Government policies will continue to play a major part in emerging energy technologies, speakers said at a May 8 Atlantic Council discussion. “It’s not just about research. It’s about the economic system the research is going into. That’s why it’s necessary to look at the whole system, and not just the companies, universities, or government laboratories that are involved,” said David Eyton, technology head at BP PLC.
Eyton noted that when BP issued its latest Technology Outlook in March, it said that growing deployment and reducing costs of renewable power and batteries, using digital technologies to optimize transportation systems, finding ways to reduce carbon in natural gas, and reducing energy waste could matter most globally between now and 2050.
“What has not changed since our 2015 Technology Outlook is that we think the world still has abundant energy resources. We think it will be easier to decarbonize the power sector than transportation. Carbon emissions from factories have come down more than we expected 3 years ago. Prices for solar, batteries, and wind also have come down more quickly than we thought,” Eyton said.
“The US government tries to invest in energy research and development over a long time horizon because others are less likely to do so,” said Carol Battershell, principal deputy director at the US Department of Energy’s policy office.
“The National Laboratories are government contractors which have more flexibility to hire researchers at salaries more competitive than for regular government employees,” Battershell said. “We encourage innovators in our labs to take government-developed technology and try to commercialize it. We’ve worked with 39 of these entrepreneurs so far.”
Countries’ different approaches
China’s embrace of solar technology and electric vehicles began with pressure on the government to reduce pollution in the cities there, the speakers said. “Every single nation with which I interact wrestles with the problem of getting capital intensive technologies through the financial valley of death,” said Eyton.
“In countries like China, labs took development into commercialization initially,” Eyton said. “This calibration is trickier in Europe, particularly in the UK where commercialization is a challenge because it doesn’t have national labs.”
Battershell said, “There is a role for the government when it makes in energy research investments in capital-intensive technologies where industry is not ready to get involved. This takes a lot of time, but it pays off, notably with hydraulic fracturing which began with long-term government research several years earlier.”
Battershell said she is impressed by the US ability to make energy technology breakthroughs. “Because of its different system of government, China drove down the cost of manufacturing solar cells. If it goes at the pace it’s talking about with EVs, it could make major breakthroughs. The market signals are there,” she said.
Asked what role refining will have as new technologies emerge, Eyton said BP expects there still will be marked demand for oil products in 2050 and beyond. “What’s interesting about our refineries is that they are increasingly beginning to process bioproducts. I believe it will be difficult to find something besides jet fuel to put into aircraft because it doesn’t freeze,” he said.
“We see all sorts of opportunities for our refining system going far into the future. They’re going to concentrate on reducing their operating emissions as well as reducing emissions from the products they make,” Eyton said.
BP is increasingly interested in consumers’ new transportation choices, Eyton said. “The number of people who will be perfectly happy to do away with having a vehicle and use mass transit and ride services will have a lot to do with technologies that emerge,” Eyton said. “It’s also one of the hardest things to predict when human behavior will go against a technology and have a profound effect on its development and deployment. With only 1-2% penetration, you really don’t have a clear signal because only the most affluent consumers are using it.”
