Remarks of
Robert S. Kripowicz
Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
to the
Opening Session of the
U.S./China Clean Energy Forum
August 29, 2001

Good morning. It is an honor to begin this First U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum. Months of effort have gone into making this event a success, and I want to thank all those who have supported it. This is another fine example of our cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

For a variety of reasons, I am pleased to be here today. Perhaps the most important is because I believe this meeting represents a partnership of two nations, linked by a common interest in advancing the technology of clean energy production and efficient energy use.

A few months ago, our President presented to the people of the United States his plan for a balanced and comprehensive national energy policy. But as the President has said - and as I want to emphasize here today - no national energy policy is strictly national. To be truly effective, it must look beyond borders and recognize the global nature of energy needs - AND the global opportunities for mutually beneficial energy cooperation.

This forum continues efforts between our two nations in the technologies of fossil energy - efforts that were first put into place in the spring of 2000 when we signed a joint protocol pledging our cooperation. It also continues our cooperation under the auspices of a similar protocol we entered in 1995 which focuses on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The dialogue begun under these protocols - which we culminate this week - is particularly important because both our nations must be prepared to meet what will certainly be a dramatic increase in the demand for energy, both at home and around the world.

Globally, by 2015, the world's citizens will likely be consuming twice as much energy as they consumed in 1995. Oil and natural gas will be in greater demand as the world becomes more mobile and looks for cleaner energy ways to heat its homes, fuel its factories, and generate its power. Coal use will continue to rise, and the nations that use it will be increasingly challenged to make its use cleaner and more efficient.

As economies expand, the world will become increasingly electrified. The consumption of electric power is expected to nearly double in the industrialized nations, and to increase even more in countries such as China that are now rapidly crossing the threshold into the industrialized world.

In our nation, we have learned the painful lessons of overreliance on any one form of energy. Since the President put forward his energy plan, he has stressed time and time again that true energy strength comes only from policies that promote energy diversity.

Our energy strategy must be founded on the need to develop all of our energy resources - coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, hydropower, and renewable energy resources. It must also recognize the value and necessity of making energy use more efficient - wringing every useable BTU or kilowatt out of our fuel resources, both at power plants and industrial furnaces, as well as in automobiles and home appliances.

A forward-looking energy strategy must also recognize the impact of energy production and use on the quality of our environment. .Here is where our governments have unique roles - simultaneously protecting the health and well-being of our citizens, serving as stewards of our environment, and at the same time, fostering the innovations that can meet our nations' energy and economic needs.

It is in this area - in the need to balance energy and environmental demands - where the dialogue we continue today can be most constructive.

I have just come from Hangzhou where last week we convened the "U.S./China Symposium on CO2 Emission Control Science and Technology."

No environmental issue could be more important to the health of our planet than the potential for unchecked global climate change. But no climate change strategy, no matter how flexible and efficient, can support the robust economic growth we all desire unless lower cost and higher-productivity technologies - which can lower greenhouse gas emissions - become more readily available.

That is why in both his National Energy Policy and in his stated principles on global climate change, President Bush has placed a high priority on technology. Investments in technology are truly investments in our future - a way to achieve our goal of a cleaner, safer, and more energy secure future while promoting continued economic growth.

So that brings us to this forum where, for the next three days, our colleagues from government, industry and academia will share ideas - where we will discuss mutual challenges, mutual needs, and mutual areas of cooperation.

In the next three days, as we describe advances in the technologies of clean energy production and use, perhaps we will have an opportunity to view them within the context of the goals the United States has set forth in our National Energy Policy and those that China has recently announced in its 10th Five Year Plan. I know that if we did, there would be many similarities. We should build on those similarities.

When this forum concludes, I strongly hope that our two nations can take their next cooperative steps together. I hope that we can sign several specific agreements in the fossil energy area that begin to implement the Annexes we agreed to several months ago.

One will help establish the skills that will rapidly be demanded by your burgeoning natural gas industry.

As you anticipate the completion in 2003 of a major pipeline bringing natural gas from west China to the eastern coast, there is much we can share to help train a new cadre of skilled personnel to plan, engineer, and operate an expanding gas infrastructure.

As you work to build the next generation of power plants, we hope there will be value in seeing first-hand the advanced gasification-based power technologies being tested at our Power Systems Development Facility and in commercial use at the Tampa Electric Clean Coal Technology Project. That will be the focus of another implementing agreement.

We hope to join with you in developing an extensive technology manual dealing with flue gas desulfurization. Having in one place a comprehensive source of information on available technologies and on the computer programs that can help select the optimum system will make future choices on pollution controls easier and more cost-effective to implement.

For similar reasons, we want to sign an agreement that calls for U.S. industrial experts to host a workshop in the areas of low-NOx combustion and sulfur dioxide emission control technologies. Through our joint government-industry Clean Coal Technology Program, we have made significant investments in these technologies, and it is to our mutual benefit to discuss the progress that has been made.

In the United States, we continue to confront the challenges of moving electricity efficiently from the point of generation to the point of use. This has led to a variety of models to plan and manage electricity grids and power flows. One of the latest is a model that can be run on a personal desktop computer or a laptop.

This tool could be extremely valuable in planning and simulating power flow situations in China; so we hope to sign an agreement that will bring together experts in both our countries - perhaps face-to-face or via the Internet or by satellite transmission - to see this computer model in action.

One agreement that I am especially interested in would establish a collaborative research effort between our National Energy Technology Laboratory and the National Power & Combustion Center. The goal would be to develop an improved solvent for removing carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases of power plants.

One of the highest priorities in our energy program is the development of lower-cost technologies to capture and securely sequester carbon gases. Carbon sequestration was recently singled out by President Bush as one of the most promising technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This is an exciting area of technology - one that I believe could lead to breakthroughs that could reshape the way we approach a truly global, climate change strategy.

There is also much we still need to understand about the fundamental science of climate change. So I hope we can begin work on four other joint tasks that will strengthen our understanding of global and regional circulation patterns, our knowledge of historical climate changes, the way we measure greenhouse emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and our ability to predict the effects of climate change on human and natural systems.

These new tasks will be fitting complements to the activities already begun under the "Protocol for Cooperation in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy" launched in 1995.

Out of this protocol could come the potential for collaboration in China's Great Western Development Initiative where potential exists for large scale solar and wind power projects.

We also see significant potential for future cooperation that can improve the efficiencies of our electric motor systems, reduce energy use in our buildings, and develop financial and other policies that promote other energy efficiency measures.

In short, our opportunities for cooperation are many, and we have made significant progress in beginning that cooperation. We now have in place, for example, at Tsinghua University the Energy and Environmental Technology Center, supported by my office and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

I view the forum we open today as the culmination of that "beginning" and as the launching pad for a stronger, more beneficial partnership between our countries.

So let me officially open this forum by repeating again that we see a strong foundation of global energy cooperation as a vital component of our future energy policy.

We see that cooperation founded on respect for our diverse traditions.

We see that cooperation built on our mutual commitment to technological progress.

Perhaps more than anything else, we see cooperation between our nations as essential to a world in which all of our citizens have the opportunity to prosper.

I look forward to the forum and wish all participants success here and in our future endeavors.

Thank you.