National Energy Storage Initiative
Summary
The next administration should establish a national initiative built around ambitious goals to accelerate development and deployment of dramatically improved energy-storage technologies. Developing such technologies would help establish a strategic new domestic manufacturing sector. Deploying such technologies would expand the range of low-carbon pathways available to fight climate change—especially those relying on variable renewable energy resources, like wind and solar power. Deploying such technologies would also improve the performance of smartphones, drones, and other vital electronic tools of the 21st century.
Common frameworks for evaluating proposals leave this utility function implicit, often evaluating aspects of risk, uncertainty, and potential value independently and qualitatively.
The Biden-Harris Administration should facilitate the transition to a clean grid by aggressively supporting utility-scale renewable energy resources in rural areas that are connected to urban centers through modernized high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission.
A just transition from coal to nuclear energy production requires developers to listen and respond to local communities’ concerns and needs through the process of planning, siting, licensing, design, construction, and eventual decommissioning.
Programs across the federal government are working to increase American health by making physical activity safer and more accessible, but most Americans still fail to get enough physical exercise, which has social and economic consequences.