...believe it or not, in Revkin's article: the United States rejected a proposal from China that 0.5 percent of the gross domestic product of industrialized countries be used to disseminate nonpolluting energy technologies..  I believe that would be about $75 billion for the U.S., not so terrible.

However, Joe, you are the only one in his article who explicitly says that we can mitigate global warming with current technology, even the other "supporting" source, Adil Najam , said "It is true that this will not be enough to lick the problem, but it will be a very significant and probably necessary difference."

So, I submit that any and all models that demonstrate the feasability of mitigating global warming with current technology should be front and center -- and new, more complex, deeper models should be constantly developed.  That's a good use of R&D money.

Fixed the link.

grist.org

  We have enough stuff to begin reducing emissions. We don't currently have good enough tech to affordably go far enough (carbon neutral or negative). So we need to begin the journey, but aggressively look for better stuff to help out as we go. If we ignore the problem until we have really good stuff to deal with it, too much damage will already have been done. The problem of the Luntz approach is twofold, (1) do nothing until the magic tech arrives, and (2) cut research funding so the magic stuff is delayed.

Gimme serious tech: gimme an old WWII wood gas car, so I can drive carbon negative!  But that is probably not high tech enough...

Encourage small farmers and permaculture plus biochar: natural carbon sequestration!  But that is probably not high tech enough...

Just a comment on DoE. I have know several of the top people at DoE and if I had the choice of DoE or the mafia to make decissions on the future of the planet I wouldn't choose DoE.
The annual budget is in the area of $20 billion. Of that $19 billion goes to nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and nuclear power. One year of that budget towards RE and we could quit having this discussion. It is not only feasible to shift to a renewable energy/energy efficient near zero carbon energy society but once we have done so we will wonder why we waited so long. Quit talking and get on with it.

There ARE useful technology developments that we can reliably anticipate and foresee, but they are not going to be on the fuels side. They will be on the side of how we deploy the fuels and energy resources we already have. Energy control technologies, energy conservation technologies, energy system design technologies. The Breakthrough actually occurred a couple of three decades ago with the microprocessor revolution: it has yet to be systematically and comprehensively deployed in the service of energy management and use. Vast amounts of computing power are being deployed in the service of screwing the last ounce of extra horsepower out of deeply inefficient locomotion systems. Time to make better use of all those zeros and ones.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

What is nice about wind on the larger scale is that it doesn't need big smart grid roll out.  It can proceed as fast as possible, while smart grid and solar cogeneration and geo heat exchange with heat storage is installed building by building.

The smart grid stuff can be installed with these renewable/conservation mechanical utility core systems, on new buildings and retrofit onto exisiting buildings.

Distributed generation from farm biogas power plants to backup the smart grid, can have their own smart grid switching systems.  Excel has a smart grid system going up in Colorado.

But wind installation can be accelerated right now.  A bigger PTC than 2 cents per kwh would do that.  Make it 5 cents and watch the wind industry set sail, it's growth rate will leave coal in the dust.

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