Dan Arvizu’s big day

If more eyes than ever are now focusing on America’s renewable energy industry, those eyes will, at some point, focus on Dan Arvizu.

As head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, Arvizu oversees the U.S. government’s R&D in wind, solar, biofuels and more.

In other words, he’s on the leading edge of what’s happening in renewable energy in the U.S.

Dan Arvizu is so leading-edge,
you should put on gloves before shaking his hand.

the Cleantech Group spent some time with Arvizu in the hour before the President’s State of the Union address. In the best Washington tradition, he deftly avoided direct answers to some of our questions (we give him style points.)

That said, he had interesting things to say about cellulosic ethanol, solar power, biofuel from algae and suddenly becoming a renewable energy rock star.

What does today’s confluence of oil prices and concerns over energy security, sustainability and global warming mean for the role of government renewable energy research moving forward?

Well, it’s clear there’s been a sea change, a tipping point. Pick your metaphor! I see this as a very unique point in time. Because right now, we see enough investment happening that we’re getting to the point where the whole dynamic has changed about what the government’s role needs to be.

We’ve been working in the R&D world for a long time, developing technology options from which the private sector can make choices. The government’s role has been to do the R&D, put the options out there, so hopefully something would stick.

It’s been a pretty difficult market, so it’s not surprising we hadn’t made that much progress over the last 25 years.

Some in the private sector say that the government should get more involved than ever in R&D. For instance, by building cellulosic ethanol test beds that industry could use to prove out its formulas. Others want government to back off. What’s your view?

I think recently there’s been more of a consensus of thought that government needs be involved.

For instance, I believe the reason that as much private money is flowing into the sector as it is now is in anticipation that there will be changes in policies.

Policy drivers are especially important here. This market is not a traditional supply & demand market. It’s very inelastic. There are number of factors that influence how things get priced. Government intervention is needed. You can debate what that intervention and exact role needs to look like. But there’s nobody saying at this point that you don’t need government involvement.

What’s the role of NREL going to look like going forward? What sort of changes might we see?

I’ve been in this business for thirty years, and worked with NREL from arm’s length before I took over the lab two years ago. NREL is a wonderful R&D lab whose role has been to be a contractor to the Department of Energy (DoE). However, as private sector capital begins flowing, I see NREL focusing on staying the steward of the government’s investment in this market.

Going forward, we have to continue to make investments in the future, because the trajectory we’re on now is for renewables to only be an “interesting piece” of the new energy economy, but not very compelling. Unless we do some things on the policy and national campaign front fairly aggressively, we won’t get to the kind of outcomes I believe this sector and these technologies deserve.

Now, policy changes ARE going to come, in as little as one hour from now, with the President's State of the Union address tonight. What can you say about what will change?

The President is going to come out with some bold initiatives. Energy is one of the things the President and Congress can work together on, primarily in the transportation fuels sector. But this is only the start of a dialogue. The President has to recommend a budget – and we’re already in the 2008 cycle – to be able to realize these goals. At that point a debate starts, and the Democratic Congress is eager to put together bold and grand challenge initiatives.

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