Remarks by
Spencer Abraham
Secretary of Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
to the
Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum
on
June 24, 2003

Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to welcome everyone here today for this inaugural meeting of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum.

I particularly want to welcome all of our guests, from many different nations, and thank you for your involvement.

When we announced the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum several months ago, we hoped there would be international interest of a wide scope. So we are very pleased by the large turnout this week, from nations representing every corner of the globe.

We are gratified to have officials from so many governments on hand to discuss a topic that holds great hope for each of our nations - working collectively - to secure our energy futures while safeguarding the environment.

The strong collaboration all of us bring to this effort, I am convinced, will help ensure its success.

Meeting our respective energy needs, while protecting the environment and minimizing dependency on imports, is a challenge that each country at this conference confronts.

Our ultimate success will depend, for the most part, on our ability to devise 21st century technologies to overcome these challenges.

In the United States, we have embarked on a multi-faceted, aggressive set of initiatives to accomplish these goals.

In addition to its obvious energy mission, the United States Department of Energy is also the owner of some of the world's foremost research laboratories. On any given day our scientists may be discovering ways to create hydrogen from microbes; working on superconductivity projects to transmit and use electricity with near perfect efficiency and much higher capacity; or building new materials that can repair themselves if damaged.

So when it came time for the President to charge a federal agency with developing the technological solutions to the nation's energy and environmental challenges, the Department of Energy received the call. And of that, I am very proud.

The employees of the Department of Energy take this challenge seriously.

• We have made significant progress promoting conservation and increased energy efficiency, and expanding the use of clean, renewable energy sources. This year our $1.3 billion funding request for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs exceeds funding levels enacted by Congress during any of the last 20 years.
• We have also pledged $1.7 billion over the next five years on an ambitious Hydrogen Fuel Initiative that seeks the development of hydrogen fuel cells as a power source. Like many nations around the world, we seek to develop the technologies that will transform our economy from one dependent on oil to one that uses clean hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Not only does nature offer a virtually limitless supply, but use of hydrogen would have none of the environmental consequences currently associated with fossil fuels.

While these initiatives are very important, one of the most promising initiatives is the one we are here to discuss today - carbon sequestration. Like many of the nations represented here, the United States has made carbon sequestration research and development a top priority.

We do this for a variety of reasons:

• to reduce the health impacts of pollution,
• to increase energy security,
• as well as to address the long-term potential challenge of climate change.

Carbon sequestration is so important because it acknowledges a simple fact: Fossil energy - oil, gas, and coal - will continue for decades to be the lowest-cost energy resource worldwide.

Of all the fossil fuels, the most extensively used will be coal. It is the most abundant and least expensive existing energy resource in the world. Over the next two decades, worldwide demand is projected to increase by 50 percent.

The world's people have coal, and they will use it. This is certainly the case in developing nations, which should not be expected to forego the use of abundant, less expensive domestic resources.

The only remaining question is whether the coal used to produce energy in the future will emit pollutants and greenhouse gases, or whether it will be transformed by technology into a clean, valuable, and desirable element in the world's energy equation.

Our job at the United States Department of Energy is to promote the research and technology development that will make clean coal a reality - and a vital contributor to our energy future.

We took an important step forward last year when we realigned the Department of Energy's fossil energy program to focus almost exclusively on supporting pollution reduction, climate change, and energy security.

And we are working hard to execute this Administration's 10-year, $2 billion commitment to clean coal research.

Earlier this year, we announced eight projects under the clean coal initiative totaling $1.3 billion - over $1 billion of which will come from the private sector. Industry recognizes the importance and potential of clean coal. And it is contributing both good ideas and investment capital.

These projects are all important to reducing emissions, but carbon sequestration has rapidly grown in importance to become one of our highest clean coal priorities.

So allow me to outline for you the scope of our carbon sequestration activities:

• We are currently spending $110 million in public and private funds on 65 carbon sequestration projects across the country.
• We have increased this year's budget request for research into carbon sequestration by 50 percent, from the $40 million enacted in FY03 to $62 million.
• We are now in the final stages of forming five regional partnerships around the United States to determine the most suitable ways to capture and store greenhouse gases in specific areas of the country. The partnerships will bring together the resources of the federal government, state agencies, universities and private industry.
• And perhaps the most exciting carbon sequestration initiative is our FutureGen project. FutureGen is a $1 billion public-private partnership to design, build, and operate a virtually emissions-free, coal-fired, electricity and hydrogen production plant. Based on the knowledge and experience accumulated over FutureGen's 10-to-15-year lifespan, we intend to develop and perfect the carbon sequestration technologies that will help make coal-based power and hydrogen production a mainstay of our energy mix. Indeed, it is our thought that this project might lend itself to the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum's project line, a matter for all of us to discuss at this conference.

I can think of few investments that offer as great a payoff for our collective energy, economic, and environmental security than the work we all will do on carbon sequestration.

Notwithstanding our own commitment to this program, we know from firsthand experience the value of international partnerships to advance scientific knowledge and technology in the energy arena.

The Generation IV nuclear reactor project is a perfect example of the benefits of fruitful international collaboration.

That program, as many of you know, is an international collaboration focused on the research and development of the next generation of safe and proliferation-resistant nuclear technology. I believe that every nation involved in Gen IV recognizes the benefits of working together, leveraging resources, and creating a common roadmap to the development of this technology.

Another example is seen in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project - or ITER.

As you know, the United States recently rejoined that multilateral research project. ITER will bring together the best scientific minds from all over the world to investigate the feasibility of producing useable energy from nuclear fusion - the process that powers the sun.

Our Department is very excited to have been given the lead responsibility in an effort that offers so much promise. And we are excited not only about the possibility of fusion, but about the potential to share and benefit from the collaboration we will be undertaking.

We believe we should take the same multinational, collaborative approach to the issue of carbon sequestration. Other nations, particularly those represented here this week, aren't just interested in carbon sequestration research and development, they are putting that interest into action.

Eighteen nations are today monitoring the progress of the Weyburn project, which is injecting carbon dioxide produced from an American power plant into an active Canadian oilfield.

And in the Norwegian Sleipner Project, the oil company Statoil is injecting carbon dioxide into a reservoir beneath the North Sea.

But we need to do much more, and the creation of this Leadership Forum provides the appropriate means to achieve our shared goals.

Every country in the world, both developed and developing, should benefit from the advances that will come from our combined research and development work.

If we do so, we will be able to leverage our multi-year commitment to invest billions of dollars in clean energy research and development.

Some of the nations represented here today are conducting research and development work of their own, and also want to multiply the potential result from their investments.

Others are interested in participating in joint R&D projects to gain the maximum benefit from a large, collaborative effort.

We believe that combining our knowledge, experience and capital resources at this early stage will accelerate progress and eliminate duplication of effort. It will save money and lead to common solutions applicable in a variety of circumstances.

The benefits of a multi-lateral approach will be even more obvious and compelling when we finally reach our goals: when we have developed practical carbon sequestration technologies.

Those accomplishments will guarantee the beneficial use of a virtually inexhaustible world supply of coal.

The enthusiasm for the promise of carbon sequestration, evidenced by response to our call for this Leadership Forum, is a very encouraging sign for the success of our future collaboration. We initiated this inaugural meeting to gauge the level of international interest in carbon sequestration, and in pursuing multilateral research and development work.

We learned very quickly that you, the participants in this Forum, were very interested indeed. To satisfy that interest, we have together formulated a Charter that outlines in broad terms the purpose, function, and organization of the Leadership Forum.

Each of the governments represented here has already committed to signing the Charter at a ceremony to be held tomorrow.

We are standing on the threshold of major energy and environmental breakthroughs. I believe we all understand and appreciate how important the work we do together over the next few years will be to future generations all over the world.

Over the next two decades, clean coal and carbon sequestration, combined with advances in hydrogen fuel, nuclear power, renewable energy, fusion, and other research, will not produce mere incremental improvements - they will produce a new energy world.

The Department of Energy is proud to be hosting this first Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum conference.

We are encouraged by your participation and we are pleased to invite you to join with us in making the promise of carbon sequestration a reality. Thank you once again for your participation.