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Well, thank you, Kateri, for that introduction, although I do want to start on a more somber
note to just echo what the president said this morning about the tragic events in Oklahoma.
As you probably have heard, the death toll has gone quite high there, and the president
said that our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today, and we will back up those
prayers with deeds for as long as it takes. So this is a -- quite a tragedy there.
Well, let me switch briefly, then -- and this will be brief -- to our remarks. I must say
that Kateri and I discussed quite a while ago my coming and talking with you yesterday,
but events didn't work out as far as timing goes. So -- but in some sense it's actually
fortuitous. As she said, I was sworn in about three hours ago, and this is my first chance
to make some remarks. And it's fortuitous because it's an alignment with our agenda
perfectly. Efficiency is going to be a big focus as we -- as we go forward. The -- (applause).
The -- let me say, in fact, why I'm back, because many have questioned the judgment
of someone who would -- (laughter) -- like second marriage, place hope over experience.
(Laughter.) But in fact, the last act of the first go-round was in fact jumping up the
efficiency standards for air conditioners. And so now I think there's kind of a continuity
after 12 years, to get back into this -- into this fray. But the reason I'm back, look -- the
Department of Energy, sometimes maligned, has really important missions, two of which
intersect the president's highest-level agenda very much. Of course, first, and I would say
foremost in terms of my own motivation for returning to the department or returning to
government service: the energy and climate agenda. Secondly, the nuclear security agenda
is also central to what the president wants to achieve.
But we're here to talk more about the first, and let me just say off the bat that, you
know I've been working these problems for quite a while. I have never seen a credible
solution to the climate risk mitigation challenge to reach the kinds of goals we need to reach
without the demand side playing a very, very important part in that. And so in that context,
the president has -- really is committed to our doing what we can in this environment
to move aggressively on climate. And again, the demand side, the efficiency agenda, will
be absolutely critical.
Now, as you all know, I'm not going to lecture the usual numbers to this crowd, but, you
know, quite a bit of our primary energy goes unused today. I do know something about thermodynamics,
so we know we're not going to capture all of that, but we can sure do a lot better with
better technology and with policies, of course, that align with that. More efficient technologies,
use of, quotes, waste heat, dot dot dot.
Earlier this year -- again, the president, I think, made a very forceful call, I think
very much aligned with what you all agree with, the idea of essentially doubling energy
productivity by 2030, including, among other things, the proposed, for example energy efficiency
Race to the Top for states and utilities. We hope that will be treated well in the budget
process. But I also want to emphasize that in general, moving forward (as a ?) department,
besides efficiency being an important theme, so will picking up our game in terms of working
with the states. States and regions, I think, is where clearly a lot of the action goes,
certainly on efficiency, and we are going to have a focus in strengthening our team
and picking up our pace, as I say, in working with the states.
I think in terms of the efficiency agenda we also, I think like you have, acknowledge
and applaud the bipartisan effort to pass new legislation on energy efficiency in Congress.
We certainly support the goals of the Shaheen-Portman legislation, and we see, you know, companion
action in the House. In fact, I have certainly met with senior leadership in both chambers.
And I mean, there's a ways to go to get it together, but there's clearly an interest
in moving this. This is the kind of initiative that I think has a real chance to move forward.
And I certainly will work with Senator Shaheen and Portman and others to try to help make
it work.
So again, energy efficiency, it's a simple message -- we don't have time for a lot of
discussion, but it's going to be a focal point of my time as secretary. The -- let me just
say a few words in terms of the agenda, but again, we won't have time to drill into it
in detail. Clearly, appliance standards are very much on people's mind, and we know that
the cumulative effect of standards enacted over the last four years, you know, start
going into the trillion-dollar range over a few decades. But again, we can do more.
And look, we all know -- we recognize that there's a backlog of appliance standards that
are waiting to be approved and implemented. I can assure you that at least I will be certainly
turning my attention to this logjam very early on, seeing if we can't get these moved out
so that they in fact are material and are going forward.
Similarly, we want to work perhaps in convening and meeting with manufacturers, et cetera,
and looking for industrial opportunities. Fuel economy remains very important. The -- despite
the fact that, of course, we have an incredible story in terms of the increase in hydrocarbon
production in the United States, but that does not change the fact that we need to reduce
our overall reliance on oil. The pathways are pretty clear: efficiency, alternative
fuels, electrification, different transportation paradigms. But clearly, efficiency is -- was
at the top of that list. And of course, the president moved forward with the new fuel
economy standards for 2025, and this will clearly have a major -- a major impact in
terms of fuel utilization.
Manufacturing -- another area, again, that we want to -- we want to focus on. In March,
the department launched the new clean energy manufacturing initiative with objectives of,
of course, boosting U.S. manufacturing competitiveness through increased energy productivity and
energy efficiency throughout the sector; and second, to increase competitiveness in producing
clean energy materials and products here in the -- in our country.
As an example -- I mean, this may sound like I'm getting into my nerdish background, but
you know, things like a new manufacturing initiative on wide bandgap semiconductors,
power electronics. Sounds pretty specific, but it has enormous efficiency implications
if we can -- if we can move this forward from -- integration of renewables, appliances,
consumer electronics, all kinds of applications at very, very different -- at very, very different
scales. Computers, where of course huge amounts of waste heat in general, and the estimates
are as high as potentially like a 75 percent savings with these new -- with these new technologies.
So I think there's a lot of things that we can do and will do to advance this. Building
efficiency, you know a lot about that. I will just actually give here an anecdote from my
previous existence of four hours ago. As a -- as an MIT professor, we had -- you know,
it's wonderful to turn students loose, so we turned them loose. We gave them, like,
$200 for a project. They mapped the energy intensity of the campus. One building was
glowing red in the -- in the obvious -- the obvious map. It was a chemistry building.
And the students -- it was very educational. First assumption: Look, the lights are on
all night. Well, a little calculation said that was like epsilon of the -- of the scale
being looked at. So what they found was, it was simply pure bad management of chemical
hoods, which are huge energy sinks. So a simple act of the department head immediately had
enormous savings. That then led to a redesign of the requirements for a new building being
built. The result is, that building has only half the energy use per square foot of comparable
research buildings. This is a great story. MIT -- it's true at other places -- MIT kicked
this off, and now the administration acknowledges a good solid at least $3 ½ million a year
of operating expense savings. Admittedly, MIT was a target-rich environment for efficiency,
but anyway, it really has worked.
And also, now, going back to DOE, the Better Building(s) Challenge, I think -- I won't
go through all of this, but another area is, we really want to pick up the pace on the
president's commitment for $2 billion worth of energy savings performance contracts. We've
passed the half-billion mark. We have in (train ?) enough to get there, but we got to pick
up the pace to get there by the end of this year, and that's the kind of thing that we
will be -- we will be looking at.
So these are very brief remarks; it's more to tell you what we have in mind and kind
of our ideas going forward. We want to be very open; we want to get your input as to
how we can -- we can move this forward. I'll go back and say that, as I said earlier, I
just don't see solutions to our biggest energy and environmental problems without a very,
very strong demand side response, and that's why it's quite logical to move this way, way
up in our -- in our priorities.
So let's work together -- you know where to find me now. (Laughter.) And I look forward
to your input and I perhaps apologize for the brevity of my remarks, but maybe that's
a blessing as well. So -- (laughs) -- thank you very much. (Applause.)