Proposal For Center To Coordinate Energy, Climate Change Research

Proposal For Center To Coordinate Energy, Climate Change Research
More embarrassing riches - life sciences and energy research - FYI Mike
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The University of California may soon become home to an ambitious, $600 million institute that would coordinate energy and climate change research at schools and labs throughout the state, supported by money from your monthly electric bills.

The proposed California Institute for Climate Solutions would bring together universities - such as UC Berkeley and Stanford - better known as rivals than partners.

Each school and national laboratory involved already has scientists and engineers hunting for sources of energy, more efficient ways to use power and other means to fight global warming. Now their efforts would be coordinated by a central administration hosted by UC.

The project's substantial price tag would be paid through Californians' utility bills. A typical homeowner could pay an extra 30 cents per month as a result.

The idea is the brainchild of Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission. The commission will hold a public workshop today in San Francisco to hammer out some of the issues, although a final commission vote on the project is probably months away.

Peevey sees the proposed institute as a way to cement California's position as the world's premier location for energy and climate change research.

"It's to marshal the best minds to address the biggest calamity mankind has ever faced," said Peevey, who under the current proposal could become one of the institute's co-chairmen. "You put all this together. There's so much going on here, and it builds on itself."

Although they have haggled over some of the details, the idea has drawn broad support from other schools after the University of California formally proposed it in September.

Several consumer groups, however, have questioned the wisdom of asking utility customers to pay for it.

The universities and labs, they note, already have funding for their own research. And utility customers already pay for other renewable energy projects, such as California's rebates for homeowners who install solar panels.

"The commission seems to have lost sight of the fact that even if you're spending money on the world's best cause - and I can't think of a better cause than climate change - it's possible to spend the money foolishly," said Bob Finkelstein, executive director of The Utility Reform Network.

He said the proposed institute should draw its funding from state taxes, if the state decides the project is worth pursuing. Peevey's five-member commission sets bill rates for California's three large, investor-owned utilities - such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. - but has no authority over taxes.

"It's probably faster to get the three votes on the utilities commission to raise rates than it is to raise taxes," Finkelstein said.

Peevey, however, considers the institute's proposed mission and its source of funding to be an appropriate fit.

"Why should (utility) ratepayers pay for it?" he said. "Because there's nothing more important to the environment of ratepayers."

As currently proposed, the institute would serve as an organizational hub for research. It would coordinate, rather than supplant, the efforts of member universities and labs.

Although it would most likely be housed at a UC campus, all the organizations taking part would have a say in running it. No one school or university system would have a majority of votes on its governing board.

That board also would include representatives from several government agencies, as well as utilities, consumer groups and environmental organizations. It would be co-chaired by the presidents of UC and the utilities commission.

The institute would draft a "road map" that would identify energy and climate change research already under way and look for gaps.

Those gaps would then get top priority for funding under the institute's budget, projected at $60 million per year for 10 years.

Research teams at individual schools or labs would have to bid for the institute's funding and win it through a competitive process.

"We'll be complementing existing research, not duplicating it," said Ellen Auriti, executive director for research policy in the UC system.

Stanford University worried at first that the project would be too dominated by UC, said James Sweeney, a Stanford energy economist working on the effort. But the proposed governing structure resolved those concerns.

He now looks forward to coordinating with other researchers throughout the state on such an important, daunting topic.

"There will be a planning process to make sure the whole thing has coherence, and I think that is valuable," Sweeney said. "Right now, the coherence comes about only because we all talk to each other."

Want to comment or learn more?

The California Public Utilities Commission will hold a workshop on UC's proposed California Institute for Climate Solutions starting at 9 a.m. today at the commission's San Francisco headquarters, 505 Van Ness Ave. The meeting will also be Webcast at www.cpuc.ca.gov. To comment on the proposal, call the commission's public adviser office at (415) 703-2074 or (866) 849-8390.

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.