Houston hubris and President Dubya visits Novozyme

Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ (CERA) recently held their annual Executive Conference in Houston last week - it is the Energy Industries annual shindig where the big beasts meet 'n' greet and make pompous speeches . This year's beanfest (the 25th since founding by Daniel Yergin) was entitled “The New Prize: Energy’s Next Era.” . CERA are owned by IHS Energy and wired into the Rockefeller inspired and funded Council on Foreign Relations.

Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell spoke on February 8th, and amidst the self congratulation a few remarks stood out.

He outlined the back of the envelope figures that should make anyone pause for a while before deciding what to do about global warming / climate change / emissions trading .

The Department of Energy estimates that the global demand for energy may increase by as much as 50 % by 2025, with more than half of that growth coming from the world’s emerging economies.

Specifically regarding electricity, the growth is projected to be particularly steep; increasing nearly 75 % over the next two decades.

Sell returned, as ever, to the fundamental belief of the American nation in the superiority of their technology and the great enabling power of US led technology and innovation.

To compete in the increasingly global economy, we know what we must do – and that begins, first and foremost, with the building blocks of technical innovation: math and science.

Craig Barrett, the Chairman of Intel, has said, “U.S. technological leadership, innovation, and the jobs of tomorrow require a commitment to basic research funding today.”

He went on to describe the American Competitiveness Initiative, a program that the President seeks to reinvigorate our math and science base to lead "the discoveries of tomorrow."

Over the next ten years, the combined budgets of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology will exceed $50 billion in new research funding, a doubling of those budgets over the next ten years.

...and you can be sure there will be a long queue of people knocking on their doors for research dollars. Lord Patel listened this summer as Purdue scientists argued for a further genetic research into the genome of Populus species (Cottonwood trees) to grow bigger, faster and better.... with a payoff maybe in 50 years.

Yet the President last week called by the Danish company Novozyme's offices in Franklinton North Carolina (Pop.2,500) who have the only workable process enzymes for biomass breakdown.Now in use in Spain and China - (for details search this site for Novozyme.)

The improbably named Garrett Screws of Novozyme says after Bush's State of the Union promise to help wean America from oil it made perfect sense for him to visit them ..... and pretty remarkable.

The Department of Energy estimates that the global demand for energy may increase by as much as 50 % by 2025, with more than half of that growth coming from the world’s emerging economies.

Specifically regarding electricity, the growth is projected to be particularly steep; increasing nearly 75 % over the next two decades.

There's a lot of catching up to do after spending wasting all that money on armaments for so many years.