Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Alternative energy gets new fuel for future and excites professors
By Richard Clough
Daily Bruin (UCLA)
02/07/2006

(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES — With the release of the 2007 federal budget Monday, President Bush began making good on his State of the Union proposal to increase funding for alternative energy research.

Despite reducing or eliminating 141 government programs in an effort to corral the projected $354 billion deficit for 2007, the budget provides funding for several alternative energy initiatives.

Some members of the University of California, Los Angeles, community are excited about the future viability of alternative forms of energy.

"Alternative energy research is very active right now," said Professor Vasilios Manousiouthakis, chairman of the chemical and biomolecular engineering department, who is working on developing hydrogen-powered cars.

"The reality of higher oil prices has brought to the table a whole new set of alternative energy technologies which would not have been cost-competitive 10 years ago," he said. "It's a very exciting time."

Last November, Manousiouthakis drove a prototype hydrogen-powered car from UCLA to California State University-Northridge. Currently, hydrogen-powered cars have a range of about 100 miles but he said he hopes to help extend it to 300 miles.

Manousiouthakis said he expects increased opportunities from the federal Energy Department for alternative energy researchers with the new budget allocations. And with the field of alternative energy research growing, he said he expects hydrogen-powered cars to be in production in 5 to 15 years.

This increased attention to alternative energy sources comes on the heels of Bush's assertion in last week's State of the Union address that "America is addicted to oil." To break this addiction, Bush advocated the goal of replacing 75 percent of Middle Eastern oil imports with new fuel sources by 2025.

In Monday's budget, Bush introduced the Bio-Fuels Initiative to encourage ethanol and biodiesel production and the Solar America Initiative to help grow the solar power sector.

Engineering Professor Yang Yang has been working to develop a plastic solar energy cell which would reduce the cost of solar cell production by as much as 90 percent. His research was published last October in Nature Materials magazine.

"We hope that ultimately solar energy can be extensively used in the commercial sector as well as the private sector," Yang, who is currently out of the country and unavailable for comment, said in a press release. "Imagine solar cells installed in cars to absorb solar energy to replace the traditional use of diesel and gas."

The high cost of solar energy has limited its use as a source of electricity in the United States. One of the goals stated in the federal budget is a reduction in cost to the point that solar energy use increases to between 5 and 10 gigawatts by 2015, compared to the current production level of less than 1 gigawatt.

"The increased capacity would be enough to power roughly one million homes," the budget states. "The increased use of solar (power) also could significantly reduce demand for natural gas in the power sector."

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