” a detailed road map for the federal government to triple funding for clean-energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D). Even though the politics of climate change are polarized, there is broad bipartisan agreement behind a strong push for energy innovation. In Congress, Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, has proposed […]

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