Thank you for that introduction. I appreciate the opportunity to be with all of you this morning. I have been looking forward to this meeting for some time. One piece of advice I received from my predecessor, Secretary Abraham, was to rely heavily upon advisory groups such as the NCC. He told me they know what is happening in their particular field because they are what’s happening, and they can be invaluable to any Secretary.

So before I begin, I want to thank you for your service, not just to my office, but to the American public.

In the four months since taking this job, I have already had the privilege to work with a number of people in the room. Others I am meeting for the first time this morning. But I am happy to have the opportunity to confer and collaborate with all of you. And I very much look forward to working with you – both as a group and individually – in the coming years.

Another reason I have been looking forward to this meeting is because I appreciate the role that coal has played in building our economy, and both the President and I have strong views about the role it should continue to play.

My staff can tell you that I am something of an economic history buff. I often engage them in discussion about the grand forces that have combined to create the American economy – the success of which, of course, is unmatched in the history of the human race. And coal has been a key factor in our national economic success.

Coal literally fueled the Industrial Revolution. It has underpinned America’s growth almost from our country’s beginning. And I think it is safe to say that we owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women who have labored in the coal fields and down in the mines.

One question that confronts us, as we turn the corner on one century and head into another, is what role should coal play in our future? Another is what steps must we take to ensure stable, affordable supplies of energy in future decades, when demand is expected to soar?

As we ponder those questions, we face a set of challenges that policymakers and business leaders did not have to confront in previous eras – challenges related to pollution, to public health, and to the potential for climate change. Burning coal produces emissions like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury, and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. In the development of our national energy policy, we must address the environmental challenges posed by the continued use of coal.

Now, there are those who seize on these issues, making sensational – even hysterical – claims to argue that we must move quickly and completely away from coal as an energy source.

Meanwhile others advocate reducing the role of coal gradually over time.

Our Administration takes a different view … a longer view … a more informed view.

To our way of thinking, America’s 250-year domestic supply of coal must be a key factor in our nation’s future energy security.

Coal is our most abundant and economical source of fuel. And just as it helped make America the world’s foremost industrial power over the last two centuries, it will continue to be an important part of our national economy in the 21^st century and beyond.

But the continued prominence of coal won’t happen just because I say so.

It will happen because we are investing in the 21^st century technologies that will allow us to address the challenges I mentioned a moment ago.

We must address the pollution that using coal entails. Technology will help do that. We are confident that by harnessing the brain power found in our national labs, in private industry, and in academia, we can devise ways that will allow us to burn coal without pollution.

Now, I recognize the great progress that has already been made on this front. Since the acid rain debates of the 70’s and 80’s, industry has taken huge steps to cut down on emissions – we have achieved reductions of over 65 percent in the case of nitrogen oxides … 80 percent for sulfur dioxide … and 90 percent for particulate matter.

Those are impressive figures. But there is more work to do.

Shortly after I was sworn in as Secretary, President Bush and I visited the Battelle labs in Columbus, Ohio. He talked about coal as “our most abundant, reliable, and affordable energy resource.”

The President also said – quote – “Most people have said burning coal without pollution was as likely as the Red Sox winning the World Series.”

The line got quite a laugh, even from this long-suffering Red Sox fan.

But it also contained a huge element of truth.

American ingenuity allowed man to fly above the beaches at Kitty Hawk … built the atomic bomb to win the Second World War … put a man on the moon … and invent the computer, which sparked the information revolution.

I have no doubt that American ingenuity can help us make revolutionary advances with coal technologies that will permit cleaner and more efficient use of this abundant resource for centuries to come ... even if the Red Sox never win another championship.

I am very pleased with the progress being made under the President’s Clean Coal Power Initiative.

This program – CCPI for short – aims to develop and test technologies that will further improve power plant generation efficiencies. Early CCPI demonstrations have been designed to emphasize technologies applicable to existing power plants. Later demonstrations will include advanced turbines, membranes, fuel cells, gasification processes, hydrogen production, and other advanced energy system technologies.

We have already announced two rounds of project selections under CCPI. We have chosen 12 projects totaling more than $2 billion in combined federal and private funds to advance cleaner and more efficient power generation, and move into new areas such as the production of diesel fuel from coal.   The federal government’s share so far has been more than $600 million. The success we are beginning to see in terms of reducing emissions suggests this is one of the very best examples of industry and government partnering together.

The Clean Coal Power Initiative is just one part of the President’s strategy to ensure the future viability of coal. And just as we are looking for ways to make our power plants cleaner and more efficient in the years to come, we are also investigating ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal combustion.

The President has laid out an ambitious program – featuring cleaner, more efficient energy technologies – to address the challenge of climate change. While uncertainties remain in our scientific understanding of climate, we can begin now to address the human factors that contribute to climate change.

All told, we are spending upwards of $5 billion per year on a comprehensive climate change strategy.

One aspect of this strategy is to move forward with energy technologies that reduce future greenhouse gas emissions without having to take steps that would harm our economy. That’s why we are moving ahead with hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear energy, and clean diesel technologies.

It is also why experts at our Department’s national laboratories are looking at ways to continue using fossil fuels like coal while slashing or even eliminating GHG emissions. Working closely with industry and with top research universities, they are investigating both how to capture CO2, and how to keep it out of the atmosphere.

One of the most exciting of these research projects is FutureGen.

FutureGen is a $1 billion public-private initiative to design, build, and operate the first coal-fired, emissions-free power plant.  When operational, FutureGen will be the world's cleanest, full-scale fossil fuel power plant.  Using the latest technology, it will generate 275 megawatts of electricity, sequester greenhouse gases, and provide a new source of clean-burning hydrogen.

FutureGen will use a revolutionary technological process that starts with gasifying the coal. After cleaning up the synthetic gas and ridding it of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury, it will be combined with steam and run through a shift reactor, increasing the hydrogen content and creating a concentrated stream of CO2. Advanced new technologies will capture the CO2, leaving the hydrogen for a variety of uses – either to power turbines or fuel cells, or as a feedstock for the hydrogen economy.

Assuming this works, we will then be faced with the challenge of figuring out how to store the CO2 and keep it out of the atmosphere. So we are moving ahead researching ways to sequester this captured CO2 in deep underground geological formations.

In November of 2002, the Administration announced plans to create a national network of public-private partnerships that would determine the most suitable technologies, regulations, and infrastructure needs for the storage and sequestration of captured greenhouse gases. We set up these partnerships in every region of the country.

In 2003, following a competitive evaluation, our Department named seven partnerships of state agencies, universities, and private companies to form the core of this nationwide sequestration research network. The partnerships include more than 150 organizations spanning 40 states, three Native American nations, and two Canadian provinces.

These partnerships include many of the companies and organizations represented here today. They have been hard at work in areas all around the country to identify some of the best opportunities for carbon sequestration demonstration projects. These teams have employed computer modeling and detailed geographic and economic analysis. They have developed action plans to address regulatory compliance, potential environmental impacts, and other risks.

In other words, we have been doing the theoretical research … doing our due diligence. The partnerships have identified sequestration opportunities across the United States that have the potential to store more than 600 billion metric tons of CO2, equivalent to more than 200 years of emissions from energy-related point sources in the United States. 

Now is the time to move to the next level and get this work done … to go from the lab into the field, and get down to testing what we think we know.

For that reason, it gives me tremendous pleasure to be able to announce today $100 million in funding for seven regional projects selected to verify a variety of carbon sequestration technologies.

The seven projects we have selected, not surprisingly, are the same seven that did the initial round of work. I say “not surprisingly” because they have demonstrated very substantial engineering and technical abilities throughout the first stage of this research, and have come up with some exciting and innovative processes to test. Over the next four years, they will field test and validate the carbon sequestration technologies best suited to their respective regions.

Each partnership will receive between $2 million and $4 million per year in DOE funding, with our industry partners providing at least 20 percent of project costs.  The total value of the seven projects exceeds $145 million over four years. There is more information on these projects on the press release we are handing out in the back of the room, and on the DOE web site.

These demonstration projects will be critical to the future of carbon sequestration – and therefore the continued use of coal.

They will also be critical to FutureGen. Indeed, by running these tests we will get a concrete – rather than a theoretical – idea of where we should site this groundbreaking power plant.

Our aim at this point is to develop a list of five candidate sites for FutureGen by next spring, and then make a final siting decision within a year or two of that.

I also want to mention one more development about which we are very excited, and that is the prospect for passage of an energy bill this year.

As you probably know, the House of Representatives has passed its version of comprehensive energy legislation. The matter is now in the Senate, which may take it up on the floor as early as next week. The House version contains several provisions designed to increase the use of coal, and it explicitly supports DOE’s clean coal technology program.

We are encouraged by the action Congress is taking, not just for the sake of coal, but for our overall energy strategy. The President laid out a wide-ranging, visionary energy policy in 2001. Many of its recommendations have been implemented already, but others remain that require legislative action. A comprehensive energy bill on the President’s desk for his signature will help complete the picture, so to speak.

It has been four years since the President asked Congress to send him an energy bill. This is the year to get it done. We are optimistic about the proposals being debated on Capitol Hill, and are hopeful that the President will have a bill to sign by August.

Strengthening our energy future requires strong action from Congress.

A strong energy future also will require something else – the continued use of coal, our nation’s most abundant energy resource – to ensure we have enough electricity to power our growing economy.

But we can’t continue to use coal unless we find ways to utilize it in an environmentally responsible fashion. Each of us needs to remember that we are not just the stewards of our nation’s energy future, we are stewards of our environmental future as well.

Given the promise of technology and scientific advancement, I am convinced those responsibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will continue investing in coal’s future, because our ability to keep the lights on and our economy bright depends on coal.

A secure energy tomorrow depends on taking action today to develop clean coal and carbon sequestration technologies.

The development of these innovative new technologies will help guarantee that coal continues to make a vital contribution to the future of our nation … as well as to economic development around the globe … at the same time we are working to safeguard the environment for future generations.

Media contacts:
Anne Womack Kolton, 202/586-4940
Drew Malcomb, 202/586-5806

Location:
Washington, DC