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Energy: Are We Being Duped?
Regarding your “Defense Watch” column in July, “U.S. Not Ready to Lead Green Energy Revolution,” you seem to misjudge why it is that private initiatives are seeming to shy away from energy innovation. This is not true.
I know for a fact that just about every company that can has spent and continues to spend on various internal initiatives to possibly take advantage of energy savings or new technologies that might replace fossil fuels. The costs here must certainly dwarf the piddling $150 million or $400 million you mention that has been wagered by ARPA-E.
One of the reasons why private capital is reluctant to fund start-ups is that anything large enough to make a significant impact on U.S. or global energy use is that whatever might work would require absolutely stupendous amounts of capital and probably enormous lead times. This is not the stuff of small business. As ARPA-E Director Arun Majumdar says, there are “enormous hurdles that promising clean-energy technologies must overcome to gain acceptance in the larger market.”
And you quote him as saying that current carbon capture loses $50 per ton of CO2 captured. Would you invest in such an enterprise facing the prospects of guaranteed losses for the foreseeable future? Neither would I.
It is not the case that, as Majumdar says, “We have not paid attention to energy . . . It hasn’t been on our radar screen since the 70s.” This is simply untrue. I have watched this field since the 70s and have watched billions of dollars being sunk into schemes ranging from coal gasification to geothermal energy without any prospect of a commercial technology that can compete with fossil fuels with oil costing $75 a barrel. Further, what in the world does Majumdar mean by your paraphrase, “It’s hard to justify bankrolling energy technologies as long as the United States doesn’t embrace a national strategy to end its addiction to oil.” What does he want, a Five Year Plan? Rationing and high energy taxes?
Everybody is for ending our addiction to oil — as long as it doesn’t involve personal sacrifice. My bet is that he doesn’t have a plan that he could sell. Every few years some crisis or another comes up and policymakers go into a predictable frenzy to find some alternative. The failure after all these years to come up with a solution must at least raise the prospect that perhaps there is no solution except at hugely higher costs.
Maybe you have boundless faith that there’s some cool technology “out there” just waiting for someone to stumble upon and we will then arrive at the Promised Land of cheap and green energy. I am a skeptic, backed by observing 40 years of failures on this front. Energy is the real, physical world. It does not have an equivalent of the Internet.
I don’t see how you can substitute enthusiasm about getting free government research grants for solid commercial science. In fact, I am surprised that the ARPA-E folks received only 4,000 applications. Give me $4 million and I’ll write you a spiffy final report that says why, if I only had a few million more, I might be able to come up with something. Free money has a way of drawing out the parasites. There is no risk for a government grant.
I attended an NDIA function a few months back and saw for sale an obviously fraudulent device promising to boost fuel economy in diesel vehicles by a couple of miles per gallon. It relies on essentially creating energy from nothing. You might say that no one would buy such a device. And yet the company touts a list of five or 10 military laboratories and other entities that have evidently endorsed this violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. They claim to have 12,000 installed devices, so somebody has been fooled.
My theory is that when we live in a time of scientific fantasies the charlatans will have a field day. Even short of defrauding the U.S. military, there seems to be no check on unrealistic schemes to be funded by bureaucrats with little or no scientific or engineering training. You indicate that Dr. Majumdar is “an accomplished scientist and engineer” and I have no reason to doubt that. But here we have an accomplished scientist and engineer laden with what I believe to be utopian dreams. I should be humble: Maybe his shining optimism will prove correct.
But if he’s wrong, we have billions of dollars down the drain, years and years of potential societal adjustments not undertaken, and at the end are no nearer the solution.
Ted Held
Research Chemist
Detroit, MI
Defense Acquisition Chaos
The May issue of National Defense was especially cogent to me. Most of my adult life I have been employed in some way or another as part of the circle supporting DoD acquisition. First while on active duty, then as a contractor supplying materials to the DoD and finally returning as a contractor employed to manage contacting actions for a military acquisition organization. I especially felt the article, “The False Promises of Acquisition Reform,” written by Professor Sapolsky. His article should be the guide by which all Prophets of Acquisition Reform must temper their action. His concise description of the interrelationships vying for attention clearly describes the chaos we call acquisition.
After 20 years in this field, I left the job to new hires our current politicos believe will fix the problems. Those with any experience know larger problems are now on the horizon as the inexperience of the newly hired is manifest in schedule and cost overruns.
Somehow we must clearly codify the rules needed to remove the politics, contractor manipulation and capture knowledge to be passed on so the mistakes of the past are not repeated. Even with experienced acquisition teams, pressures from outside influences always seem to derail programs that are on time and under budget. Thanks to Professor Sapolsky for the concise description of chaos.
Kenneth Cates
Waco, TX
I enjoyed your June 2010 editorial, “Can the Pentagon Be Liberated From Bureaucratic
Stranglehold?” I am a civil service retiree who worked as an engineering manager at the White Sands Missile Range for 33 years.
I was doing government procurement when I had to get DoD’s permission to buy components from England, Germany, France, South Africa and other nations because of the “Buy American Act” that Congress loaded on us.
That was the first of the congressional handicaps with which we had to deal with. Later we were saddled with SBA preference, set-asides, non-competitive awards under section 5, section 8, EEO, etc.
Any time our needs could reasonably be met by one of these “favored” companies, we would pay three to 10 times more and deal with months of unpenalized delinquent delivery and the receipt of sub-standard equipment.
We often had to procure the same items from another source because the delays were holding up a major DoD or NASA program. It became worse when an SBA representative would bring a potential manufacturer to my office and, in violation of all procurement regulations, would ask me what I planned to buy in the next two years so they could decide if this guy, with enough money, could possibly build a factory, hire people, design the item and build it. Legal procedures were not an issue, cost was not an issue and delivery schedule were not an issue.
This is where NASA got its $800 each carpenter hammers. But no one is allowed to say that. We supported the idea of buying from small businesses, but only if they can provide the needed product at a somewhat reasonable price and on a reasonable schedule.
You also avoided the touchy issues. You could not be unaware of the congressional handicaps placed on government procurements which sabotage fair competition and on-time delivery of a reasonably priced, high-quality product.
Quinnie M. Flint
Round Rock, TX
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