Our scientists and engineers know how to solve our climate crisis. Despite massive federal subsidies for fossil fuels, renewable energies have improved in cost and efficiency year after year, and now rival or surpass conventional energies in cost effectiveness. What we lack is long-term federal commitment to our scientists and engineers in the sustainable energy sector to accelerate innovation in both energy production and storage. Our country developed the internet, lightbulbs, and GPS. We developed a cure for polio. A Bernie Sanders administration will spur the development of the technologies and innovations we need to tackle the climate crisis.
As president, Bernie will:
Dramatically decrease the cost of energy storage. The Obama administration successfully decreased the cost of installed solar by 90 percent through a Department of Energy program called SunShot. There are similar energy storage programs at DOE and some of our National Labs that aim to decrease the cost of solutions like batteries. We will similarly decrease the cost of energy storage and meet daily and long term reliability needs. We will invest $30 billion for a StorageShot initiative to meet those goals. The StorageShot program will have a goal of commercializing technologies that can provide energy lasting 24 hours to multiple days at a capital cost lower than $1,000 a kilowatt to support the renewable energy needed to phase out coal and natural gas plants that currently serve as base generation on the grid. The program will also aim to decrease the cost of daily cycling storage resources by at least a factor of three in order to reliably and affordable replace all coal and natural gas plants that serve as backup on the grid. Additionally, in order to ensure an affordable and complete transition away from fossil fuels in the transportation sector, we will also spend $100 billion to decrease the cost of a new electric vehicle to at most $18,000.
Invest in decarbonizing the shipping and aviation industries as soon as possible. The science is clear that the entire global economy must decarbonize by 2050 at latest if we hope to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. We must be extremely careful to ensure that as we do this, we make sure that domestic manufacturing and clean economy industries thrive. The federal government must identify and commercialize technologies to ensure the globe is able to fully decarbonize as soon as possible, but by no later than 2050 to meet the goals in the IPCC report. We will fund a $500 billion effort to research technologies to fully decarbonize industry, and a $150 billion effort to fully decarbonize aviation and maritime shipping and transportation.
Establish a nationwide materials recycling program. During World War II, Americans recycled metal and other materials that went toward making the planes, ships, and equipment necessary to fight and win the war. We must do the same to win the fight against climate change. To prevent an outsized impact on the environment from harvesting raw materials, we must build the wind turbines, solar panels, new cars, and batteries we need with as many recycled materials as possible. We will establish a “take back” program to require large corporations that produce goods with the materials needed for this clean energy transition to pay to take those goods back from consumers who no longer want them to establish a nation-wide materials recycling program so we can use as many recycled materials as possible to build the renewable energy equipment needed to transform our energy system. We will also invest in research for less resource-intensive methods and alternatives to plastic from fossil fuels, rapidly moving away from petrochemical plastics production.
Reassert U.S. leadership in research and engineering by marshaling resources across the federal government and institutions of higher education, including the National Academy of Engineering and National Science Foundation. The U.S. has an obligation and an economic opportunity to be a leader in developing and deploying the clean technological solutions that will solve climate change. Research and development in the challenges of the cost of storage and electric vehicles and of decarbonizing industry, aviation and shipping could put the U.S. back in a position of leadership around the world.
Source: Sanders
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