A Manhattan or Apollo Project for Energy? What Nonsense

by Dan Greenberg

Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.

A delusion persists that we can research our way out of the energy predicament and simultaneously do away with global warming. What’s needed, it’s claimed, is a great mobilization of scientific and engineering brains and resources, a la the bomb-building Manhattan Project or the Apollo moon landing.

Google “Manhattan Project” in tandem with “energy” and up come 754,000 entries of one sort or another. A couple of years ago, a Manhattan Project for Energy was established by MIT. The New Apollo Energy Act (HR 2828) was introduced in Congress in 2005 (and went no place). New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is a prominent advocate of a Manhattan Project for energy. In calling for action on energy, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have several times referred favorably to the Manhattan and Apollo projects. (Not so John McCain, who says for energy relief, trust in free enterprise, assisted by government support for basic and developmental research).

As handy metaphors for all-out government concentration on a clearly identified technological goal, Manhattan and Apollo are winners. But care should be taken in extrapolating their success to today’s energy problems. The big difference is that Manhattan had one customer, the U.S. Army, and Apollo also had only one, NASA (with a pork-happy Congress cheering it on). The goals were clear: Beat the Nazis to the bomb and the Soviets to the moon. Financed with blank checks, run by chiefs appropriately referred to as “czars,” and unimpeded by diverse political and economic interests, the two projects decisively proceeded to their successful conclusions.

In contrast, our energy and climate-change problems originate more in political, economic, and cultural entanglements than in technological deficiencies.
Sure, laboratory wizardry is needed to make do with less and cleaner energy sources, but the reality is that superior technologies remain undeployed because of the aforementioned impediments. With the marketplace approval of the auto-buying public, Detroit has long resisted improved mileage performance. In national priorities, public transportation yields to the private motor car. And big, energy-inefficient private housing led the market for decades. Some changes have now been forced by high-priced gasoline and the plunge in house sales, but the preference for high-energy convenience remains strong and is likely to return when the economy improves. Meanwhile, the power of taxation to influence energy use is very lightly utilized.

The Manhattan and Apollo models lose applicability when we consider the controversies that rage about energy choices. Does coal have a big place in the future? Many people hope it doesn’t. Nuclear power has many unmatched virtues, its advocates insist. Opponents stress risks and dispute rosy cost estimates. Because of political opposition, there’s no solution in sight for the problem of nuclear-waste storage. Greens are gaga over solar and wind, but as these technologies advance, the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) opposition grows, too.

Do we need a grand mobilization of physicists, chemists, engineers, and other hardware experts to solve the energy crisis? We surely need a lot of them to work on it.

But perhaps more important would be the potential contributions from the behavioral and social sciences. Better solar panels, improved insulation, and more miles per gallon are attainable if we want them; the lab wizards can be counted on to provide them.

The real problem is that the energy crisis is mainly in our heads — in our habits and comfort preferences.
Posted at 12:02:51 PM on April 6, 2008 | All postings by Dan Greenberg