With the release of the 2007 federal budget Monday, President
Bush began making good on his State of the Union proposal to
increase funding for alternative energy research.
Despite reducing or eliminating 141 government programs in an
effort to corral the projected $354 billion deficit for 2007, the
budget provides funding for several alternative energy
initiatives.
Some members of the UCLA community are excited about the future
viability of alternative forms of energy.
“Alternative energy research is very active right
now,” said Professor Vasilios Manousiouthakis, chair of the
chemical and biomolecular engineering department, who is working on
developing hydrogen-powered cars.
“The reality of higher oil prices has brought to the table
a whole new set of alternative energy technologies which would not
have been cost-competitive 10 years ago,” he said.
“It’s a very exciting time.”
Last November, Manousiouthakis drove a prototype
hydrogen-powered car from UCLA to California State University,
Northridge. Currently, hydrogen-powered cars have a range of about
100 miles but he said he hopes to help extend it to 300 miles.
Manousiouthakis said he expects increased opportunities from the
Energy Department for alternative energy researchers with the new
budget allocations. And with the field of alternative energy
research growing, he said he expects hydrogen-powered cars to be in
production in 5 to 15 years.
This increased attention to alternative energy sources comes on
the heels of Bush’s assertion in last week’s State of
the Union address that “America is addicted to oil.” To
break this addiction, Bush advocated the goal of replacing 75
percent of Middle Eastern oil imports with new fuel sources by
2025.
In Monday’s budget, Bush introduced the Bio-Fuels
Initiative to encourage ethanol and biodiesel production and the
Solar America Initiative to help grow the solar power sector.
Engineering Professor Yang Yang has been working to develop a
plastic solar energy cell which would reduce the cost of solar cell
production by as much as 90 percent. His research was published
last October in Nature Materials magazine.
“We hope that ultimately solar energy can be extensively
used in the commercial sector as well as the private sector,”
Yang, who is currently out of the country and unavailable for
comment, said in a press release. “Imagine solar cells
installed in cars to absorb solar energy to replace the traditional
use of diesel and gas.”
The high cost of solar energy has limited its use as a source of
electricity in the United States. One of the goals stated in the
federal budget is a reduction in cost to the point that solar
energy use increases to between 5 and 10 gigawatts by 2015,
compared to the current production level of less than 1
gigawatt.
“The increased capacity would be enough to power roughly
one million homes,” the budget states. “The increased
use of solar (power) also could significantly reduce demand for
natural gas in the power sector.”